TeamNerdHerd Podcast and Ben Discuss When DC Left Diamond
/Back in June, the crew from the #TeamNerdHerd Podcast invited Ben to sit down and talk about DC Comics leaving Diamond Distributors and what it could mean for retailers and the industry.
The episode takes you behind the scenes on how just one way the comic book industry has been affected by CoVid-19.
You can watch the video or read the full transcript available below.
About #TeamNerdHerd Podcast
After bumping into the same blokes year after year at ComicCon, what comes next? Why a podcast of course!
That’s how this podcast came to life. According to crew member J.R. Weinzetl, “six people are the core but, we have a few that rotate in and out.”
Transcript for "Talkin' D.C. leaving Diamond with Ben Schwartz of Empire's Comics Vault in Sacramento!"
Ian, @Hoodrat_comics 0:12 - What's up YouTube comic nation? This is your homies team nerd herd coming for a very special episode with Ben Schwartz. We're going to talk a little bit about DC and a little bit about Diamond. But let me turn it over to Ben so he can introduce himself.
Ben Schwartz 0:28 - Hey, thanks for having me on guys. My name is Ben Schwartz. I am the owner of Empire’s Comics Vault here in Sacramento, California. We also have a small press publishing company called Continuum Press where we work with artists locally to put out some books and of course, you can find us on pretty much every social media as @empirescomics.com. Over to JR.
JR Weinzetl, @rogueslaw 0:50 - I'm JR. Sacramento was my home, nerd herd, Star Wars, and Marvel kind of guy. Alonso, why don’t you tell us about yourself.
Alonso, @comicsnpops 1:02 - I'm an avid comic book fan and also a pop culture nerd. Over to you, Robert.
Rob, @robsnerdhaven 1:08 - Hi guys. This is Rob, @robsnerdhaven on. And I’m the multifaceted nerd.
Ian 1:12 - And my name is Ian. You can find me at @hoodrat_comics on Instagram. I am the group's Junkyard Dog, you could say. I'm going to turn it over to @rogueslaw. He’s going to tell you more about what's going on with the show. What's up? What's going on JR?
JR Weinzetl 1:28 - Okay, well, first of all, I want to preface it a little bit here. Ben Schwartz is from my hometown. Ben Schwartz, like he said, is a comic book writer, also, avid community person for... with his stuff. Never missed his free Comic Book Day. I mean, it's epic type of stuff. Seventeen years running in business. And we're going to talk to him today mainly about this whole thing of DC and the impact of them leaving Previews. Now just kind of go to a little background here: Marvel actually did this 20 some odd years ago. Marvel owned their own distributor and then when the bankruptcy. Now because of Diamond basically going, 'Hey, we're not gonna ship books,' DC found a way to ship their own books and they are creating now a second company, I forget the exact name of it, that is shipping out comics. There’s..., I know some of the smaller presses are doing this also. But we want to know, kind of, from a retailer's point of view, what the impact means for us… because come to me, Wednesday my books are out there. I don't see any difference but I know there's some type of impact that's on your end, Ben.
Ben Schwartz 2:57 - Yeah, and there's so many things to talk about. The first being, of course, that there's now a new distributor, they started up they did not even wait for shops to open, they didn't wait for things to get back to normal DC decided that they needed to get right back into it. So they opened up both one on the west coast and on the east coast to make sure to come shops to get their books in hand. Now, that that itself doesn't sound so bad, aside from the fact that most of us were closed during the time so they kept the numbers low so that we can handle the influx. And I don't know what it means for everybody. I can't assume that I know all of the shops’ hardships, but myself personally, we were quick to move over to mail order. So that didn't affect us a heck of a lot having our doors closed and still getting comics. But it's only been recently with the official announcement that they're leaving that people are really starting to speculate on what this means for the industry. So I mean, where do we even want to start?
JR Weinzetl 3:55 - Well, first off, I don't know. I know from another shop here in town. That the way they found out about DC leaving was from another comic book outlet. It was not from DC Comics. And then they found out around 4 o'clock on Thursday, on Friday, from Diamond that DC was leaving.
