What Is Your Ideal Comic Shop

[Jerrel]

I've been thinkin of starting a comic shop in my neiborhood. I have a few idea's for what I'd want to do for it but I wanted a few honest opinions. So what would you like to see in a shop? Besides being close to where you live what would make a comic shop apealing to you? Would it have a wide selection of titles, or alot of coppies of popular titles? Would it focus on its comics, toys, or games? Would it hold weekly card games, roleplaying games, or something else eniterly? Would it sale original work from professionals or local talent? Let me know and I may use some of your ideas if I can get a small business loan.

[Krusshyk]

If you could wrangle an employee like the guy from the Simpsons, I would be there like a fly on poop.

[Zyre Mercutio]

I've been thinkin of starting a comic shop in my neiborhood. I have a few idea's for what I'd want to do for it but I wanted a few honest opinions. So what would you like to see in a shop? Besides being close to where you live what would make a comic shop apealing to you? Would it have a wide selection of titles, or alot of coppies of popular titles? Would it focus on its comics, toys, or games? Would it hold weekly card games, roleplaying games, or something else eniterly? Would it sale original work from professionals or local talent? Let me know and I may use some of your ideas if I can get a small business loan.

I worked at the largest and oldest one here in town for 6 years or so and what mades ours great was it had a lot of stock, pricey $100-500 books on the wall, tons of 25 & 50 cent books, regular graded back issues plus the new stuff. Lots comic merchandise on that side of the store with t-shirts, posters, statues, toys, etc. Any comic shop worth its salt needs an extensive TPB inventory as we saw a boom in those big time.

We also did a strong business in new roleplaying and card games plus CCG singles as well as 2nd hand rpg books/modules. One thing we did deal in were minitures except as special orders because those were shoplifter friendly and were usually so hit and miss. We did carry the collectible mini based games like MageKnight though as they did reasonably well.

The other side of our store was where the girlfriend/wife would usually hang when drug there by the hubby. Thousands of used CD's LP's cassettes, VHS, and DVD's. We also sold a lot of pop culture based shirts, posters, and postcards over there. The store also carried a decent selection of anime/manga related goodies as well as hundreds of 2nd hand paperbacks.

Our space wasn't really setup for us to have even tried any in store game play, plus the manager/part-owner there is something of an elitist thinking if its not something he is into its shiite and won't go out of his way to support it. Another thing the store was horrible at was the dearth of in store appearances, even though we were/are by far the premiere shop in a million person city he didn't want to pay for in store shots when people would contact us with the exception of our 20 year anniversary when we had Chris Claremont and Greg Land at the shop together. We also did a crap job of trying to support local talent, for instance the guy that crated the indy comic Battle Pope lived in the area and even though he shopped with us and we sold his book on the stands via Diamond we never approached him for cross promotion.

A competing shop did design their space to run card and tabletop tourneys and such and also have a little cafe in the store as well whereas if you walked into our store with a drink the beverage Nazi's would immediately confiscate it.


My personal area of expertise at the shop was as the buyer for the Magic trading card game (grading/pricing), secondary buyer for the 2nd hand rpgs and a secondary back issue buyer. I also did a lot of the order processing on the store computer for Diamond comics using our software tool of choice, Comtrac. I would not recommend Comtrac because its still Dos based (or was the guy was working on a Windows versions since Win95) and his support for his product often involves you calling him on his cell and talking to him while his kids are chattering away in the background. In summary I hope this has helped some and as you might have guessed yer idea is something that I have thought would be the type of business I would want to run/own myself and have thought a lot about it.

Zzzzzz

[Seret Sajet]

Krusshyk I'd hire you in a second to BE the guy from the Simpson's comic book shop. I'd think you'd do well.

In truth my ideal comic shop would just be one that focuses on comics. In reality this would fail. The truth of the matter is (this came from the horses mouth, or at least on of them in the stalls) that comic book manufactuers do not make their big bucks on comics by themselves. If a 100 or even 1000 issues of a book sell they really don't care. What they do care is when a book is graphic novel worthy. That is where they make their money. Sure they get percentages of all the toys, games and movies you see with comic book characters but in reality its a very small percentage. The creators still have their hand in the pot after they take their share a lot of it goes back into the business. So if I had a comic shop that was comics alone chances are it would go under.

To me a pure comic shop is one based in comics and comics alone. I might let some collectibles slide if they are directly related to comic shops but collectible card games, magazines (unless they are about comics), non-related toys, and other such things would have to go.

Work in reality but live in your dreams.

[Sai'nu]

I'm forced to agree with our colleagues here. Your 'best' comic shops usually 'have' to cater to more than just comics. Be it role playing games, collectible card games, figures, props and replicas from movies... you name it; It's all about the entertainment experience we all crave like a kid in a candy store.

