GCP
Virtual purveyor of Invisible Art.
I don't know if there will be a next attendance at the Academy due to lack of sales / interest. If you think I should come back mail me - I'll write up a summary of my adventures in retail one day soon.
Galacic Central point is a non profit organisation - should this change I'll let you know!
If you wan't to take advantage of "our" special returns policy but can't find me in real life mail me at kettlecup@tesco.net
Tuesday 28th November report.
This week I sold a few more classics like a Maus I and II, that Hardback Kafka book from KSP - you lucky bastards!
I'm not making money but I am going to restock and keep attending intermittently, I also want to find out the reading list for the "graphic novel" component of the English degree at Manchester - I'd like to be able to provide the right stuff at the right time at a discount to those in the course. I noticed that women kept picking up "The Playboy" by Chester Brown and then giving me what seemed to be dissaproving looks so I was glad when someone bought it. It reminded me of last time when someone took one look at the swastika on the front of Maus and asked if I had a copy of "Mein Kampf".
Tuesday 14th November report.
This week I sold less stuff than last week and I generally had a slightly less exciting time - shame because I now have my distibutor sorted out so I can reorder stuff including Sandman. Someone asked me how much for all my Cerebus books but we couldn't agree. I sold my copy of Cerebus which I have had for about 12 years. There's a story behind that book, if you are the new owner and want to know the history of it mail me with subject line "Birdshit".
As it says above I will not be at the Academy next week - I'm "needed" at work. I'll see you on the 28th which is going to be my last market 'til after Christmas. If you come here and read this please mail to let me know as I haven't got one of those counters.
Tuesday 7th November report.
Sold some stuff, met some folks, this isn't going to be a full time job by the look of it which raises some interesting distribution problems that I am working through. I met a lot of Sandman fans - bad news for them is that when my Sandman books are gone I can't see how I will replace them without paying full rrp so get 'em while they're hot.
The books that got the most interest today were Sandman, Maus and anything cheap! Save up for next time you lot because the cheap stuff is the another thing that I can't source at similar prices.
And now the news you have all been dying to hear - I will definitely be at the next market at the Academy next Tuesday 14th November without fail (already paid the rent) so be there, read as much as you like, ask as many questions as you can and maybe, just maybe, buy something. I will not hassle you so if you want to talk about comics like I do you will have to break the ice!
On to the whys and wherefores of my latest great idea:
My latest project is to become a comics retailer, but to unboldly go into it in a half arsed manner without risking a thing. I'm not leaving work, and I'm not buying much stock.
Increasingly it seems that nobody has taken any notice of what needs to be done to save comics from itself and a number of things have led me to these drastic measures. Most instrumental in my decision was a cartoonist called Chris Ware.
Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library from Fantagraphics is an absolute sensation, in a time when everyone seems to think that comics should go back to basics and hang on to the market that they already have Ware stamps all over the traditions of the medium. For example Acme Novelty Library has so far in its thirteen issue run varied in size from 18"x11" to 7"x6" proving a logistical nightmare for everyone from publisher, printer distributor, retailer and reader. The price varies too, from $3.95 to $12.95 and so does everything else; sometimes it reprints Wares old strips, sometimes its all original, the content and style vary as does the presentation. The only thing that doesn't vary is the quality of the material and Ware's extraordinary draughtsmanship which has to be seen to be believed.
So by now you're wondering why Acme Novelty Library led to my reanimating the corpse of the long dead "selling comics at student bazaars" monster. Well the reason is that Acme is selling like hot cakes and it's selling to people who haven't ever read a comic before. I'm convinced that Ware's disregard for the perceived "rules" of the industry is the main reason he has broken out of the comics "ghetto" - the same people who bought Maus ten years ago becuase it was published by Penguin and won a Pullitzer prize will be out in force next year buying Jimmy Corrigan (the first Acme collection, also from a "real" book publisher, Pantheon).
Everyone who bought Maus, had to hear about it somewhere. For some of us it was in a comics shop or in the comics press but for most Maus readers it was in the mainstream press. Books like Love and Rockets, Sandman, From Hell, Eightball, Hate, Palestine, and particularly Watchmen have all had mainstream press coverage and a large number of people would have bought them if they had seen them but they don't go into comics shops and who can blame them? Everytime I want to but the latest Acme or Stray Bullets or True Swamp or THB or Louis Riel or Penny Century or The Atomics or Cerebus or whatever I have to go to the back of the basement of the only comic shop in the city - and I live in Manchester! It's never been harder to find good new comics. The good stuff normally comes out sporadically and is scattered sparingly amongst the shit that still comes out every month. Its still hard to find the needle only now the whole haystack has been moved into the basement, the ground floor being devoted to film posters, Simpsons videos, Star Wars models, South Park masks; I'm not knocking the shop - its owners aren't experimenting with their days off like I am, they have to make the shop profitable. However I do think that this sort of set up will ultimately choke comics to death becuase the people who shop upstairs aren't the same people as the ones downstairs and they are definitely not the same people who read about From Hell in the Observer and wonder where they can get a copy.
Which is where I come in - as some of you know I always wanted to sell my recommendations to students at those student markets - it's was all I ever wanted and the fucking bank wouldn't lend me £1500 for stock so I had to get a proper job. Well now my proper job is getting boring and every bank and his dog wants to lend me money so I might go for it. I'm starting out by taking the books I've already bought and read to the Academy on Tuesdays and if they sell I'm going to do what I originally planned to do ten years ago which is to keep myself stocked up with good collections (no single issues) and travel wherever they'll have me. I think it should be easy to sell stufff like Acme and Sandman and Understanding Comics and V for Vendetta, the masterpieces of the comics medium to intelligent people who quite understandably have never set foot in a comics shop, an unappealling outpost of the squallid ghetto that the comics industry has become.(Stay tuned for a full GCP report on this my favourite subject, the ghettoisation of comics.)
So why am I telling you this? Just getting the ball rolling - before you know it you'll be able to come here to find out when I'll be where, see what I'm recommending, check what is selling well, sample our recommendations, purchase online, submit work for publication by our publishing wing, contact one of our hundreds of friendly and helpful staff, etc.
Or maybe not.
But for now, if you'd like to buy an "as new" hardback copy of Charles Burns' El Borbah at a very reasonable price I'll see you at the Academy on Oxford Road on Tuesday.
UPDATE : We regret to inform you that El Borbah was one of the first to go.
Mail me at kettlecup@tesco.net
Paper FAQ handed out at markets.
GCP guides