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Underground > Comic Books >

Comic Book Store MAX

11:15 / 07.10.05

I work at a small little comic book store. Our website is here and it hurts me on the inside. I've decided to allow myself to be paid to fix up the website to something nicer, and I was wondering what, to you, would make your comic book store better?

For now, I'll be adding a function to the website so that subscribers can edit their subscriber list from their comfy little chairs. Most of the other stuff I'm doing is back end things that make our life lazier, but that customers wont really see the effects of except we wont mess up as much.

Go wild and crazy with your ideas. Move past the "order stuff online." What things could a comic book store do to make things a bit better?

(oh, and not as wild and crazy as really cheap comics)

13:53 / 07.10.05

It sounds really obvious, but be friendly.
The comic shop in my home town is brilliant, mainly because the guys who run it are really friendly, smile, ask you how you are, enthuse about stuff I might like and so on.
In Glasgow I go to F*rb*dd*n Pl*n*t and it's rubbish. the staff are just really unfriendly, in fact I'd go as far as sullen. In my defence, it is on my way home from work and I don't reckon the independent one is much better.
One shop I went to used to do a weekly pamphlet with new & up & coming releases and a few previews and news articles. That was pretty cool, but this was back in the mid-nineties, so maybe the net's made it unnecessary. However an on-line news section might work, for those too scared/Lazy to brave newsarama etc
Your idea about being able to edit your pull list online is pretty cool.

14:03 / 07.10.05

Check out what some of us liked about our favorite comic book stores over at the Comic Pimps thread.

And don't disagree with celebrities when they come in. They write letters. Nasty, back-breaking, letters.

14:17 / 07.10.05

Encourage local creators by having a 'submit your comic for sale' link. Have a reviews section where customers can slate what they hate and rave about faves. Have a 'Funniest Comic of the Month' sidebar and a poll where visitors vote whether the X-Men or the Brotherhood of mutants are better, and show the results (97% of visitors to this site voted MAGNETO WAS RIGHT!).

Why not have a 'who would win in a fight between...' box with randomized comic characters 'Flash vs Hulk' 'Wolverine vs. Batman' 'Grant Morrison vs Mark Millar' etc. and get people to vote and show the results as a table of whupass-ness. But whatever you do take Bats and Supes off the top, currently it looks dreadful, you're right.

Do you sell RPGs? Like, Masquerade? ;]

17:37 / 07.10.05

Mr. Phox, we have a butt working now. A real butt. Like, pubes for eye brows he's such a butthead. Fortunately, he'll be getting fired soon. Oddly enough, someone came in the other day and looked at me quite confused. "Howdy! Can I help you with something?" was what I said when he entered. Then he suddenly looked, well, scared. "Is... something wrong?"

"Where's... Adam?"

"Oh, Adam doesn't work on Saturdays anymore. I'm Daynah. It's nice to meet you. Are you a subscriber?"

"Uuh... usually Adam doesn't uuh... say anything."

Then it hits me. This guy is frightened by me because I'm being polite so I ponder over what Adam would do, turn around and ignore him and play solitare until he finishes his business of wandering around and asks for his box.

Quite an odd scene. Usually I get the "Jeeze... you're a whole lot more polite than the... what's that guy's name? you know... the creepy one with the colorful shirts? Yeah, Adam."

And those were some great ideas Quantum! We "sell" RPG books. As in, we have three collecting dust in the corner because a comic book store "should" have them, but the owner hates RPGs. One of the other employees plays D&D and he and his crew actually started cleaning up the back room (a feat in itself, but we might still get some odd new STD started from dust, who knows) to play D&D in, it's really nice. I wonder if we could get that room up even nicer so that other RPGs could play there... ponder.

And I'll definately sabotauge certain characters.

Would a mailing list be useful or an annoyance? I know I often just kinda delete all the mailing lists I get out of my inbox before I get them, even if I did intentionally sign up going, "Oh I know I'll read that!"

17:48 / 07.10.05

Oh, and we did get Christopher Reeves calling the store the other day. A little kid called the store, ordered a comic. I wrote the comic down, got his number, asked for his name, "Christopher Reeeeeves." "Yeah, yeah, you got me." and I hung up.

A week later he called back asking if the comic came in. What's his name? "Christopher Reeves." I hadn't even ordered it, 'cause I thought it was a prank. I just left a note to my boss about it, unsure what to do.

Another week later, the kid calls again asks for the comic. Kids tend to not do prank calls lasting three weeks, so we order it. When the mom came in to pay for it, her card said "Martha Reeve." Basically, I'm an awful person.

17:50 / 07.10.05

mailing lists suck but a notification email when a title comes in would rock- 'DING! Your Seven Soldiers title has arrived. WooT!'

Let RPG goblins use your back room for gaming and they'll love you forever- free labour! You could also organise comic swops so people can trade their old issues with each other one evening a week or whatever, and then sell them the ones they're missing (or pristine versions for the safe).

20:49 / 07.10.05

Some comfy chairs would be nice, I don't think I've ever been in a comic shop that had them. I guess to stop people reading the comics in the shop and then leaving.

But it would be nice.

20:52 / 07.10.05

Also, good god that website is ugly.

10:31 / 08.10.05

That IS an ugly website. Very much in need of a redesign - fewer colours - smaller fonts - less scrolling.

01:48 / 09.10.05

The owner is proud of the website. Very, very, proud.

And he "thinks" he can keep it updated. Look at the coupons, look at the tournament rankings... then look at the little girl with two paragraphs asking for donations for chemotheraphy

Yeah, she's already died. Good job with the updates.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

11:59 / 09.10.05

I'm so thankful for Page 45.