ComicBook.beer - The Podcast

Episode 3: What it's Like to Run a Comic Book Store

Learn everything that you ever wanted to know about running a comic book store but were afraid to ask! ⁠ComicBook.beer ⁠- The Podcast visits Phantom of the Attic Comics in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and talks with owner Jeff about life in the comics business.

Mark and Jeff discuss what has changed in the comic book industry over the past four decades, whether or not the superhero movie craze has helped to drive comic book sales, and which series are popular and bringing in new readers, like Absolute Batman and Transformers.

How has the Internet affected the comics industry? What benefits do readers get with a completely analog reading experience (that doesn't require updates or a subscription model!)

All this and more in ComicBook.beer - The Podcast!

What it's Like to Run a Comic Book Store Podcast Transcription

0:10

Welcome back to Comic Book dot Beer, the podcast.

Though since we're recording this in the morning, it's it's more like Comic Book dot Coffee, I don't think.

I'm not sure if that's an extension.

I might be.

I already had lots of coffee.

But I am here today doing a special on site interview with the real life owner of a comic book shop.

0:34

Allow me to introduce a comic book store purveyor of comic books.

This is Jeff from Phantom of the Attic Comics in Oakland, just outside of well, in in Pittsburgh, PA.

We're in Pittsburgh.

0:50

We are in Pittsburgh.

What's the Oakland neighborhood, which is where Pitt is?

Thanks for having me, Mark.

Well, thank you for taking the time to talk about comic books, and thank you for taking the time to listen to Comic Book dot Beer.

I don't have a beer opening sound today though, just the clicking of my coffee mug, which is nearly as exciting.

1:11

I might have a beer in the back if you want to use that.

It's.

Well, the time just changed so my body still thinks it's 9:46 in the morning, which that might be a little early for beer.

I mean to be fair, it's always after 5 summer.

Right, I never stopped my dad, but anyhow.

Yeah, I got to keep going for the day at least, but I've been just a quick bit of history here.

1:33

I've been coming to Phantom of the Attic comics.

I'm from Pittsburgh.

My name is Mark, I'm the host of the podcast and I've lived in Pittsburgh more or less my whole life and and high school for sure.

I definitely remember coming down to, to a Craig St. here in, in Oakland and buying, buying my comic books, though Phantom of the attic was it was in a slightly different store at that time.

1:55

It was across the street.

And we'll talk about that your history with Phantom of the attic.

But I've been coming here for, for years and I, I live not too far away.

So I, I tend to walk a lot and this is on my walking path and I'll swing by and grab my subscriptions.

2:11

And Jeff has just gotten, you know, to over over the years talking to Jeff, gotten to know him and just love the store.

And I love what you guys do.

And I everybody who works here has always been just terrific and but nothing but great things to say about Phantom of the Attic.

Wow.

Thank you so much, Mark.

2:26

Introduce yourself.

Who are you and what do you do?

Well, hello, my name is Jeff Iandora.

I'm the current owner of Family Attic Comics.

We have a full service comic shop here in the Oakland part of of Pittsburgh, which is the like the college area and this is what I do.

2:51

We sell comics and graphic novels and some merchandise back issues, but our main focus is new new comics and new graphic novels.

You do have like, there's like a sweet X-Men beer glass back there.

Maybe you sold that one.

And I know there's a moon night.

Those beer glasses always catch my eye.

3:07

I'm a I'm a glassware guy.

Oh yeah, our, ER, glass.

We we our glassware department's a little bit lacking these days, but we hope to get that up and running.

And how long has Phantom of the Attic been in business?

We've been on the streets since 1983 in different locations.

3:24

On Craig St., we've moved around and on Craig St.

I've been here since 1985 and I, I took over the business in 1990.

So we've been here or as I like to say, the curses continue continues since since then.

3:42

Also, you were you were running the store, you were the owner when I was shopping here in high school.

So for those who, who may not be familiar with Pittsburgh, if you can, if, if, if you're in the area and you see the Cathedral of learning, which is like right in the middle of Pitts campus, phantom of the Craig Street is not too far away from that.

3:58

So that's like the, the, the beacon of light.

That's the icon that you can, the landmark that you, that you can use to say, I, I heard this podcast.

There's the big cathedral learning, which is like the giant building.

It looks like the one from Ghostbusters.

Only two skyscraper universities in the world as far as I know.

4:13

It's a nice building.

It's got peregrine Falcons on top of it guarding it.

Yes, it's true.

Flying around you can see them all the time.

And you say you started in 1985, correct?

How did that happen?

I, you know, I had a friend who got me kind of back in the comics around probably 8485 and he was more familiar with the people here at Family Attic.