Ben Schwartz 4:19 - Yes. So the writing was for me on the wall the moment DC said, ‘Hey, Ben, you can use Lunar Distributing to make sure you get your books and we're canceling all your orders at Diamond.’ Now, they, of course, said I could keep my orders at Diamond; they would just come in a later date. I opted to try something new. And so I went with Luna and I've been getting my books through them. But it was through the DC retailer’s Facebook page that I found out as well. It was just a few days ago. They're like, Hey, we're officially going. But I think everybody knew it was coming because when the new previews came out a couple of weeks ago through diamond comics, there was No DC in there, so that that was a pretty big indicator that things were changing. And we just didn't know how they were going to change, or what was going to come of it. And now we're getting a lot of speculation. And I really have to place a lot of emphasis on the fact that most of what we're all reading is speculation. It's what retailers who have been in the industry a while are seeing repeated, it's what they think might be happening. But a lot of it comes down to the structure of it, because both Lunar and the west or the east coast distributors, they're both pretty much owned by large online comic stores, which creates a lot of problems and frustration for retailers as well.
JR Weinzetl 5:41 - That makes sense. And also the reason I brought up Marvel from back in the 90s was at the time there was several different people. Diamond wasn't the only one shipping out books at that time. As a result of Marvel, trying do their thing, DC signed exclusive contract with Diamond, and then Marvel kind of followed suit. So it killed off all those small distributors. And now whenever kind of get the reverse of that.
Ben Schwartz 6:14 - Well see, so, there's so many questions revolving around this that haven't been answered. So, Marvel's still sticking with Diamond. They evidently, I don't know 100%, have a payment plan in effect where they're getting their money that should have been paid to them during the quarantine, put back into them. So they're attempting to work with Diamond as best they can. But DC taking their own direction has kind of a bigger impact because everyone always talks about the fact that Diamond is a monopoly, the only game in town, so when we have problems or frustration, the first thing you think is all if there was competition, this would never happen. But one of the things that has been coming to light about all these especially with Diamond not being able to necessarily pay their bills the first week of the quarantine is, how profitable is it for there to be more than one? Is it worth it for people to have multiple distribution? Because we're not Target. We're not ordering billions of dollars worth of stuff. Each one of these individual shops is only ordering a small amount. Now if we divide that three or four ways, is it even worth it to have a warehouse? Is it worth it to have employees that come in and can ship the books? So we we just don't know. I mean, the 90s were an amazing time. So they could support them. We don't know what they can do.
JR Weinzetl 7:41 - So…, and I know some companies like TKO is doing direct to you guys. And I know you've said a couple other ones to me in the past that are doing it on the indie side of it. But I mean, I'm wondering what's it for the indie side of it, because you're a creator, what that comic that I showed you guys a couple weeks that Nu did the cover for…, yeah, this is the writer for it.
Alonso - Oh, nice.
Ian 8:06 - Awesome. Where can it I get a copy?
JR Weinzetl 8:09 - They love Nu, by the way, though. But I'm wondering on that side of it because I know like you guys had to have a certain amount to get into previews, you had to create a certain volume out. I wonder how do you think that might affect you guys on that end?
Ben Schwartz 8:29 - So I don't know that that's actually been addressed. I personally am not worried about that side of it because I order enough volume for trades and for current issues and things like that where I know I'm going to meet my threshold, but especially coming out of the quarantine and especially that there's still shops that have their books, books, having a minimum that isn't adjusted to the current circumstances would be a definite problem something. So I imagine that they're going to address that I imagine that Diamond doesn't want to lose any shops. Because this is trying times, they don't want us to go out of business for multiple reasons. One of them of course, being that we are the lifeblood of the comic book industry. So so I would hope that that can be addressed.
JR Weinzetl 9:17 - Did you have a question, Alonzo? I thought I cut you off last time.
Alonso 9:21 - I did. Um, so Ben have you…, since we're kind of talking about distribution and everything, have you noticed any difference between I guess, Lunar and Diamond with the DC books, and hopefully your guys are getting the same, same pricing.
Ben Schwartz 9:40 - So that's another thing that I keep seeing pop up. And one of the things that people have to take into consideration when they read each of these articles daily, is that the news is changing. It's constantly fluctuating. Now right now, Diamond… if I ordered a DC book from Diamond or a Lunar I'm getting the exact same price so that has not changed. But a lot of people are talking about shipping. Well, it's not as efficient to necessarily ship one shipment from Lunar, another shipment from Diamond. But when I get my books in from Diamond on a weekly basis, they're often half-full boxes, which means I'm already overpaying for shipping. So getting an extra shipment, I haven't seen much of a change. Now it will be a kind of a pain in general because I have a POS system that is designed specifically for Diamond and for their books. Now I can input anything I want into that system on a weekly basis. But that requires a lot of time. So if I'm going to keep using that, every Tuesday when I get books, I have to spend another hour, scanning books, typing in prices, putting in the title. So, so, that's an hour on a day that is extremely busy for every comic book shop across the nation.
