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life on kandor On Wednesday of this week, I stopped at a new comic book store for the first time. It opened back in February, but I didn't know about it until a couple of weeks ago when my sister mentioned it to me. The only reason that she knew about it is because it's located less than two blocks from where she lives. Naturally she took my niece there and the two of them walked out with two Teen Titans action figures. I'm not sure if they bought any comic books though. Once I was aware of the store, I did a search online to find out what hours they were open and found an interview with the owner of the store and why he went into business. Basically he and his wife wanted to create a comic book store that was friendlier to the public. He wanted somewhere to shop that didn't meet the stereotype beautifully portrayed on The Simpsons with the overweight man hurling insults from behind the counter. Now I won't lie that some comic book stores come close to that image, but I've seen chain department stores that are just as frightening on the inside. Walking into the store, I have to admit that it did have more of a professional look to it than other comic shops that I've visited. Instead of peeling linoleum, there was new carpeting on the floor. Not only was the interior of the store pleasing to the eye, but the woman behind the counter was dressed as though she were working for a department store rather than having just walked off of the street. Both of those changes were nice, but I still think that the store is going to have an uphill battle. From my experience comic books readers tend to be very loyal to their store and see it as place to socialize. As to how long this new store will have to work to get a strong customer base is beyond me. Plus my understanding is that retail is never easy and a niche market like comic books has to be even harder obstacle to overcome. I do wish them the best though and may stop there to shop from time to time. As of now I have no intention of abandoning my mail order form of shopping. Stopping there was certainly worth my time, because I came away with some key issues. Since they probably don't have as big of a customer base as the other store I usually frequent, there were three issues of Y The Last Man sitting on the shelf that I immediately grabbed. What makes this important is an issue that came out last year is already going for forty dollars or more on eBay. Even an issue from last month tends to double in value almost instantly. Suddenly I had the chance to buy three back issues for cover price and wasn't something that I was expecting to happen when I went there. I thought that I would have a look around and pick up some Batman issues for a friend at work and that would be it for me. Not only did I walk away with three issues of Y The Last Man, but I also got the missing issue of the Godfall story that was running through the three Superman titles. Now I finally know how Lyla used Kal-El to escape from Kandor. I suspect that DC will collect these issues into a trade paperback, but I didn't want to wait that long to read the story. |