 The ADD Blog Flashmob Fridays A Criminal Blog Kochalkaholic!
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So, how does one enter the glamorous world of comic book retailing? It’s pretty much the same as anything -- being in the right place at the right time. Time to step into the wayback machine turn the dial to 1987 and be advised that all names (with the exception of mine and my store's name) have been changed for whatever reason one changes names in columns like this. Every Friday my good friend Rick (not his real name) and I made our weekly pilgrimage to the comic stores. We usually started at Earthworld Comics (actually it’s real name, and yeah I’ve never been a huge fan of the name either.) At the time it carried all releases from Marvel and DC with a few independent books we were interested in. We then went down the street to the other comic store Fabulousworld (not it’s real name) and picked up some of the things that Earthworld didn’t get or get in yet. On the way home, we’d stop at Amazingland (nope, not it’s real name either) and find a book or two that wasn’t at either place. We’d pick up a bunch of stuff at one and some at another stores. It wasn’t a question of loyalty to one store or another. This was before the age of one distributor, and depending which one serviced your local store, some books hit different stores at different times. All stores got the majority of Marvel and DC the same week, but at the time, some of the DC deluxe series -- like Watchmen, a week before the other. One Friday, Skippy and Rusty (Guess what? Not their real names) the owners of Earthworld took us aside and said that they were looking to sell the store and they were making the offer to a few people they knew would make the place work. Skippy was going into his family business and Rusty wanted to move out of state and back home. Both Rick and I were interested, and we went back to talk to our wives about the opportunity. Where Rick’s wife eventually agreed to take the step, my wife at the time wasn’t so sure. While it was the right place, it wasn’t the right time. The ink was just drying on the mortgage of the new house we had just moved into. Also, my wife was on maternity leave after the birth of our second child, so money was a bit tight. She felt that if this business didn’t succeed, we’d lose our house. Reluctantly, I had to agree, it wasn’t the right time for us. So Rick struck a deal with Skippy and Rusty and in about a month took over the store. I’d stop in a day or so during the week to hang with Rick and help out a bit. Rick hit the ground running and began to add more product lines into the store. He started to add more independent books, as well as T-shirts, toys and novelties to the store’s inventory. He also added a distributor to make our shop a one-stop comic shop, to eliminate the need for fans to make trips to other stores. About two weeks after Rick bought the store, I was told that my job was being eliminated and I was unceremoniously shown the door. We were in trouble, my wife was on maternity leave and aside from my unemployment, there would be no money coming into the house. That’s when Rick came to the rescue. Since running a business takes a lot out of a guy and since Rick wasn’t keen on working every day, he offered me a part time position. Being the decent guy he is, paid me a bit more than he should have. It takes a few weeks to get your first unemployment check, and we were waiting for my wife’s first disability check. If not for Rick, we would had had NO money coming into our house for a month -- not a great scenario, considering we were going on our second month in the house and had a newborn child. It worked out well; I’d work a day or two and had time to spend at home with the family. When my wife went back to work, it was decided that I would stay at home with the kids and work at the store on her days off. At this time we used both Big Boy Distribution and Comics R US (again, not using their real names). During this time new comics arrived on Fridays. Big Boy Distribution delivered on Thursday nights for which we stayed open late. Comics R US arrived sometime during the night using a key we’d provide them with, so when we got in early on Friday we’d be ready before opening. About a year later, Rick went through some major personal problems, which distracted him from the business. And the business began to suffer. There were days Rick would come into work hours late or at times, not at all. Phone and electric bills weren’t paid, and worse, invoices from Comics R Us went unpaid. We were C.O.D. (Cash on delivery for the novices out there) with Big Boy Distribution, however we were on a Net 14 terms (We had to pay the invoice in full fourteen days from receipt of the items) with Comics R Us. The invoices from Comics R Us were piling up and it got to a point where we hadn’t paid them for about five weeks. (Nowadays there is no way Diamond would ever let an account go over their terms without a payment and would stop shipping books immediately.) And after a few weeks of unsuccessful tries to get a loan to cover these mounting debts, Rick knew he either had to sell or declare bankruptcy. Rick decided he finally wanted out. I liked the store, it was small and dumpy, but it became almost a second home. Since I’d been there almost two years, I also saw what sold, what didn’t. I also saw what pitfalls to avoid and knew I could turn this store profitable. I knew this was the right place and the right time. The only thing I had to do was convince my wife. And as any guy will tell you, trying to convince a woman to try something new can be a long, frustrating ordeal. After a lot of hesitation and resistance, she finally relented. I talked to Rick about buying the store, we agreed on a price and how to work the transition. Then it happened. Comics R US had enough. They wanted their money. And they wanted it now. One of the owners of Comics R US, a man by the name of William Smith ( yep, you guessed it, not his real name.) called Rick and told him he would not be getting books this week. To make matters worse it came on a week where it seemed ALL the hot books people were waiting for were coming in, including the first issue of a title simply called Spider-Man by a guy named McFarlane. And it was a book everyone was looking for. And if we didn’t have it