JR Weinzetl 11:00 - Well didn't they also DC, I thought, when they went to Lunar, they change their open market date or whatever, to Tuesday now.
Ben Schwartz 11:11 - They did. And they told us, because evidently they got a lot of questions about it, 'Do what you want with it. We're telling you that it can go out on Tuesday.' Ah, so, I am... although if somebody walks through the door, I'm not going to tell them they can't buy the DC books. I'm not going to push for a DC Tuesday release date, because it doesn't make sense for me. It is the slowest, like, cash day for the store. But it is the busiest day of the week for me because we've got to unpack, we've got to check inventory. We have to do 600 savers and having people come in and pick up the DC books on that day just doesn't make sense for me. So for me, Wednesday is going to be new comic book day. It's going to continue.
Ian 11:54 - I have a question. Would ordering books be different for you now too, because you'd have to do two different systems, right?
Ben Schwartz 12:03 - Yes. So I'm now using the Lunar and I'm using Diamond. So each one of them functions roughly the same. Obviously, Diamond’s site is much broader because they had time to expand it. But Lunar's is really simple. And right now sticking to the FOC date—an FOC is the final order cutoff. So rather than me trying to navigate and do a month's worth of books like I would at Diamond, I'm just doing the books that need to be ordered that day, or that week. So that makes it a little bit easier. But the big thing is, as JR mentioned, some of these other companies, most notably Alterna who quit Diamond long before DC did, the problem comes in as to some of these companies getting lost in the shuffle. Because if I've got 10, 15, 20 different companies that I have to contact on a regular basis to make sure I have books, who's going to get lost in the shuffle-- It's going to be the indie books because what am I going to do? I'm going to order Marvel and DC first because that's the lion's share of where I pay my bills.
Rob 13:04 - I had a question. I don't know, I'm sure you'll answer this one but do we know when is the last day the comic book shops will be getting the last shipment from Diamond on DC books?
Ben Schwartz 13:15 - If I knew I would tell you I stopped using them about a month and a half ago for DC books just so I can test out the new one. So I haven't had any lag I haven't had any problems in that regard.
JR Weinzetl 13:26 - I don't know the last date because I was talking to another shop that I frequent. But they are cut off I believe is like two to three weeks is what it is. But what's weird is, so…, the big comic coming up next week is the Batman 92 with the alternate cover. Diamond has Cover A but the one the cover that everyone wants—it has Punchline on it--is exclusive to Lunar. So they’re pulling stuff like that where they're going, 'you can buy it over there at Diamond, but you're not gonna get the one everyone wants over here.'
Alonso 14:11 - So what's gonna happen to that incentive variant, because there's a 1 in 25 that has the, I think it’s either The Designer or Punchline on it, right?
JR Weinzetl 14:23 - That I'm not sure of.
Alonso - Ben, do you know?
Rob - Punchline.
Ian - Punchline.
Ben Schwartz 14:27 - I know I ordered it and I was able to put it in for Lunar. So I do not know if Diamond did not get that. But anybody who's using Lunar should.
Rob 14:39 - Wow, there’s going to be a lot of upset people if that doesn’t come through.
Alonso 14:44 - I wanted that… cover for that Punchline.
JR Weinzetl 14:47 - And the other thing I heard about the... cover, at least from the other shop that I go to, they won't get it necessarily next week. They make it the week after which is gonna cause problems. Oh, but the other thing I was gonna bring up was now I know typically you go and pick up your books, Ben, from center. But with new DC, you have to wait for the truck to come, don’t you?
