My name’s John Hendrick. I’m the owner/manager of The 3rd Place, an independently owned and run comic book store here in Dublin, Ireland. The shop first opened its doors for business three and a half years ago and since then I’ve gradually been trying to broaden the horizons of both my business and myself in relation to the rest of the industry. I’m pleased to say in the last year things have really picked up on both fronts. But I’ll get into that later.
What I really want to focus on is the why factor. To me it’s the most important part of this game. Why the hell did I end up doing this for a living? Up until recently I wasn’t even sure I could answer this but now I can give you the only real answer there is.
I love comic books.
I do, I really, really do. I still view comic books the same way now that I did when I was six years old getting copies of the old UK Transformers and Marvel Superhero books every week down the local newsagents. Well, stealing my brother’s copies at least (this is still a sore topic at home). I still get the biggest kick every Wednesday when those beautifully packaged boxes arrive at the door with their amazing and extraordinary coloured ink soaked pages waiting to be relieved from their box and put on the shelf for a reader to take them home.
It’s like Christmas every Wednesday. And if you don’t have that love, then waiting from one Wednesday to the next for the maelstrom of ideas infused between a cover with the help of a couple staples that is the Diamond delivery just isn’t for you. Which in a round about way kind of brings me to the main point of this article in particular. Why open a comic store?
You see, as a rule, I look at things from the negative end of the spectrum. I don’t know why I do, but I do. I found that if you don’t expect much but things go well nonetheless then you get a great big surprise and that’s cool; but if it all goes down the pan, then you get to save yourself the disappointment. I look at work the same way. Even though I have such a huge amount of love for this industry, every time I read a new book or a press release about a new creative team or title, even just a note about how this comic by writer X will have a guest slot by writer Y in it, I always ask the same question. Why?
I look at this whole thing as a game. From doing my orders to selling the books, it’s always a gamble. Will I have enough of this and what if I have too much of that? Will everyone be happy? Will I actually get a day off this week? All these things frantically rush through my mind all the time, especially in and about work. I’ve found this to be a common trait in many of my fellow retailers; well, those that actually give a shit about what they do and aren’t in it for the money. Because I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there isn’t as much of it out there as you may think.
TRUST ME ON THIS ONE.
If you think that this is an easy way to make a living, sit around, chat with your mates and drink tea all day, you’re damn wrong. You see, what we are is specialty retailers. That means we’re not a mass market; which means that unless you’re lucky enough to be in a massive population centre you just don’t have as many customers as the clothes shop down the road, or the supermarket, or the news agent. Can you get what I’m saying here? No matter how many amazing things you think this industry has to offer you or your friends and the rest of the world, they just don’t need what you sell.
They can’t eat it, it won’t keep their family warm and you generally can’t share them (because you want them all). They’re comic books. They’re the greatest thing in the world but they’re also the bane of my life. And yours too whether you know it or not.
That’s the reality of it. (sorry, I mentioned the R word). What you or I care for so much is classed as a luxury item or at best a piece of entertainment that rarely lasts longer than 20 minutes. A lot of the non comic buying public out there don’t even get that half the movies they go to on an average Saturday night are inspired or ripped off from stuff we’ve been reading for years and the other half are licensed properties that make Hollywood a ridiculous amount of cash but happen to bypass the actual creators of the theme or storyline. I mean how much money have the Batman movies grossed as a whole? You can bet it’s in the hundreds of millions at least.
It’s really funny too. Recently I was talking to a friend of mine and he told me he was trying to get his collection insured but couldn’t because, apparently, what I sell are considered to be undesirable goods. Heinous, I know, but that serves as a good example to all of us in the know of how comics are perceived. When Kids associate Spidey with their Happy Meal instead of a comic book you know we’re in trouble.
That’s where people like me come in. Or at least should. Retailers are, or should be, your connection to the distributors, publishers and creators. We are the ones who choose to graft at what we love and spread the word to those of you out there who have never been exposed to such a rich environment of limitless genres. We are the ones who should be able to honestly tell you if a book is worth its cover price or if you’d prefer the latest offering from one of our favourites. We’re the ones whose job it is to know about the smaller hidden gems like MORA or ELKS RUN just as much as what the story in the latest ULTIMATES or BATMAN is. We are meant to be informed, and up until recently I always found that lacking.
That’s why I did what I did. That’s why I left the sanctuary of Forbidden Planet and started off on a lifetime of stress, order forms and, now it appears, deadlines. And I’m still falling behind on all three; some days there really aren’t enough hours to fit it all in, but that’s why tomorrow was invented.
And that’s what I meant by the last year improving in leaps and bounds. Dublin was considered by many readers a bit stale and stagnant. Not many people were happy with the status quo held here because in terms of comic related events and promotions it was a barren wasteland. The same old people were out there, furthering their own agendas and points of view, not doing anything unless they got something out of it for themselves, which is the mistake a lot of people make in this game.
Comic books are not just a hobby, they’re a community of people from all walks of life; unfortunately at the moment it can be quite hard to meet people with the same interest. When the average comic book reader goes out on Friday night, 9 times out of 10 you can bet that they aren’t going to be able to talk about the latest issue of Astonishing X-Men or guess who Mockingbird is in Villains United. No, their friends are going to want to talk about football or music or something that, while may be interesting to them, does not hold the magic we all know comic books do.
That’s why people like us had to re-evaluate the way we do business. It’s not about offering a service anymore, it’s about providing a means to readers. A means to fully develop the comic book culture that’s alive in every city; but it’s often one that’s asleep.
Here and now it’s awake. And it’s about time.
For all these reasons, I hate the general stereotypes of our communal home, the comic book shop. This is something that myself and Bruno, from Kingpin of Comics shop in Lisbon, were discussing online recently. People think some crazy ass things when they think of comic book stores.
A) Comic stores are where the socially inept and smelly overweight men hang out.
B) No girls ever come in to comic book stores.
C) Comic stores are full of geeks.
D) All comic store owners look like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons and still live at home with their mothers.
E) Comic Book Stores are always dirty.
Well, if that’s what you think, you are so wrong it’s ridiculous. What we sell are not essential goods. As I said earlier they can’t feed or clothe us, they can’t shelter us, but what they can do is open up a whole new world to us.
That’s WHY I opened up a comic store. That’s my reason. I love it all. The stress from it, the pride in it, but most of all I love all of the friends that I’ve been lucky enough to make from it.
If you’re looking to work short hours and keep your interest in comics to yourself don’t do what I do.
If you’re not worried by a 60-80 hour week and won’t miss weekends that you will never see again and have an OK ability to absorb and work your way through stress I heartily encourage you to get in this business.
It’s a killer.
But it’s the sweetest assassin on the planet.
John Hendrick was born in Dublin in 1981. He first got into Comic Books by stealing them from his 2 older brothers. After starting to work in various comic book stores from the age of 13 he soon realized that this was all he was good at and set up his own comic book store. The 3rd Place opened on the 4th of December 2001 and thankfully has not gone bankrupt yet.
He likes women, alcohol, stalking z list celebrities and oh yeah, Comic Books