My Life With Comic Books: Part # 95

Cast of characters:
Paul: age 39
Mal: my wife
Adam: age 15
Cassy: age 10

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 95

While my whole family was watching television together we saw a brief commercial advertising a new attraction at Walt Disney World in Florida. The commercial was “hyping” the new, cutting-edge virtual reality interactive attraction at EPCOT. Adam was really intrigued by this and he asked if we could go to see it. Cassy had seen a commercial advertising a new attraction based on the popular movie of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and she wanted to see that. We hadn’t been to Disney World for a while and we knew that we would not be able to afford many of these kinds of expensive vacations once Adam started to go to Lexington Christian Academy because of the high tuition expense. We asked our kids if they wanted to invite two of their friends to come along with us and we all agreed that it would be nice to travel with two of our neighbor’s children, Nathan and Laura Daman. The Daman family had been friends of ours for quite a long time and we had shared the car-pooling duties to and from The Imago School for many years. We knew that the Daman family couldn’t spend the money for air travel to Florida because they had three children in private school, so we planned to drive our mini-van the 1500 miles to Disney World. Nathan and Laura were excited because they had never been to Disney World and my kids were happy to share this vacation with them.

We planned to leave early one morning in August but for some reason, once we had the van all packed up the night before, we changed our mind and decided to leave right then. Since the kids were all excited to go they were easy to convince. Mal and I each drove while the other slept and we ended up driving twenty five hours straight and we arrived in Orlando Florida earlier then we had anticipated. We had rented a large trailer in the same trailer park where Mal’s sister, Ginny, lived, so it was ready for us even though we got there early. The next day we got ready early and as usual, we arrived at Disney World before the park opened so we’d have a full day of “park time.” We headed directly to EPCOT and found the new attraction, “Innoventions” to try out the new virtual reality thing. We were the first group of the day to arrive there.

While we were waiting for the doors to open I began chatting with the Disney employee at the door. He told us that the virtual reality glasses were valued at $125,000 each and he explained how “cool” the virtual reality game experience would be. Then to my astonishment, he explained that only four people from each group of one hundred and fifty “guests” would actually get the opportunity to try this game! I told him that this virtual reality game was really the major reason that we made this long trip to Disney World and that I thought the television commercials were very deceptive because it appeared as if all of the “guests” would get to have this experience. The employee made it clear that there would be no possibility of our whole group getting to try this game. We all discussed this situation and we agreed that if only one of us could do it, it would be Adam. The employee was smart enough to sense our disappointment so he assured us that Adam would be chosen. Even though I didn’t personally get to try it, it was exciting to see Adam have so much fun.

The next day when we went to MGM Studios to see the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” attraction we were unable to pre-arrange it so that Cassy would be chosen to be part of the audience participation part. When we got there we were ushered into the attraction with a large group of other “guests.” We had tried to prepare Cassy in advance so she wouldn’t be too disappointed if she wasn’t chosen to “ride the giant bee” in the show and she seemed to understand. When the Disney “cast member” asked for volunteers from the crowd, dozens of kids raised their hands. For some unknown reason, both Cassy and Laura were chosen! Both of my children had a great vacation and Nathan and Laura had fun too.

In the fall of 1994 my son, Adam, was to begin attending Lexington Christian Academy for high school. This prestigious school was located near Boston and my wife was going to have to make the nearly one hour (each way) commute to get Adam there and pick him up at the end of each school day. It would mean almost four hours of driving just for Adam and we would still have to get our daughter, Cassandra, to The Imago School each day when it was our turn to drive in the carpool with the Daman family. Mal was not looking forward to this nightmarish schedule. A week before Adam’s school started classes we were presented with a list of all of the families with children attending the school. Mal contacted the Tedeski family, who lived one town away from us, and suggested a carpooling possibility. They had already committed with another family but they agreed to also drive Adam on their “designated” days. Mr. Tedeski drove to our home to pick Adam up in the morning even though it was out of his way. The other family involved in the carpool was not as cooperative. They insisted that Adam would have to be driven to their house on the mornings that it was “their turn” to drive even though it was expected that we drive out of our way each afternoon to get their child home. We were just happy to reduce the driving requirement.

