You could very well say that my opinion on opening this store changes with the tide. One day I am scared beyond all belief, the next day’s not so bad. Today so far (at 6:30am) ain’t too bad.

One thing I am recognizing on a lot of the communication channels for comics (aka message boards, forums, etc) is the lack of availability of comics. Funny, huh? The one thing fans complain about the most (maybe not one thing, but one of the things) is that when a book sells out at their local retailer, it is pretty much sold out for good. They have very little recourse for picking up a missed book aside from hitting the dreaded ebay. Now mind you I love ebay. It is a larger flea market than any of us probably ever could have imagined. But as everyone knows, ebay is rife with opportunism. When a comic reader goes to ebay for a missed book, the seller knows the reader missed the book in the store, and is coming to ebay because he can’t find it anywhere else. The rule of thumb is no one buys new books on ebay unless they have to.

Now unfortunately the local shop situation has grown from ebay, despite having been around for 20 years longer. A local shop sees sellers on ebay getting $10 for Civil War #2, so they mark up Civil War #2 to $10 also. Nevermind the fact that the book has only been on store shelves for 4 weeks. Of course the reasoning behind this markup, to be fair, is that Civil War #2 is sold out at practically every local store. So if a store happens to have any issues left to markup, it is by sheer luck. Nevertheless it is still the buyer/reader who is left in the cold. He wasn’t able to make it to the store in the first 3 weeks, and now he is left paying a 300% markup.

THIS is exactly why I want to get into the market. To prevent THIS sort of thing. Well, not prevent it, but at least help those who don’t want to pay insane amounts for books that are sold out elsewhere. I want to make sure that if Civil War #5 (the first issue I’ll have in stock) is sold out everywhere else, that someone doesn’t have to resort to ebay to pick up a copy for $15.

THAT is pretty exciting, and what has me in a good mood about things today. That I will actually (hopefully) be doing the industry some good.