Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a new column by Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett shows why it's important for retailers to keep track of the media references to the products they sell.
I'm Steven Alan (S. A.) Bennett. I've written comics (back in the 80s and mostly for a pre-Marvel buyout Malibu, creating such titles as The Rovers, Werewolf at Large, and Jungle Love, and contributing scripts to Shuriken and Trancers), regularly review them for Comic Buyers Guide, and for the last ten years have sold them for Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Yellow Springs is a lovely little college town three blocks long that has its own theater (which is currently showing both Howl's Moving Castle and Batman Begins). An hour drive from both Cincinnati and Columbus, it's become a destination location for daytrippers who want to sample our low-key atmosphere, eclectic shops, fine restaurants, or do a little Dave Chappelle-spotting. Yes, the one from Comedy Central's Chappelle Show is a long term resident and frequent Dark Star shopper (Remember when 60 Minutes II recently told America he was sulking in South Africa? He was here all the time).
Dark Star Books is a 3,300 square foot shop that along with selling comics and graphic novels has over 40,000 used books and sells an ever increasing number of new books and magazines. I'm relating all this because I want to firmly establish that Dark Star probably isn't like your comic book shop; however, I still like to think I can give some useful advice, especially when it comes to what we used to call 'customer outreach.' Except now it's no longer a case of us reaching out to them; comics have become so culturally ubiquitous they're reaching in to us. But we do have to be ready to meet them half way, and since you never know what you'll need to know to do this job, I'd suggest subscribing to the electronic editions of the New York and L. A. Times, both of which are delivered to your mailbox every day, free of charge.
For instance, Sunday's NYT ran a lengthy, respectful (OK, we all could have done without the 'It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Architecture!' headline) piece on how Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian series was 'laced with architectural marvels that were proposed but never constructed' (see 'New York Times on the Architecture of Comics'). I printed it before going into work, but before I was able to post it we received a visit from a retired college professor who up until this point had always sneered at the comics as he hurried towards the back of the store where we kept the 'real' books. But on the strength of that article he bought all three issues. And because I'd already read the piece, not only did I know what he was talking about, I could talk to him about it, and we gained something just as valuable as a sale; someone who wants to read comics.