4:38

I started helping out on like a volunteer basis and then it's kind of that's kind of like snowballed into a part time job.

They were looking for someone to help them with their gaming department, which I was pretty pretty.

5:01

I mean, I knew a lot about gaming and I games a lot.

So I kind of shooed into, you know, managing their fledgling gaming department and obviously work with the comics too.

So.

We're talking about board games and card games.

5:16

Board games and tabletop non electronic games.

D&D, Warhammer, car games, board games, dice, dice, dice, miniatures, so stuff like that.

That's back when D&D came out in what, 1980?

5:32

Late 70s, Eighty.

I don't remember.

D and DI believe is from the early mid early 70s.

OK, I don't know much about D&D to be perfectly honest.

You're probably better off.

I don't know about that.

So presumably you were a fan of comic books if you were interested in doing part time work.

5:51

Yes, you know, I, I was, I was a big reader, I would say in the early 70s to the late 70s.

And then I got more interested in gaming, D&D.

And actually I was, I was very interested in historical gaming, war gaming.

6:09

So I took a little break from comics, but like I said, around 84 maybe a friend of mine reintroduced me to, got me more interested in comics at the time.

I was always a Marvel guy.

6:24

And at the time DC was going through kind of a revolution of what they were doing.

And I was like really fascinated by DC.

You know, something I, I ignored before.

This is when they were doing their Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earths and their Who's Who.

6:41

So they were doing some interesting things.

And yeah, I got back into comics.

Did you say that you went to college?

Here is that was that.

Yeah, I went to the University of Pittsburgh.

OK.

So, so you, you presumably then you were right in this area, correct?

My friend went to Carnegie Mellon, so we that's so we're all, you know, the gang was all here.

7:00

I can't say I know I don't.

I don't know a whole lot about the early 80s DC Comics.

What, what, what, what?

What appealed to you about that?

Well, I think it wasn't necessarily the early 8:00.

Well, it was like I would say somewhere, you know, 8384 DC started to, to, I guess I'll go as far as say be more like Marvel in, in their approach to comics.

7:24

I think they got a lot of ex Marvel people working for them.

It just appealed to me.

It was something new and different to me.

And it was, it was just fascinating because we use all characters.

I I didn't necessarily read before and never really took much interest in, but I think DC's approach at the time really fascinated me.

7:49

And along along with other other people like their their Teen Titans book was really good, their Legion of Superheroes book was really good.

So all these things combined got me back into comics.

What did you major in a school?

I was a history and political science major.

8:07

And that got you into the comic book business?

Yeah, I know it's.

It's just, it is funny how the path of life, yes, that's for sure.

It doesn't go where you think it will sometimes.

So it's kind of like I always follows, like I want to join the circus.

I ran away to the circus and I guess the show must go on.

8:24

It's still more or less going on.

I, I'm, I'm my, my era of, of, of expertise tends to be 80s toy comics like because I grew up on Transformers and GI Joe and all that stuff at the, in that, in that period.

So I'm just now in many ways exploring a lot of the 70s and 80s superhero stuff for the first time.

8:43

And that's, I think one of the really cool things about comics is even if it's future year 20, whatever awful year this is, you can still go back to the 70s and 80s and read this stuff.

And it's like, it doesn't matter how old it is.

It's like you're experiencing all this amazing art and this amazing writing for the first.

I totally agree.

The first time and it's I, I, I'll talk about how much I love the art form.

9:03

Well, I have talked to that's what this whole show and website is about.

But before I get into my my nonsense, because I've I've spoken plenty sure, pretty sure people are sick of hearing from me.

So let's hear more about you.

What was the comic book landscape like in in the 80s when you started working here?

9:19

Think, I think that it seemed like to me for my Vantage, it was pretty vibrant.

I think people were excited about what was going on at Marvel.

They always seem to be excited about what's going on.

Marvel, the Secret War stuff was happening, which had a lot of following the Spider Man, you know, yeah, just Marvel.

9:42

I think people were really excited about what was going to DC.

It seemed like it was, you know, when we opened on New Comics Day, we always had a group of people waiting to get in.

And it's it's kind of the same now, but not just doesn't seem quite as much.

9:59

But yeah, I think comics were pretty vibrant in the mid.

Well, people didn't have the Internet to distract.

Them, that's for sure.

It was.

It was definitely an entertainment form that didn't need to be plugged in.

It's still the case.

10:15

You can just enjoy a comic anywhere.

Yeah, that's a huge point of why this exists.

At my show, at least, I mentioned the Internet, but I'd say in general, what's what's changed in the comic book landscape since since the early 1980s?

Oh, you know, well, obviously the Internet obviously, I guess, you know, you see other media forms, I want to say enhancing or crowding.

10:44

It was like video games, you know, movies.