Adam fit in with the other students at Lexington Christian Academy right away. Most of the students were hard working, motivated and eager to be taught. It was “suggested” that all students should participate in the sports program and almost every student did. Adam’s former school didn’t offer any sports and Adam didn’t have much interest in joining the town leagues so he had very little athletic talents although he had played “T-Ball” and one season of little kids soccer. He reluctantly decided to join the junior-varsity soccer team. He went to every practice and played in almost every game but he only scored one goal in the whole season. He didn’t seem to mind because he enjoyed spending time with the other team members.

Adam was a fun guy and he made friends easily. His true passion was acting. The Imago School had made acting fun for Adam and in the eighth grade he was the lead actor in the musical, “Rags to Riches.” Chris Greicco, a dedicated and creative teacher, taught Adam drama at Lexington Christian Academy. Before Adam went to high school his desire was to be an actor. It didn’t matter what he would act in. Film, television or theatre was fine. But once he was taught and directed by Chris Greicco his interest became mainly theatre.

My daughter, Cassy, was now in the fourth grade at The Imago School and she had many friends at the school. A new girl, Bethany, came into Cassy’s class this year. Cassy had noticed Bethany’s name on the Imago School family list and she had called to arrange for Bethany to come over to our house to play before the school year started since she lived very close by. For some reason they didn’t hit it off on this first time together but by the middle of the year they really became “best friends.” Bethany was a fun, giggly, girl and when Cassy and Bethany got together they laughed most of the time.

Next chapter: I prepare to “retire” from my comic book business.
Pictures: Adam using Disney's virtual reality gear and Cassy riding the Honey I Shrunk The Kids giant bee

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 94

Cast of Characters:
Paul: age 39
Mal: my wife

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 94

While the nation-wide sales of comic books and sports cards declined, we were fortunate enough to discover new products to add to our store inventory so that our gross sales figures were stable. “Magic The Gathering” cards were the hottest selling product in the specialty stores like mine and we were able to establish relationships with numerous distributors to maintain a good, continuing supply for our eager customers. We sold all of our supply at low prices while most of our competitors began to charge huge premiums above “suggested list price” on packs of these cards. We knew that this would benefit us in the long run because our customers would realize that we were honorable and we could be trusted to sell our products at the lowest possible prices. We try hard to think long-term.

There was a company in Hawaii that manufactured a juice called “Passion Orange Guava Juice.” This was combination of these three fruits. Underneath the bottle top they included a round cardboard disk with an illustration on it. These disks were nicknamed “POGS” and thousands of Hawaiians began to collect them. Eventually, the company created a simple game that included these POGS as game pieces.

The game could be played with two to six players. One at a time, each player would stack one of his POGS, image face down, in the center of a playing area until about ten to twelve POGS are in the stack. A player then throws a thicker POG, called a “slammer,” on top of the stack attempting to turn over as many POGS as possible in his turn. The player “wins” the POGS that flip face up. The next player restacks the remaining POGS and repeats the process. The winner of the game is the player who was able to turn over the most POGS. The game became very popular in Hawaii and some clever entrepreneur began to distribute these POGS into the rest of the United States. Other companies began to manufacture similar game piece disks that could be used in the game. There were POGS with pictures of birds, flags, animals and flowers. As these POGS became more popular, the companies began to license images of Star Wars, NASCAR, comic book heroes, television cartoon shows, and hundreds more. The game of POGS caught on with mostly young children and it became a national obsession. Part of the reason that these were so popular with kids was that they retailed for a nickel or a dime each and any kid could afford to buy them. Adults also bought POGS to play with and some people even bought them to just “collect.”

My store began buying POGS from various suppliers. We bought most of the POGS in “bulk” boxes of 1000 assorted styles for two cents per POG and put a sign in our store windows advertising that we had these available. Crowds of customers streamed in to dig through our large boxes of POGS. This game had now really caught on with young-teens and it seemed as if every school playground had regular POG games going.

Within a few months, the craze had grown so big that we were now ordering new assortments three times each week. Some companies started manufacturing “deluxe” POGS with metallic finishes, 3D pictures and even holograms. These sold for more than the standard nickel. Some sold as high as twenty-five cents each. It may seem like it would be difficult to make much money on items that sell for a nickel or a quarter, but believe me, we sold thousands of these every few days. It was an exciting time because the kids loved the product. Sales remained strong on POGS for almost six months but Chris, my store manager, always ordered in an intelligent manner. It would certainly have been easier to just order a huge quantity of POGS at one time but he was content to order in smaller quantities a few times each week. This worked nicely because our customers now had a reason to come back to the store multiple times each week to see the new shipments. If we had ordered a ton of the POGS at one time, the customers would have seen everything the first time they came in and they’d have no enthusiasm to come back.

