An insiders guide to comic/game shop retail, part one

Hmmm, a new feature on my bloggety blog. A look into the lessons learnt - mostly the hard way - from working in and managing comic/gaming shops over the past decade.

First up, my relevant CV.

1996-1997 - part time sales assistant - Spot-On Models & Hobbies, Swindon

2000-2003 - relief manager - Into The Void, Swindon

2004-2005 - assistant manager - Forbidden Planet, Bristol

2006-2007 - manager - Swin City, Swindon

2008-present - proprietor - Proud Lion, Cheltenham

Plus, I’ve been reading comics since I was 6. My first comics were Marvel UK weeklies including Transformers, The Real Ghostbuster, Zoids, etc. Transformers often had a back up strip of something like Action Force/GI Joe, Visionaries and for a while Iron Man - my first and still my favourite Marvel superhero. It was the days of the red and silver centurion armour.

Years later I was hooked into the Batman and X-Men cartoons and I started reading X-Men UK reprints at my friend’s house, plus the Batman Knightfall and Death/Return of Superman graphic novels. Around this time my Granddad bought me a few Batman DC comics from the newsagent, ones with the fat Comag label spoiling the cover.

In the last few years of secondary school, a friend lent me Sandman and Watchmen, changing my perspective completely.

Then as college began, the great Lee Goodheart opened his comic shop in the Rodbourne area of Swindon, near the Designer Outlet Village. I drove Lee mad trying all sorts of US comics and ultimately adding and cancelling many titles over the months - Superman (the horrible new powers storyarc), Iron Man (of course), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, nice but it would be some years before the GL Rebirth story hooked me completely) and then the Heroes Reborn event happened.

It was twaddle, but at the time it was a new take on classic characters with great Image art. I loved it. That lead to Heroes Return and a greater appreciation of the proper Marvel Universe, which lead me to realise how naff Heroes Reborn had been really.

But in the midst of all that, whilst the heroes were missing, another book started. A quiet book. About some new Heroes. Lee was skeptical. But I thought the Iron Man-like one, Mach-1 looked ace. A human jet fighter. So I picked up there early appearances in the Incredible Hulk and Heroes For Hire and then the issue 1. And at the end of that first issue, Kurt Busiek blew my mind by revealing these new heroes were in fact, The Masters Of Evil. HOLY SHIT!

I have every issue of this title bar the embarassing Fight Bolts story arc. Lets draw a veil over that piss poor idea. I love it. At the heart of T-bolts is a story of redemption. Some of the villains grew to love the acclaim and respect that came as being heroes and welcomed the change of pace form the constant life of lies and evasion that came with being bad guys.

So they struck out to become heroes. A path fraught with disbelief, betrayal and hope. I still love it.

True Believers was eventually sold to the small comics chain Into The Void. The new manager Vince was someone I viewed nervously, I missed Lee. But Vince was good people and eventually I began to work for him covering his days off, the time he’d have to travel for meetings and holiday. It was great.

The Into The Void company eventually fell apart through mismanagement by the overall boss. Vince was messed about quite a lot and had to take a lot of stick from disgruntled customers. And finally Swindon was a town once again without a comic shop.

It was then I realised how much community spirit a good shop brought to a town’s comic fans. There had been shops before True Believers, but I never frequented them. Through True Believers I met one of the best mates I’ve ever had - Dave Cousens. We were in Computing A-Level together, but what got us speaking was me pulling out my TB bag to look at my new comics whilst we waited for our lecturer. Dave lived just round the corner and collected X-Men comics. He saw the bag, it sparked a conversation - the rest is history.

Incidentally, sidebar, Dave got bored of Computing and dropped out after a year though we stayed firends ever since. He used to draw in the margins, excellent sketches that showed the spark of talent. Now he’s a professional illustrator. Check out his stuff at coolsurface.com - magic.

Some years passed, I finished my Media HND, failed to find work and ended up working in the pub trade. Without a comic shop in the town I would travel most weeks to one of the shops in neighbouring towns. Comics Showcase in Oxford. Escape Comics in Reading. Forbidden Planet International in Cardiff. Forbidden Planet in Bristol. American Dream in Bath.

Then one day - whilst in FP in Bristol - I saw a sign for an advert in the store. They wanted an Assistant Manager. I wanted a new challenge. So I went for it, but the deadline was just passed. Boo.

I went home, got on with my job, grew more disillusioned with the spoilt fruits of my educational labour and the seemingly dead-end pub job I had and then finally all that stress destroyed my relationship with my then girlfriend. I didn’t help it. Neither did she. Nor did her pet gerbil.

So miserable and wanting a new start I went ot Bristol for comics and THEY WERE LOOKING FOR AN ASSISTANT MANAGER AGAIN!

I applied once more. Got an interview. Went - wearing new shoes that cut my feet to pieces. I hobbled into that interview room and somehow got a second interview. That was even better, turned out they liked my last CV and were fascinated to meet someone who had worked for Into The Void, the famed black sheep of turn of the century UK comic retail.

I got the job. I moved ot Bristol. I was assistant manager, plus head of DVD and gaming/RPG. The latter became my pet project after my years of playing Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Warhemmer Fantasty/40K, Man O’War, Epic, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Magic The Gathering, VTES, Rage, Netrunnner, Star Wars and Star Trek CCG, Star Wars RPG, World Of Darkness, Cyberpunk 2020, Car Wars, Robo Rally, Settlers Of Catan, Lunch Money, Fluxx all sorts. It was great fun. Reawakening all my old skills from my time as a teenager working at Spot On.

The rest of the job was awful. The manager was never in, feigning illness, or taking extra paternity leave and when he was finally at work doing half days. Some weeks I had only the Sunday off and a couple of times a week I had to take paperwork like invoices home as I couldn’t do that at work and run the store.

The staff were lazy assholes, all hired through nepotism. Friends of the manager or sons of firends of the manager. It was crap. My falt was nice, but Bristol was a horrible. Dirty, rude and expensive like a council estate troll in a night club.

The worst part was the ethos of the whole company. Get them in. Sell them anything that vaguley approximates what they like. Get them out again. Do it again tomorrow. Don’t take time to get to know their names. Don’t learn what they like, where they work, who their family members are. Don’t form a community bond with these people - just sell them comics and plastic tat and get the highest price out of them. Rinse. Repeat. I hated it.

Spot On, True Believers, Into The Void - in all these shops I’d been allowed to befriend people, socialise with them and ultimately serve them better ensuring everyone was happier. FP wanted to strip mine the comic/gaming community for all they were worth.

Eventually I snapped, and the guys at the pub threw me a lifeline. I came home, went back to the pub job and felt thoroughly miserable. For a year.

Then I snapped again.

A few weeks later i ran into Vince in the graphic novel section of Borders. He and a business partner were opening a shop, would I like to work for them?

I feel the scars of Swin City are still too raw to lay bare here, put I bored blood, sweat and tears into opening that shop and fought to become the full time manager. I loved that job for six months, hated it for 12, and finally left to start Proud Lion in December 2007.

On March 22nd 2008 - Easter Saturday no less - I opened my own shop.

Which is quite frankly the scariest hardest thing I’ve ever done.

More on all of that next time.