Comics in Middletown, USA

It looks like Newsarama may turn their recent talks with new comic shop owners Jason Pierce and Tim Holman into something of an occasional series. That might prove very interesting; I was after the Comics Journal to do something on retail start-up earlier this year, but the editors decided to pass. As retailer Brian Hibbs once reminded me, we know very little about how direct market business mechanisms work, and I'm interested in finding out more. I don't expect Newsarama to ask the same questions I might, but I'm sure there will be a lot to infer.

The weird thing is that this store is in the town I was born and raised: Muncie, Indiana. So I may from time to time have sort of a different view on some of the details.

Take the location selected for the store: it's not really a proper Mall but a small shopping center that most people pass on their way to the popular Muncie Mall. My memory is such that to call it high-traffic, as has been asserted, is to be very generous. When you can see the location it requires a difficult left-hand turn to get in; half the drive-by traffic won't see the location because of the location's structural layout, which effectively cuts off any generous view for westbound traffic until you're just past. The good things about the location are that it's on the prosperous North Side, it has parking, and it's near the town's longest-running sort-of counter-cultural institution, Stonehenge Records, where my friends used to buy bongs.

I'd be interested in knowing if the retailers have stocked any manga (the last time I visited my hometown in 2002, all my friends' kids were crazy about the stuff), and how they plan on competing with Bob's Comic Castle and The Wizard's Keep, which unless they've closed are the two shops in town that work the same hobby areas these guys seem to be shooting for.

One more thing: as students of sociology know, Muncie is the famous "Middletown USA," and has been studied to death as a model of American tastes and views. I don't know if it's by accident, but this makes the store a pretty good choice for a longer, sustained look.
 
posted 6:45 am PST | Permalink
 

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