Without much warning, the public school system banned POGS from the schoolyards. Apparently someone thought the game of POGS seemed like gambling since players “won” the opponents POGS. Sales screeched to a halt because school is the main place that children get together and now they’d no longer be able to play POGS at school. Any area that was affected by this change in school policy saw sales of POGS drop by 90% within a few weeks. Many retailers got stuck with huge inventories of unwanted POGS because they ordered hundreds of thousands of them at a time, but not us. By the time the POG craze ended we had less than fifty dollars worth of inventory left. It was time to find “the next big thing.”

Next chapter: My son starts high school and my daughter finds a “best friend.”

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 93

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 39
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Dean Howley: 14 years old
Cassy Howley: 9 years old


MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 93

The end of 1993 brought lots of change to my circle of friends and family. I bought our first real personal computer for my family and presented it to our kids as a “big” family gift. I think it was a Packard Bell system that operated at a whopping 66 megahertz for an outrageous $3,000. In “the olden days” these computer systems were a nuisance to get ready to use. All of the software had to be loaded using multiple floppy discs. Luckily, we had Adam to tackle this task. Even though he had never used a computer before, he had a knack for putting electronic equipment together. Within thirty minutes it was up and running.

Adam was halfway through the eighth grade at The Imago School and they did not offer a high school program there. We knew that we had no interest in Adam attending the local public high school. I had gone there twenty years earlier and it wasn’t challenging to me at all. It was “common knowledge” that the schools had only gotten worse over the past two decades so we began to consider our options. We had heard good things about Lexington Christian Academy, a college preparatory high school located in a suburb of Boston. The tuition was over $10,000 per year but we discussed this as a family and determined that we would “sacrifice” our big family vacations in order to afford this challenging school for Adam. Adam toured the school and scheduled an appointment to take the entrance exam.

As we were driving to the school on the day of the entrance exam, we realized that the almost one hour commute to and from school each day was going to be horrible. The only practical way to get there was by the major highway Route 128, also known as “Dead Man’s Highway,” because of the poor design and crazy drivers traveling at over 80 miles per hour! I was still working at my comic book store in Worcester on a regular basis so I couldn’t commit to helping Mal with the school commuting. She would have to deal with getting Adam to his new school and Cassy to her school each day. This drive wouldn’t be pleasant but it was worth the aggravation to provide the superior educational opportunities for Adam.

Adam took the test and got the highest score of any of the incoming freshmen so he was offered a spot for the next school year. His test score also allowed him to take another test to determine if he was eligible for the “Headmaster’s Scholarship.” His score on this test was the highest and he was the recipient of this distinguished award. This scholarship would have been for a full, four-year tuition at Lexington Christian School but since my income was deemed to be too high, Adam received an annual stipend of $750.00. Obviously, it’s not quite the same, but every little bit would help. Most importantly, we were very proud of Adam.

Business at my two comic book and collectible stores was still growing. Baseball cards and comic book sales had dropped a bit but we got lucky enough to find a product that would sell enough to make up the difference. It was called “Magic The Gathering” and a small company called “Wizards of the Coast” created them. This was a trading card fantasy strategy game that was also collectible because the manufacturer deliberately printed less of certain cards to make them “rare.” A customer had requested these cards a few months before they were released so I was probably aware of them before most of my local competitors. I ordered ten full boxes and we sold all of them within a few weeks. Demand for these cards became intense and the prices rose quickly on the “short-printed” cards. We were able to get a few more small shipments of these cards but we certainly couldn’t keep up with the demand. Luckily, we had a good relationship with numerous distributors and they took good care of us with “Magic The Gathering” cards. By the time the second series of cards were released, we were pre-ordering over fifty boxes that had a retail value of over $100.00 each. These sold out within one day. When the third series came out we sold over one hundred boxes the first week. My Fitchburg store co-manager, Richard Ortwein (who had recently returned to work there after a short time away), was smart enough to alert the local media about this amazing new product and the local newspaper ran a large story about these cards and our great second store.

This also was the year (1993) that two of my favorite customers, Paul Dinsdale and Christine Carelli, got married. This was a big deal for me since I was involved in “setting them up.”

Next chapter: Do you remember “POGS?”