Ben Schwartz 15:17 - I do because they're using FedEx, I use… every Tuesday morning I go bright and early at and pick up my boxes from UPS for Diamond. So I can get going. It takes me all day to get it done. Lunar is FedEx and they deliver it to your door now, that's actually not a problem. And this is something that I'm hoping Diamond will take note of and change on their own. Because although books aren't released till Wednesday, I get my Diamond books a day early, which seems like it would be a lot of time but again, it's a huge scramble. It's a long day. I'm trying to make sure to get my savers done right. I get my lunar books from FedEx on Monday, which gives me time to open them, sort through them, do inventory so that when Wednesday comes and you start filling savers, it's a, it's a little bit of a relief that it's not quite as high strung that day. So I don't know why we couldn't get the same thing from Diamond. And I’m hoping that as the questionnaires come in that we'll be able to express that so because I don't know if it's a logistics thing, or if it's if they don't want to sell them too early, but having that extra time, is just absolutely fantastic.
Ian 16:24 - So I have a question. So I've been talking to a couple of shops here in San Diego, and they're not happy about it. They, I think, there's movement for shops to stop ordering DC books as a protest. So that means I'm gonna have to order all my books at one shop and then my DC books at another that's participating in Lunar. Is the same thing going on out there in Sacramento too, or is this just the San Diego thing?
Ben Schwartz 16:51 - So I people are reasonably upset. And there's many reasons to upset and this boils down to one of the things I keep seeing pop up. So first off, I'm going to start by saying I'm an amazingly optimistic and positive person. And I don't see problems, I just see solutions. And the fact of the matter is, this is the way it is, and you have to deal with it. Now, I think not ordering DC books is going to be a detriment because these two companies that own the new distribution frequency are both very large online stores, which means if I don't order DC, they're just going to sell it. Now, that being said, since they're also the distributor, they're getting deeper discounts than we are. That also means that I am now paying a competitor to be able to carry these in store. Now, these are all very concerning things to a lot of people and I understand why because do I necessarily want a competitor to have all my numbers and know exactly what I'm buying, spending or selling? And the answer is obviously no. But if I don't order DC, are they just going to pick up the slack and make even more off of it because they're profit margins?
JR Weinzetl 18:01 - And I think the whole anti-DC thing is, is not isolated to just San Diego,… and none of I haven't seen anyone Sacramento do it. But certain, a certain Mile High. Go and see want their new discount code is this week. See what their opinion is on this matter. I'm not I'm trying to give them free publicity, but they aren't very happy about it right now.
Ben Schwartz 18:32 - Now, my question is… and I’m not trying to call anybody out because one of the things I love about the comic book industry as a whole, owners get along very well. We support each other. We do what we can for each other. But a large company like Mile High, do you think that they would still be saying the same thing if they had been selected as the distributor?
Rob 18:52 - Of course not, no, no.
JR Weinzetl 18:56 - I think also, not to bash on them, but when they left San Diego a couple years ago at ComicCon everything, I could see their, their motive and stuff. And they're kind of having a hard time changing the times, I think they're not like you where you can kind of roll with it, and go, 'Hey, this is what I got to do.'
Ben Schwartz 19:16 - I mean, I love the industry. This is... and that's one of the things, it really boils down to, and it does kind of suck because most I take 95% of the people who are running comic book stores who are writing comics who are just part of it in general. We, we do it because we love like if I didn't want to, you know, work 60 plus hours a week, and give up vacations, I would go get a state job, here in Sacramento. So I can understand the frustration of some of these retailers when they're like, 'Look, we bust our ass on a weekly basis.' And they just don't feel like they're getting the fair treatment that they want.
“And let’s be honest... I know all of us sometimes just buy books for the cover.”
JR Weinzetl 19:59 - Yeah. It's also one of those things where you look at it and it's like, okay, now how is this all gonna affect--eventually it's gonna affect the conventions, too. I mean, no, it doesn't affect you directly there. But eventually if you think about it, at the conventions you're gonna have, where DC has always been connected with certain things there. They may not be because Previews is different. You know what I mean? Or Diamond is different.
Ben Schwartz 20:30 - Yeah, the entire markets gonna change everything, even prior to this, you know, Marvel canceling books mid-run. And only going digital and saying, 'Hey, don't worry comic shops. We’ll give you trades.' Well, if I sell 50 copies of Jane Foster Valkyrie, I'm not selling 50 trades. So it's just not, it’s just not going to happen. So obviously, the big companies would love if you could cut things out and go digital. It's just the fact of the matter. It's big business, AT&T and Disney, they don't care. I don't think a digital market is sustainable, especially for anything other than DC and Marvel. So I'm really hoping that they find a happy medium.