Some things that 'have' made me go to a particular place more or less are usually the quality of employees they've got; what kind of deals they have; and how set up they are to house a quick group/ tourney play for something.

A 'come back with 6 receipts for a 10% discount on your next purchace' deal usually kept me going back to a certain hobby shop near me here in Southern Illinois like mad. This is your gimmick to keep pulling them in too. Well, you just turned in 6 and ya got that 'new' release for 10% off; But, oh wait, you've got a new receipt now... vicious damn cycle.

If you get yourself qualified to host official tournements for things like Magic: The Gathering... you'll see a slight boost in consistant shoppers. But these can just turn into consistant loiterers too.

Personally, I think if ya could do a good mix up of comics old and new, with rpgs and ccgs and gamming space set up/ perhaps with a 'small' computer room so you could even introduce people to Galaxies would be a very nice set up. And a few unique items like movie props can't hurt either. Through in a gimmick deal to keep them comming back with a trade-in / used section and I believe you'll have what is the picture perfect hobby shop for gamers and collectors alike.

I think the following have websites if you do a search:

The Bear (champaign-urbanna, IL)
Castle Perilous (carbondale, IL)
Comic Quest (Evansville, IN.. I think up in Chicago,IL too)

A good thing to do is to always research the compitition to see what their doing 'right', copy it, and figure out what their doing 'wrong', and try not to copy that.

[Krusshyk]

There was an ACE hardware store up in my area that used to have a monkey in a glass case. It was the coolest. Till the blackfoot hippies complained and said it was "cruel" to keep a monkey as a pet in a store. Whatever...they probably don't eat veal either...sissies...but I digress.

I would go to your store if you also had a monkey. Monkeys are nature's salesmen.

[Ekade]

Slightly off topic.. but is it a must that the "sales associate" at the gaming store at the mall chat you up if you so much as glance in the RPG section?

"Oh yeah, the book of Vile Deeds is friggin awesome. My wizard blew up half the map when he destroyed 2 artifacts. Elminster died to. The DM didn't know what to do at that point."

I don't know what is scarier, the fact that he felt the need to "brag" about his wizard, or the fact I knew most of what he was talking about and considered sharing my thoughts on Monty Haul campaigns with him.

[Sai'nu]

Monty Haul campaigns rock though! Let's make a deal... you kill the vile one... you have to become the vile one. Unlimited power, the hand and eye of Vecna, dominating legions of soldiers to your will.... er... oh, yeah, comic book store ideas.

[Ekade]

Monty Haul campaigns rock though! Let's make a deal... you kill the vile one... you have to become the vile one. Unlimited power, the hand and eye of Vecna, dominating legions of soldiers to your will.... er... oh, yeah, comic book store ideas.

Limitations on resources and power means one must resort to skill and cunning to overcome obstacles.

Unlimited resources and power (aka. Monty Haul) means one just has to "be" to overcome obstacles. How much fun is that? Do you even need a DM at that point? You really just need an audience to hear about how cool you are..

..Which is exactly what I was at the mall that day.


Dare I say the Monty Haul PnP gamer is a (not-so) distant ancestor to the ub3r l337 d3wd of many internet games today?

[X'an Shin]

Slightly off topic.. but is it a must that the "sales associate" at the gaming store at the mall chat you up if you so much as glance in the RPG section?

"Oh yeah, the book of Vile Deeds is friggin awesome. My wizard blew up half the map when he destroyed 2 artifacts. Elminster died to. The DM didn't know what to do at that point."

I don't know what is scarier, the fact that he felt the need to "brag" about his wizard, or the fact I knew most of what he was talking about and considered sharing my thoughts on Monty Haul campaigns with him.

A Girl in the Gaming Store

[Ekade]

A Girl in the Gaming Store

That was worth a chuckle or two.

I've read some pretty bad stories about gamers.. some had me in tears they were so funny. I wish I could find them.

[Sai'nu]

Girls in game stores are awesome though.

Monty Haul campaigns can be fun though. We used limited Mont Haul on the basis of we had a few mentally handi-capped Army guys in Korea.

Flint Stonepole is all I'm gonna say... a guy from Idaho playing a Dwarf that likes to pee on things after he kills them. He actually dies this way repetively; So we had to Monty Haul him back to life countless times.

I get a feeling he was the dog that wizzed on the electric fence in a former life.

[Jerrel]

See I never have a problem with uber PnP games. Right now I'm running a Epic Level D&D campain and I just take creatures from the Monster Manuals and Uber them. The excuse to do that you ask? Well they're on a island nation who's wild life developed to be a hella lot meaner...

Ok back the question.