Picture: Adam receives the "Headmaster Scholarship For Academics" at Lexington Christian Academy

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 92

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 39
Mal Howley: my wife

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 92

As the president of Marvel Comics in the mid-1990’s, Terry Stewart proved that he had no interest in working in “partnership” with the comic book stores that made Marvel Comics the number one comic book publisher in the United States. Stewart reduced our discounts on the Marvel comic books we ordered each month. He also publicly stated to stockholders that his long-term goal was to sell directly to our customers so that Marvel wouldn’t have to share any of the profits with any of us. He had a “mail-order” catalog inserted into some Marvel comic books and insinuated that comic book shops were dangerous places to visit. He viewed us as unnecessary “middlemen” and worked hard to get rid of us. All of these changes irritated most comic book retailers but Stewart’s biggest mistake was the most destructive blunder for Marvel Comics. Stewart thought that the current group of independent distributors was not doing a good enough job promoting Marvel Comics so he authorized the purchase of a small, second-rate comic book distributor (Heroes World) in New Jersey. In his misguided plans, there was no reason to let the existing comic book distributors make a profit on the distribution of Marvel product.

Heroes World was made the exclusive distributor of the entire Marvel product line. Since Marvel produced almost 60% of the comic books in the United States, this move by Stewart adversely affected the remaining distributors who now lost 60% of their entire revenues! Diamond Comics Distributor immediately negotiated with some of the other comic book publishers to become the exclusive distributors for their respective companies. Most of the publishers understood that Diamond did a great job and they were the most financially stable distributor in the business. Many of these publishers signed up with Diamond Comics. Because of the enormous loss of revenue, this was the final “straw” for the remaining comic distributors and it wasn’t long before they all went out of business or were bought-out by Diamond. In the meantime, Heroes World struggled to figure out what they were up against. They went from a tiny distributorship handling a few hundred accounts to trying to process orders and take care of thousands of retailers overnight. They failed, miserably, on almost every detail. They lacked adequate personnel, phone lines, facilities, and employees who could actually count. Thousands of retailers complained about missing books from each weekly shipment. Frequently, the invoices were incorrect. Overall, it was a nightmare for the retailer. The retailer’s life was further complicated by now being forced to order from an “extra” distributor. For many years we were able to order almost all of the comic book-related products from one distributor. Now we were forced to deal with this inept group of unprofessional and ill-prepared people. Terry Stewart also began to charge shipping costs to each individual comic book store. Diamond Comics had spoiled us for many years as they offered us “free freight” for all of our regular weekly shipments. They offered us this in order to maintain their competitive edge over “Capital City Distribution” and the other smaller distributors. Now we found ourselves paying hundreds of dollars each week for shipping costs. Many retailers fought back by reducing their dependence on Marvel’s products. We cut our advance orders for Marvel comic books as low as we could without adversely affecting our customers. I was lucky because I had an employee, David Hartwell, whose primary job was to order all new comic book products and he had anticipated Terry Stewarts “betrayal.” David had been recommending other publisher’s comic books to our customer base for almost a year and we had reduced Marvel’s market share in our store from 55% to only 25% while our overall comic book sales actually increased. We still needed Marvel for our survival but we were determined to try to reduce our dependence on them. Apparently, many other storeowners had the same general idea. Sales of Marvel Comics dropped like a rock. Unfortunately, Terry Stewart’s policies caused hundreds of other comic book stores to go out of business. As these stores closed, the sales of every comic book publisher, including Marvel, plummeted. It didn’t take long before Marvel declared bankruptcy. They closed their stupid “Marvel Mania” restaurant. They began to discontinue many low and moderate selling titles in an attempt to reduce their fast-growing losses. The situation looked grim.

If Marvel went out of business every comic book store would be in danger of losing so much revenue that they may also be forced out of business. Although we had no respect for Terry Stewart and a handful of his underlings, we wanted Marvel Comics to survive. We joked that we looked forward to the day when we’d get to see Terry Stewart wearing a paper hat asking us, “Would you like fries with that?”

Our wish didn’t quite come true but it wasn’t too long before Stewart was gone from Marvel. Heroes World was closed down and Diamond Comics began to distribute Marvel comic books to the remaining comic book stores. However, significant damage had been done to the industry. Annual sales of new comic books dropped from over one billion dollars in sales to $240,000,000 dollars in sales and almost 4,000 comic book stores had gone out of business in the United States during Terry Stewart’s reign at Marvel.

Next chapter: A quick wrap-up of 1993.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 91

Cast of Characters:
Paul: age 39
Mal: my wife

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 91

This chapter is a very simplified explanation of the betrayal of our industry by Marvel Comics.