That's this is all more I guess moving into the 90s movies, TV shows, which I guess both help and maybe hurt.

You know, people can get their superhero fix or whatever other comic fix by maybe watching things or playing the game, not necessarily having to come in and buy a comic.

11:11

You know, you could play.

You could be Batman, a video game and, and and be just that could be good enough for your Batman fix.

So maybe you don't read the comics anymore?

That's true, Batman did make some pretty good video.

Batman made for a pretty good video game hero.

This is true.

11:27

For sure, and they're like a lot of, there's been some cases where they do comics of the video game games, but doesn't really happen all the time.

There was a relatively successful Fortnite Batman series that came out a few years ago, which which actually did pretty well for us as a comic, but doesn't necessarily there's not necessarily there's tie insurance with the video games or movies.

11:53

I guess I have one of my questions here is did the superhero movie craze help to drive actual physical comic book sales?

Did you see, did you see new customers coming in saying like I saw all The Avengers movies, I want to go start collecting Avengers or Captain America or whatever?

I'll say that when the first Batman movies came out in the in the late 80s, it really, really, really drove Batman sales.

12:16

Just about anything with Batman or the Batman symbol wasn't nailed to the wall.

It was, it was people wanted, it was selling, even sometimes it was nailed to the wall.

They would RIP it off and want to buy it.

The movies that came out, you know, the, the Marvel movies, I mean the movies after that, not, not as much as one may think not, you know, not entirely 0 but I would say for the most part, you know, they really didn't help sales.

12:51

How I will say weirdly enough, last summer, Superman seemed to help sales.

And Fantastic Four, to a lesser extent, had a lot more younger readers interested in comics interested in Superman after last year's movie.

13:08

So I would say yes, at least this the the current ones, yes, it seems so we'll see what moving forward how you know what happens.

You think that's the I mean, both of us have white hair.

So we've, we've been around for, for a while.

I'm, I'm always curious about what's going to reach a younger audience these days because they're because what, what they grow up on, like what my kids have grown up on, what younger kids are growing up on is so vastly different than anything I think we can, we can relate to.

13:35

Like how do we reach a younger audience with this this delightful, not this delightful non plugged in form of media?

I don't know.

That's a great question.

Everything's so random these days.

I think the really fresh, bright Superman movie, the approach to Superman Superman movie really appealed to a lot of younger, younger watchers.

14:07

And they, I think they, they really responded.

I think there was, there's something about a real positive feel in that movie.

I think they, they really won out.

And same with the Fantastic Four, the last one last, I think that helped how to grab younger readers.

14:23

Geez, I don't know, maybe that's the case.

Maybe you know, these more positive message or approaches might be the ticket for forward interest.

14:39

So, and also, you know, also that being said, all the, the, the recent absolute line at DC has done really well.

And I think there's been Internet, I mean, there's no movie or game or video game for that.

But I think there's been a a buzz with younger readers, well, everyone but younger readers because also because it's something new and actually interestingly different than what's what was going on with Batman before and these other characters.

15:08

So the absolute line has been also doing really well.

Explain to me and listeners and any sentient robots that may be listening what the absolute line from DC is.

Because I, I thought it was pretty.

I'm not usually into that kind of stuff.

15:23

You turn me on to it and I think it's pretty interesting what they've done.

I think this might be a response to Marvel's Ultimate line, which did really well.

A few, a few, a few.

15:41

Well, it's still coming out though.

It's coming to a close.

So a response to that, like a different version of their of their characters.

They did a kick off, a re kick off of all the entire line which involved the character Darkseid and Darkseid somehow was responsible in the story for this or in its setting.

16:00

The absolute setting.

Absolute setting, yes.

I mean, it's, it's reminiscent of the, there's things about the characters that are familiar and there's things about the, the, the characters are like switched around.

So it it reminds me very much of A formula of the of Marvel's Ultimates.

16:21

And this started with absolute Batman, right?

Correct.

And it's that's been the centerpiece book, which is done really well.

Absolute Wonder Woman has done really well and they've all done really well.

So if these if DC is listening or if anyone at DC is listening, I'm I'm begging for absolute warlord.

16:40

Please, we need the warlord back.

Wow.

Bring back the warlord.

Well, I'll keep you posted Mark of that app if I hear anything.

What of all the reboots that we get that site?

I feel like the the the warlord.

You never, you never know mark which would happen.

16:55

Travis Morgan needs to make a return.

My taste is weird.

I have strange taste in comic books.

How old would you say that your average reader is in these days?

Because I'm, I'm, I'm in and out of the store all the time.

And I, I I think it just spans like all generations.

17:11

Believe so too.

Being a world of college campus, I think we do have a lot of, you know, college age and and graduate student age readers.