to sell, along with the deluge of other titles, we may as well pack it in. Rick even said at one point, “I think this place is finished.” Because this invoice was so big, and the amount we owed was large, there was no way Comics R US would extend any further credit. Rick spent a long time talking on the phone to the Comics R Us service manager. Rick advised them that the store was being taken over a new owner and the loss of a few weeks of delivery would kill the deal and that they wouldn’t get their money. After some major pleading Rick was able to convince them to send a portion of our order. We spent some time on the phone with them adjusting quantities of titles we ordered. They were literally taking books out of the boxes being shipped to us. As I’d been there for some time and had kept my eyes open, I had a good idea of how the cash flow in the store worked. I knew if we were able to get the books on Friday, we’d be able to pay them off by Monday. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith wouldn’t have it that way; too many of our checks got returned. He said he would be sending his driver down on Thursday and if we didn’t give him a check for the books, the driver would not drop them off. I knew we couldn’t give them a check -- they would deposit it on Friday and it would bounce. All we needed was to get the books and a two grace period. It's very early in the morning on Friday and I'm waiting for the driver from Comics R Us. About 1:45 AM he drives up to the store. He walks into the store without any books asking if I have a check for him. I held up a check and then placed it in an envelope, then licked it shut. I then "knocked" my elbow on the edge of the counter and dropped the envelope behind the register. I bent over and picked up a second envelope I had on the floor behind the counter and gave that one to the driver. He took it and then proceeded to bring in the boxes of books. What was in the second envelope? It was a letter of introduction to William Smith along with a heartfelt apology for no check. I explained in the letter that there was no way we could give them a check at that time since we knew that it would not clear. I added that I would send a check or money order first thing Monday morning. Friday morning comes and I get a call at home around noon from Rick saying he just received a phone call from William Smith and understandably, he wasn’t pleased. The second I hung up the phone it rang and it was William Smith. He was obviously angry and feeling like he had been scammed. And I really couldn’t blame him. Here he was expecting some sort of payment and instead gets a story from someone he’s never heard of claiming to be the new owner of the store. I apologized and told him that there was no way that I could present him a check that wasn’t any good. That wasn’t the way I do business and I promised him that he would receive his payment by Tuesday. William, he had no choice but to wait for the money I promised him, but he wasn’t happy with this situation and let me know in no uncertain terms. I remember him saying “I don’t know who you are, but this is not a good way to introduce yourself .” So you better believe first thing Monday morning, I overnighted him a money order. Since I didn’t have enough money to buy out the store outright from Rick, one of the terms of the sale of the store was for me to assume the debt from Comics R US. I would also have to give Comics R US a check every week for the invoice. If I bounced a check, it would be cash on delivery only. They set up a payment plan where I would give them an extra $200.00 a week towards that debt. Some weeks where we did really well, I’d send them a bit more. Every week I’d call and one of the girls there would give me the invoice total. Almost a year later, when I called for the total, I was told that I knocked down the debt to the point where my account was now up to date. I was then told my account was now where I only had to pay the invoice from the previous fourteen days. I didn’t really talk to Mr. Smith much after then, aside from one or two major problems I would run into. He sent a letter along with the order form every month, advising retailers on different things like being careful on ordering too many books with multiple covers and to order with our heads and not over them. While other distributors would say that this new release was red hot and you had to have lots of copies for your stores, William wasn’t afraid to tell you when the Emperor wasn’t wearing clothes. I ran into William Smith about two years after that, at a Diamond retailer seminar. I never met the man in person before, so I went up to introduce myself. He looked at my name badge and I saw a look of recognition on his face. “You’re one of my accounts” he said. As we shared an elevator, he turned to me and told me how much he appreciated me paying off the debt that we owed his company, and added “that was a very honorable thing you did.” Since then I’ve learned that situations like Rick’s are not uncommon with some distributors, where some comic stores that do close often leave a huge debt to their distributors. We talked and he was a very pleasant and knowledgeable man. He introduced me to a few people at Diamond and told them to take care of me and that I was one of the “good ones.” A year later he (along with most others) sold his distribution company to Diamond. I’m not sure where William is right now which is too bad because he had a keen business acumen and a insight to this industry I haven’t seen since. My daughter was now two and going to daycare and I went to work full time for the first time in two years. I now owned my own business. That meant I got to run the store my way, and carry the kind of stuff I wanted to. I opened the door of my new store. Went behind the counter and began unpack some merchandise to put out. My first customer of the day was a young kid around 10 or so, he looked around for a while and left. When I looked over to the area where he was I noticed that one of the boxes of Topps Baseball Traded sets that I had just put out not more than fifteen minutes ago was now missing. I was now, for better or worse, a business owner. In the right place and the right time. J.C. Glindmyer is the owner of Earthworld Comics in Albany, NY
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