Most manufacturers, publishers and suppliers understand how important their relationship is with stores like mine but many collectors believe that they are the actual customers of these companies. In actuality, the retailer is the direct customer of the manufacturers, publishers and suppliers. We are treated with respect, courtesy and gratitude by most of our suppliers but occasionally we end up dealing with some companies with bad attitudes and poor customer service. The Upper Deck Card Company and The Topps Company were so bad that we decided to end our direct dealings with them. We now pay a little bit more for their product but we buy it from wholesalers who appreciate our business. This is the story of Marvel Comics.

Marvel Comics began publishing comic books in the 1930’s as “Timely Comics.” These comic books were distributed to local stores and newsstands through a system that offered returns on any unsold product. The retailers only made a small profit on each sale but they were not taking any risk because they could just send back any unsold comic books for full credit. In the 1970’s Marvel Comics began selling comic books on a non-returnable basis to “direct-market” distributors who resold them to convention dealers and comic book stores. This new system allowed the retailer to make a larger profit on each comic book but we assumed all of the risk. We could not send back any unsold product. Marvel Comics made more money because they could control the print-run as they knew they’d be no copies coming back for credit.

In the early to mid-1980’s, the management of Marvel Comics realized that we were “partners” in this business with them. As our individual stores grew, Marvel Comics made more money. Marvel’s management, including my friend Carol Kalish, devised programs to help the retailer increase sales. They helped us to pay for upgrades to our store fixtures and offered us “co-op” credit towards any mainstream advertising that we did. We worked together to “grow” the industry and comic book sales increased greatly. The industry even survived the greed of Wall Street tycoon, Ronald Perlman. He bought Marvel Comics and bled it dry by spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying up other “entertainment” and hobby companies including Fleer, Skybox, Pannini Sticker Company and more. Under his command, Marvel began flooding the market with sub-standard product at the same time that they increased the cover price of almost all of the comic book issues. Although many retailers expressed their displeasure at the policies of Perlman, the industry was still strong. This all changed when Marvel Comics became a publicly traded company.

Marvel hired Terry Stewart as president in the 1990’s and throughout his reign as president he made it clear that he was no longer interested in being “partners” with any of us “lowly” comic book retailers. He instituted policies that improved Marvel’s bottom line but adversely affected almost every comic book specialty store. He thought very “short-term” to please stockholders each quarter and his poor decisions were dangerous for the business in the “long-term.” He announced plans to open a chain of Marvel Mania restaurants that most retailers knew was doomed to failure. He attempted to lure our customers away from our stores by running advertisements in the comic books for his mail-order company called “Marvel Mart.” In face-to-face meetings Terry Stewart insinuated that he knew a better way for all of us to run our businesses. He was insulting and very condescending. As a result, retailers realized that Marvel’s management couldn’t be trusted to act in our best interest and they “revolted” by reducing the quantity of Marvel Comics product that they ordered. When Stewart saw the sales of his company’s product drop by 20% he made the biggest blunder of his disastrous career. Diamond Comics Distributors and the handful of other comic book distributors were all doing a fine job of getting Marvel’s product to every retailer in the United States but Stewart decided that he could do a better job and then the extra profit would boost Marvel’s bottom-line. He authorized the purchase of “Heroes World,” a small comic book distributor in New Jersey. This was a disaster that had potential to destroy the entire comic book industry.

Next chapter: The retailers fight back.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 90

Cast of characters:
Paul: age 38
Mal: my wife
Adam: my son
Cassy: my daughter
Davy Jones: formerly of The Monkees

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 90

With all of the advance publicity done for Davy Jones’ guest appearance at the Worcester store, all that was left was the store preparation. My staff worked hard to clean up the displays of comic books, collectible toys, music CD’s, and sports cards. They swept the floors clean and did their best to make the bathroom presentable. I spent a few days selecting rare and valuable “Monkees” collectibles to have in a display behind the table where Davy Jones would be seated to meet and greet the customers, if anyone showed up.

Over the years I had accumulated an extensive collection of “Monkees” memorabilia, including all of the legitimately released records and almost every toy, jewelry, book, magazine, and clothing item ever produced! I tried to choose some of the most interesting-looking items for the display but I was nervous about having my own, personal collection out on display where there was a chance that these things could be damaged or stolen. I was always cautious and a little bit paranoid about shoplifting so my staff tried to be vigilant and aware of what was happening at all times. I decided to stand right next to Davy Jones behind the table. I set up an extra cash register on this table next to all of the merchandise that we were offering for sale so that customers could be tempted to buy a nice item to be autographed.

