Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Tuesdays have been terribly slow, lately. Just like the old days. Yesterday, however, was kickin'. I think it's because there are Thanksgiving week visitors. Not so much kids; I didn't even realize the kids were out of school until late afternoon. No, it was mostly 20 - 30 year olds who commented on how stocked my store was.

I had a couple of scruffy pairs of guys in early, both of which said, "Great store!" One of them said, "I travel all over, and I can't find this stuff."

I thanked them, but didn't think much of it. Like I said, they were pretty scruffy.

Then they started piling up the toys. Preacher toys, Smallville set, an 85.00 Superman doll.

The other guy piled up about 85.00 worth of indy graphic novels.

"Are you guys in a band?" I ask.

"Yeah, we're playing before Gwar."

Later, they came back with another couple of bandmates and or roadies who spent some more.

Then later, I got this really big guy and a friend, and they started buying. At a guess, I asked, "You guys in GWAR?"

They laughed, "Is it obvious? You've got a great store here, and I'm not just blowin' smoke."

Anyway, between them, they probably spent half the money in my store yesterday.

I should have asked them to mention our store onstage.

Probably wouldn't have done any good.

It's always been sort of an interesting phenomenon to me. For instance, while I can't seem to sell graphics to the younger folk who play video games, I do seem to sell quite a lot to the slightly older guys who actually make the video games. Same thing with Hollywood types. They're tuned into how cool all this stuff is, how imaginative.

I wish I could figure out how to add images to this blog, but some of the other comic oriented blogs remind me every day how astounding the art is in our industry by publishing little snippets. Great stuff.

Instead, I'll get someone in who asks if I have any art? And I just look at him and say, "Yeah, er, look around."

"No," he says. "Real art."

What's that? Exactly? No I don't have any Van Gogh, or Jackson Pollack. "Give me the name of an artist?" I ask. But they can't really describe what they're looking for.

As far as I'm concerned, I have a pretty broad range of art in my store. Do I have whatever the current art scene in New York dictates is art? Maybe. I know I have some pretty cutting edge graphics. You have to understand, that unless you've tuned in lately -- YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT COMIC ART IS!

Besides....

What is art?

But I'd think anyone who is truly interested in art, would find something to intrigue him in my store, if he has an open mind and eyes to see.

1 comment:

dkgoodman said...

While you're in the post editor, there are a row of little tools you can use, like making text bold or italic. Between the 'abc checkmark' spellchecker tool and the 'filmstrip' tool for adding video is a picture tool for adding graphics. Try that one. :)