Alonso 21:15 - Yeah, digital, like reduces the collectability of anything.
Ben Schwartz 21:19 - Oh, most definitely.
Alonso 21:20 - You know. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's wild. When I heard about that I was just like, I can't believe it. It's nuts, but I can understand from their perspective, but as a collector or comic book reader, I mean, it’s… I like that, that immediate weekly fix that you get, you know, it's like, 'oh, my God, like, I can't believe it.' And now you have to wait a period of time before you can actually get into it. And like kind of decompress. I kind of like that those cliffhangers.
Ian 21:51 - And let's be honest, you know, I know all of us sometimes just buy books for the cover. So I was, say, like, I read about a third of my books and a quarter of them I don't read, you know, so like there's that's a quarter books that could be going towards our shops. Right. So that’s... shops are losing money there, you know.
“Reading comics is about going down to your local store, meeting other people there, talking to shopkeepers. It’s about flipping the pages. It’s about the smell of the old books. It’s a tactile thing. And it’s an event.”
Ben Schwartz 22:13 - So yeah, and there are plenty of people who, who feel the same way I do about it, and take my bias because I'm a comic store owner out of it. There is no way that I am going to sit in front of my computer and read comic books. It's more than that. It's about going down to your local store, meeting other people there, talking to shopkeepers. It's about flipping the pages. It's about the smell of the old books. It's a tactile thing. And it's an event. I don't think that some of the people up at the top who don't care, don't think about that. But it's a process and it's something that's very special to a comic book reader.
Ian 22:49 - And like and I kind of look at it like curbside right? So I was talking to an owner yesterday, and he was telling me like yeah, curbside was okay but the thing about it is like when a person comes in, they want that book. And they took it, take a look around, you're gonna buy five more books and rather that one that they were asking for, you know?
Alonso 23:07 - I agree with that statement. I’m guilty.
Ian 23:10 - I'm guilty I bought.. I went in there for one book. And I think I walked out with like, 12, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m totally guilty of that.
Ben Schwartz 23:18 - And it's about being able to walk the wall. You can walk the wall, you can see stuff, you can flip through it, you can read it. If you just go on to a digital site, you're gonna go right to the book you want and then, you know, ignore everything else.
Rob 23:29 - You're done, you'll walk away.
Ian 23:30 - Yep. But it's just like, the whole thing about going in there and looking at all these, you know, like you're walking into like a museum, and but you can actually buy the product. Right?
Alonso 23:39 - And I wish Marvel would understand. I mean, kind of to Ian's point is that, you know, you kind of reduce that foot traffic that goes into the store. So those people that are buying a cover or buying just that one issue of a Valkyrie will miss another Marvel book because it's like, well, I can just get it online. And again, Ben, you mentioned, it's just like, 'I'm just gonna buy that book. And that's it. There's no browsing. There's no like, looking around and seeing Oh my god, that cover looks great, or that's a new book, I should check it out.’
Ian 24:17 - But the example that is Valkyrie, right? I don't read Valkyrie. But I did pick up the ... variant. And I haven't even read it. But I picked it up for the cover. So that's a book that I bought that I'm not even reading the book, you know, so.
Ben Schwartz 24:30 - Yeah. And so I'll say this digital, a lot of people when it first started, were really worried they again, it was a lot of doom-saying. I feel that digital combined, symbiotic relationship with the comic shops can be very good. In fact, the way it's being done now could be modified to help us out a little more. But I know a lot of people who buy their digital comics from like Marvel don't redeem their code. They'll take it with them on vacation, some people have gone on vacation. Bought a trade from some online, digital, and then come in and said, Hey, Ben, I want the extra five that are after. So so it was a new way to interact with the industry that I think could potentially still be good. But 100% install, I just think it's a real gag.
Alonso 25:16 - I totally agree with that when they have the digital copy, like Ian mentioned, right, you just buy the book, and you don't kind of flip through it because you don't want to ruin the, your mint copy. But having that digital code, you can kind of check it out online and read it and if it's something that grabs your attention, you know, you're gonna want to buy issue numbers two or three and four, right?
Ben Schwartz 25:40 - Yeah, no, well, most definitely. I think that up. Up until this point, it has worked very well for both retailers and the publishers.