The night before Davy’s appearance, I barely slept. I was excited about meeting him but I was also very worried that no one would come to see him. By the time I left my house it was pouring rain. I thought that this was the beginning of a horrible day. I arrived at the store at seven o’clock and was disappointed to see that there was no one waiting in line to see Davy Jones. I kept myself busy by walking around the inside of the store, straightening out our shelves and displays, and listening to a cassette tape of music that featured Davy Jones as the lead vocalist from the days of “The Monkees.” This seemed to relax me as I realized that it probably didn’t matter that no one was interested in meeting him other than me. I’d certainly have fun with him!

By eight o’clock a few serious “die-hard” Monkee fans began to line up outside my store in the pouring rain. Because my staff wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another half-hour, I couldn’t let them into the store early to get out of the rain. That made me feel bad but I couldn’t help the customers and take care of all of the remaining details at the same time. As my employees and my wife and kids arrived they explained that there were probably lots of people just waiting in their cars for us to open the store so they wouldn’t get soaked in the rain. I had to leave at 8:45 am so I could get to the hotel where Davy and his road manager were staying by the pre-arranged 9:00 am pick-up time. I hated leaving the store when I had no real idea of the possible “turn-out” but I had to do it since I didn’t trust anyone else to pick him up and I was too cheap to send a limousine. I wanted to be in control of the situation in case Davy was too tired to wake up after his exhausting schedule. I have no idea what I would have done if that was the case but I knew I’d figure out something.

As it turned out, although he was indeed exhausted, Davy Jones was a complete professional. He was ready and waiting for me when I called his room from the hotel lobby. We arrived back at my store by 9:30 am, a full half-hour before the scheduled time of his appearance, and I was thrilled to see that we had a few hundred people waiting in line. My staff had all arrived and they opened the store early to get as many people out of the rain as possible. With “Monkee” music playing on our stereo system, the customers seemed to be having a good time talking to each other about “The Monkees” and excitedly anticipating Davy’s arrival. I brought Davy into the store through our side entrance and walked him to the back end of the store where we wanted him to sit. The cable news station and a local radio station were already waiting there for some quick and lively interviews and Davy handled them gracefully while his fans waited in line and listened to every word he said. As it neared the time for the ten o’clock autograph session to begin we positioned the uniformed police officer we had hired for security next to our guest table. My son, Adam, got behind the table with me to assist customers who wanted to buy any of the merchandise we had for autographing. A large pile of the five different “eight by ten” photographs that I had a local printer duplicate sat directly in front of Davy Jones. I priced them at $2.50 each or all five for ten dollars. I assumed that most customers would buy one or two but I guess the offer of all five for ten dollars, along with Davy’s neatly written autograph, was just too good to pass up. Hundreds of fans bought all five!

I had an agreement with Davy that he would sign autographs from 10:00 am to noon and then he’d get a two-hour lunch break and then he was to sign for two more hours. When noon approached, his road manager said, “Hey, let’s break for lunch.” Davy looked at the huge line that still went all through the store and out onto the sidewalk and said, “We certainly can’t have all of these fans just stand and wait while we go off to eat!” We sent out for tuna fish sandwiches while he continued to sign autographs and visit with the fans for almost five more hours. Davy posed for photographs with eager forty to fifty-year old women who couldn’t believe they were actually meeting him in-person! When a group of kids confined to wheelchairs came in, he gave them all free copies of his current music compact discs. I don’t think there was anyone who was unhappy with Davy Jones that day. Even though he was functioning on only two hours sleep, he was funny, friendly, full of enthusiasm, and eager to please everyone.

