Issue 1 - The Origin

I'm a big time comic book geek. I admit it freely. I have had a fascination (some say addiction) with comic books for the last 20 years. I really believe that comic books are analogies for our real lives. Every Hero has an origin. Every Hero has Adversaries. Every Hero has Allies. Every Hero faces insurmountable obstacles and perseveres. Every Hero undergoes changes or training to become who they are. The parallels to real life are there if you look for them. So let's begin at the beginning...

The origin of my comic book store began over three years ago. I had just been outsourced from a major Semiconductor company to one of the top IT Services companies. It was going to be a badge flip. One day I had an employee badge, the next day I had a contractor badge. Same job for the most part, different company. But I knew that it couldn't last long. The IT Services company had signed a contract that said they would keep our salary and benefits comparable for the first two years of the contract. There is no way that they could keep us for long and make a profit. So I started planning for next career.

At the same time, I flew out to Indiana for my brother's wedding. It was close to my birthday, so my kids bought me some comics for the flight. They were Batman comics. One with the Joker. One with Nightwing. It was smack dab in the middle of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's Hush run of Batman. The art was amazing, like Neal Adam's Batman from the 70s. Jeph Loeb had the characters nailed. The Joker issue had mostly internal dialog and summed up the entire relationship between Batman and the Joker in one issue. I was hooked. I had been out of comics for 8 years. I was back in.

Working in a doomed job, my mind kept coming back to the question that all career counselors ask you, "If you won the lottery, what would you do?” My answer was I'd own a comic book store. I told my wife one day. She said "Why not?". I started bringing up my doubts. Can I make a living as a comic book store owner? What if I fail? Can I work for another 30 years as a comic book store owner? Will comic books be around much longer? What if I decide it isn't what I want to do? Then she said the one thing that I couldn't argue with "But it would make you happy".

So I started working on eliminating all the doubts. I researched the comic book stores out there. I started researching the industry from a retailer perspective. I started researching what it took to own and run a business. Two years ago, I created my company and started ordering my comics from the largest comic book distributor in the US. I started out as an online retailer. I started making the rounds to the conventions and found out that I loved talking to comic book creators. I also found out that I love the taste of shoe leather as I constantly put my foot in my month. Five weeks ago, my wife and I stepped out of cyberspace and opened up a physical store. Today, I start my blog where I can talk about my comic book store owner experiences and all my fan boy faux pas.