JR Weinzetl 25:51 - But I think there's also, as a shop owner, you kind of have to create environment to get people to come in. Like, I know you have your book club. Is it once a month or...?
Ben Schwartz 26:04 - Yeah, yeah, with the book club, it's only once a month, because we have so many events.
JR Weinzetl 26:08 - I mean, you have all these events that drag--or not drag--that whole people into the shop. I mean, like you have your art displays, you get local artists and have art displays. You have the book events that get people in there talking about books. And there's a lot of displays of, I know, right at the front register, I saw Stumptown because of the local artist. There's a couple other books I saw there right up there. That kind of pull your eyes so it's kind of like what you guys are saying of I'm going by this but you see these all these other things. If you're going to Ben's shop, you see three shelves behind them of trades. What do you got up to like 16 of those now?
Ben Schwartz 26:57 - It's pretty intense. It's all over the store. Yes, because but I mean, we've benefited. We don't do games at all. We don't do any games, I have a very small selection of toys, almost just as a courtesy for people who come in. But 95% of what we do, if not more, is just read, whether it's trades, whether it's local books, you know, the wall of comics is just incredible, because I really, one of the things I like to do is support independents. So I will order almost everything from Previews, even if it's in limited quantities, just to give not only my customers and myself a chance, but also to support them because as a small press publisher, I know just how difficult it can be to get out these things out there. And that's what we're, I mean, I'm not doomsaying I told you I was positive, but, you know, digital, that we're going to lose that we're not going to be able to see somebody else's vision that they have taken the time and effort to get printed. We're not going to get see that.
JR Weinzetl 27:55 - I know, yeah. For me, I think some people I mean, I know I was one of the people When trade started becoming very popular and start pushing trades, that I was kind of like well, there goes to collectability because half the fun for me was going to searching in those back issue bins and finding stuff. Now I can go, 'Oh, I want to read like Bitterroot’ that I picked up this week. I don't have to go online. Fine. Go. 'Hey, Ben, I won't read this. Do you have a copy of it?... You don't have the original issues. Okay, let me just get the trade.'
Ben Schwartz 28:27 - Do you like that aspect? Has it grown on you?
JR Weinzetl 28:31 - A little bit. But the unfortunate thing is probably if I really liked the book, I'll probably go try and find those damn single issues. So it's kind of like a preview for me.
Ben Schwartz 28:42 - Yeah, double-edged sword there.
Ian 28:46 - I'm like, yeah, I'm just like JR. I mean, I don't want to bust open my God of Thunder books. So I just bought the trades, you know, so…
Ben Schwartz 28:54 - Nice. So yeah, so you have options, you can still do the collectability and that and the thing about trades, that has been nice because we've got a lot of there's a certain group, we're not like us they don't want to wait weekly they don't want to hunt down their issues. So they will only buy trade paperbacks. So they have helped them immensely and it's nice that like JR said when you do, they have the option of picking it up. But if you still want to track it down, you can definitely get somewhere.
Ian 29:28 - All right. Well thank you Ben for joining us and you do Is there any last you know, things you want to say about what's going on with DC and Diamond and Lunar?
Ben Schwartz 29:39 - You know, I'm hoping that as a community as a business because we are all especially Diamond and every local comic book shop, we are all very connected we are. We are all working together on this. I'm hoping we can find a solution outside of any of these far-reaching horrific events that some people were talking about. Like I said, I'm very positive, I know that the comic industry will survive. And I know that we continue to produce great things that people can get ahold of. It might just be a different formula that people need to adapt to change with and come up with new solutions.
Ian 30:18 - Well, thank you, Ben, for joining us. And hey, everybody out there. give a shout out to Ben out there in Sacramento if you're out there, stop by and support his shop and other local comic shops. And also remember to hit that like and subscribe button and support your homies over here at #TeamNerdHerd. You guys have any, any last words of wisdom to spread to the comic world and YouTube?
JR Weinzetl 30:44 - Like you said, support your local comic shops. Support Ben's Empire's Comic Vault. Also his hot sauces too.
Ben Schwartz 30:51 - Yeah, hot sauce!
Alonso 30:54 - Pay off those pulls guys. Pay off those pulls. Yeah,
Rob - Yeah, pick up your pulls.
Ian 30:58 - Pick up your pulls. Anything, Rob? Before we bounce?
Rob 31:03 - Just keep on reading. Read them books.
