The PopCulteer
MAY 2, 2025

STUFF TO DO has been bumped to Friday this week by posts about the cool new shows premiering this week on The AIR (Reminder, tune in to the brand-new fifth anniversary episode of MIRRORBALL today at 2 PM EDT). So we’re going to give you a few very brief news items, then run down some weekend stuff.

Bandcamp Friday

Okay, this time for real, it’s Bandcamp Friday.

That’s the day when my favored streaming service, Bandcamp, foregoes their usual cut of the money and lets the artists keep all the money spent on their music and merch. However today they make an exception.

The artists get a much bigger cut of the proceeds. You know what to do to support the local scene and independent artists.

The Future of Comic Books

In short, things don’t look great. The once-dominant distributor, Diamond Comics, might have emerged from bankruptcy by being sold this week, but it’s really confusing, and the whole thing could wind up in court.

Let me be precise…the whole thing WILL wind up in court. I have not covered this in-depth because it’s a morass of legalese and financial chicanery, but you can find some great reporting about it at Comics Beat and at Bleeding Cool.

In short, Diamond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the intention of reorganizing and selling itself to Universal, a Canadian comics distributor. Then a  US-based game distributor submitted a higher bid, which was accepted, then rejected, then reinstated, then withdrawn when the proposed higher bidder discovered that Diamond had misrepresented the stability of their biggest vendor contract.

Complicating matters is that Diamond’s game distribution unit is called “Alliance Games, ” while the US-based distributor is “Alliance Entertainment.” The two companies are not related.

After Alliance Entertainment was declared the winning bidder by the court, Universal, the Canadian distributor teamed up with the parent company of NECA Toys to make a late counter-bid. Around the same time Alliance Entertinment found out that Diamond had fudged the truth a bit in terms of their contract to sell products made by Wizards of the Coast (Magic the Gathering and more). This made the overall company worth about twelve million dollars less, since Wizards makes the top-selling games in the industry, by far, and their deal with Diamond expired Wednesday.

And while all this was going on, Diamond and their bankruptcy Sherpas somehow failed to file three consecutive monthly reports required by the court, so the Trustee began proceedings to convert the case into a Chapter 7 liquidation. This week’s announced sale seems designed to circumvent that, but it’s almost certain that Alliance Entertainment will sue, if only to claw back the 8.5 million dollar deposit that they already paid, which Diamond has not seemed to be in any rush to return.

This could all collapse, leaving the comic book industry in a bit of a shambles, just in time for Free Comic Book Day tomorrow.

By the way, Diamond owns Free Comic Book Day, Diamond Comic Distributors, Alliance Games, Diamond Previews, Comic Shop Locater.com and several other major comic book entities.

And that’s not even taking the tariffs into consideration.

Taking The Tariffs into Consideration 

Today is the day that the small-packet customs exemption is supposed to die at the hands of our insane man-baby president. Today it’s ended for products made in China, but it’s inevitable that he will remove this exemption for other countries.

In the short term, this could kill Temu, but it could also seriously impair The Corgi Model Club, and it will likely double or triple the cost of British music magazines like MOJO, PROG and Uncut. It will also make it nearly impossible for you to buy or sell anything from or to another country on eBay, Mercari or Etsy.

In the long term, it could make the toy stores at Christmas look like the toilet paper departments did back during Trump’s mishandling of COVID.

That’s right….it turns out the Grinch is Orange.

Rather than meeting the unreasonable goal of moving manufacturing back to the United States, these tariffs will result in the closure of tens of thousands of small American businesses. They will devastate several industries–electronics, automobiles, toys, comics, textiles, jewelry–I could go on, but it’s pretty depressing.

Comic Books could quadruple in price. Action Figures and Fashion Dolls will cost a minimum of thirty or forty dollars each. Hot Wheels could top five bucks each.

It’s just one of the many ways that this administration will work tirelessly to destroy everything good in this country for the sake of making the richest people in the world even wealthier. Be prepared for higher inflation than we had the last time Trump destroyed the global economy.

They sell this “helping American businesses,” but the truth is it will only mean higher prices and fiscal pain for US consumers, who will simply have to pay more for things they want, or go without. This administration clearly does not care about consumers. Look at the way they’re getting rid of the agencies that monitor product safety.

The average person is the collateral damage in this idiotic trade war.

Awards Shows

I’ve long been of the opinion that award shows are garbage. For one thing, I don’t like the idea of artistic creations being entered into some kind of nonsense competition with each other. For another, most of these award shows are merely contrived marketing schemes, where the powers that be conspire with the highest bidders to give the awards not to the most deserving creative endeavors, but to whichever ones they think will make the most extra money if it has an award to tout.

Oh, and the Tony Nominations were announced yesterday.

The Guffman Sports Complex

Yesterday it was announced that Charleston’s Sports Complex project (formerly the Aquatic Center) has been put on hold. The blame is being placed at the feet of Congress, who have paused a seven-million-dollar grant to help fund the 70 million dollar project. I’m sure that’s it and that it has nothing to do with the entire project being crafted behind closed doors with zero transparency and then foisted on the public with no warning and incomplete planning. But at least they managed to turn a vacant building into a vacant lot in the process.

STUFF TO DO

We’re sorta cramped for space this week, there’s a lot of early Cinco de Mayo stuff that I dont have room for, so let’s just begin our boilerplate spiel about events in and around Charleston…

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or Twitter.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

We are also very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend’s shows are not yet known to our intelligence sources.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights. On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam. I hear that last week’s jam was epic.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Clendenin Browing Co is a microbrewery with 4 themed lodging rooms in a 1920s bank building on Main St Clendenin, WV. They’ve been host a lot of musical acts lately.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings. You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side. This Saturday at 7 PM it’s Bluegrass galore with Bronco Juntion, bodine Johnson and Noah Collins & the Raccoon Wranglers.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment. This Friday at 7 PM  Coal River Coffee features Minor SwingI am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illlnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events that I was able to scrounge up online…