A little after five o’clock we decided that we needed to end the autograph line. Davy had performed “above and beyond” our original agreement. I felt as if I had taken advantage of his good nature. Davy never complained. At the end of the event when we went into the private “front-room” of the store and it was time for me to pay him I remarked about his kindness to all of the almost two thousand people who came to see him. Davy said, “Paul, it’s because of people like these that I can continue to make my living in the entertainment business. They are important to me.” It was refreshing for me to hear a celebrity really appreciated his fans. Although I had negotiated a fair contract with Davy, I decided that I would pay for his meals and his hotel for two nights. I also decided that since I sold over two thousand photographs at a very high profit, I would share some of this money with Davy. By the time we were done, Davy ended up with more than double the money he was expecting. He thanked me for the unexpected generosity and he said that he enjoyed the visit. When I brought him back to his hotel room he thanked me again and told me that I was one of the very few people in the past thirty years who didn’t try to take advantage of him. Davy must have believed that I was an honest man because he asked if I would be interested in becoming partners in his book publishing business. He was having trouble keeping his books “in print” because of his busy touring schedule and he wanted me to take over this aspect of his business. My wife and I discussed it but I eventually declined because I was intent on retiring from active work in the next two years and although I’d love to get to work with Davy Jones on a regular basis, I knew what my long-term goals were.

Besides setting a new one-day sales record at my Worcester store, this Davy Jones event was one of our best in terms of customer satisfaction and excitement. Very few of my regular store customers came to see him though. Almost two-thirds of the nearly two thousand people who came to our store that day were first time visitors and most of them were women. I’m sure that many of these “new” customers have continued to shop with us on a regular basis so the actual financial rewards have kept growing.

Next chapter: Terry Stewart, president of Marvel Comics, almost destroys the entire comic book industry.
Pictures: Davy Jones as a guest at our store.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 89

Cast of Characters:
Paul: age 38
Mal: my wife

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 89

We had booked Davy Jones of The Monkees to make an appearance at our store in Worcester, Massachusetts in September of 1993. Davy’s manager agreed that he would receive a “lump sum” fee and Davy would be responsible for all of his own travel expenses. Davy would also agree to sign free autographs for any visitors. We wanted to be sure that Davy was safe so we hired a Worcester police officer as security for this event. We wanted this special event to be “perfect” and we tried to anticipate every possible problem that could come up. Our store had arranged to have many guests before but this would be the highest expenditure we ever had for an in-store event so I wanted it to seem really special for my customers.

We printed thousands of “flyers” to give to everyone who visited our store in the three months prior to Davy’s visit and we encouraged all of our employees to be sure to verbally advertise this appearance. We sent out the flyers to everyone on our huge mailing list and ran our newly created television commercial on cable television channels for a thirteen-week period before the September event. I was excited about the opportunity to meet one of my favorite childhood performers. I wanted my customers (and any new visitors to my store) to have the opportunity to get a personal autograph from Davy Jones without having to pay for it. But I wouldn’t mind making a bit of money on this event if I could figure out some way to do it.

Davy’s manager would get me some copies of the two different books that Davy had written about his days as a “Monkee” that I could sell. I ordered two full cases (forty copies) of one book and twenty copies of the other at a wholesale price of fifty percent off of retail price. Agreeing to purchase these on a non-returnable basis, I wanted to be sure that I didn’t order too many copies. I also got lucky because a good customer of mine had five different vintage photographs of The Monkees from the 1960’s that he offered to allow me to copy so that I’d have something interesting for Davy to sign for my customers. A local printer reproduced five hundred of each of the 8 by 10 photos on a glossy paper at a very low price. The possibility that I would sell that many photos was low but the cost was reasonable and, just in case I ended up with a big crowd, there would be something there for them to get signed. I also knew many people might bring items from their own collections to get autographed.

We contacted the local cable news station and they agreed to do a small news segment about Davy’s appearance. Two of the larger newspapers also expressed interest in covering the event. I was satisfied that we were “covering all of the bases” as far as publicity goes but the almost complete lack of interest on the part of my loyal customer base surprised us all. We would try to remind every customer about the upcoming appearance and most of them would just shrug and say, “Yeah, I’m not a fan of The Monkees.” We’d try to get them interested by reminding them that he is a famous celebrity and he would be signing FREE autographs but as the day got closer we all began to believe that we’d really made a mistake.

A week before the appearance Davy’s manager called to inform us that Davy had a “gig” in New York City that wouldn’t get over until almost one o’clock in the morning on the day he was supposed to be at my store. By the time his concert was over he’d be exhausted and he’d still have a five-hour drive from New York to Worcester, Massachusetts. By the time Davy and his road manager checked into the local hotel there would be less than two hours for him to get some rest before I was to pick him up to bring him to my store. I certainly wasn’t happy with this new development. I hate surprises, especially when the financial risk was so high. I enjoyed being in complete control of my situations and this was ruining our careful plans.

Next chapter: Even the weather is against us!

Picture: A young Davy Jones of The Monkees.