So for us, I would say probably the mid 20s, early mid 20s is our average I.

17:31

Would always think that it's it's a difficult business and maybe it is a super I'll ask you that in a moment.

But I will say that when I walk in here, sometimes, you know, there's, there's a, there's always somebody who's just got like $300 worth of comic books they're about to check out.

Oh wow, it's.

Always a huge stack of books I.

17:47

Wish we had more of that.

I mean we have a subscription service which means each week we pull we as as comics come out.

In theory, comics are like mostly monthly.

So we have several people that they can't get here every week.

So we hold their comics and they accumulate and before you know it, they have a large purchase purchase.

18:07

So we see, these are probably people we only see two to three to four times a year, but we know that they're they're going to come in and get it.

But that's usually what accumulates to that point.

I'll just ask you this broad question here.

What's it like to run a comic book store?

18:22

Is it the dream job or is it a job?

It's a job.

Maybe at one time it was more of a dream job.

But yeah, it's like any, it's like any ever small business.

There's lots of, there's a lot of things to, you know, a lot of things to do, a lot of things to keep up with, a lot of responsibility.

18:39

Yeah.

So I would say it's probably a dream job for for a lot of people.

And it's still a little dreamy, I guess for me, but it's, it's definitely.

A job Well, you're in here at least five or six days a week I'm.

Here, six days A.

Week, 6 days a week.

Yeah, sometimes seven days a week, but yeah, usually.

18:58

Yeah, usually it's six days a week.

Some of the nights I I know you say that you you go pretty late when you're stocking for the next day and stuff.

Yeah, it's, well, the, the big thing is a prep for New Comics Day, which is Wednesday.

So Monday and Tuesday we may be here after hours getting ready for New Comics Day.

19:16

A lot of that might be tied into when shipments come in.

Sometimes when they come in late that pushes our schedule back because of the the the the more active winner.

This year we've had lots of our deliveries delayed.

19:32

We had two feet of snow dumped on us in one day and it was below freezing for about 3 weeks, so none of it melted and you lost all your parking.

Right.

It was.

It's yeah.

And parking is not great to begin with.

So it was pretty terrible.

Hopefully we're done with that, but never say never with southwestern Pennsylvania weather.

19:50

That that affected a lot of a lot of businesses.

Well, I guess getting back to the to the absolute to the absolute Batman series and some of that stuff, but like in addition to that, because I understand that is one of the best selling series right now, if not the best selling series, What what else is really selling?

20:05

It is the best.

Yeah, it's good.

By the way, I, I Jeff turned me on to absolute Batman and I'm like kind of hit or miss on superhero comics because at some point I was just like, all right, they're always fighting the next end boss or the next the next universe crushing boss.

And then if they defeat that, then they're, you know, somebody goes crazy and turns on the team and then they go and they have to fight this next.

20:26

Giant boss and for some reason I just always gravitated.

Gravitated more to like just complete nonsense or fantasy comics.

But what else is like super hot these days?

That's a great question.

There's been, I mean, this has been going on for for a few more than a few years, but there's been a re emergence of interested horror comics.

20:46

Horror comics, I don't know anything about that.

And that's, you know, we've had some, some some titles have done really well, like A Nice House on the Lake, Something's Killing the children, World Tree.

So there's, I think a re emerges of interest in that.

21:02

I did see Archie versus the Army of Darkness over there.

Yes, you'll see a lot of unusual cross, you know, crosses between different franchises.

My favorite right now is Marvel has a license for Planet of the Apes.

21:20

So they've done it just starred I planted the apes versus the Fantastic Four series.

You know, these have interests.

I mean these I think people, it's a it's a good way of bringing people interested in these franchises into comics.

You're also talking about Speaking of franchises and what's hot.

21:39

The Energon Light grouping of books to Transformers, GI Joe and Void Rivals have been very popular.

That's what I like to.

Hear GI Joe, but very popular.

That's doing really well.

The new Transformers series is my current favorite comic book series.

21:57

Yeah, it's people are very interested also you're since we're talking about what's, you know, what also is, you know, interesting in comics.

Godzilla in general has interest in comics as is picked up Toho studio seems like they've loosened their.

22:14

License.

OK, Godzilla's on everything.

Used to be.

Really tough on what was going to come out.

We have more Godzilla comics coming out than ever before.

Yes, Tom Shuli, a local artist, has done some very interesting Godzilla work.

22:32

His Godzilla Masterpiece Theatre was out last year and he's also be doing the next Godzilla Monster Piece Theatre, which is Romeo and Juliet.

He's going to have a backup of Godzilla Beats a Robin Hood.

22:48

So a lot of very interesting things are happening about Godzilla in comics.

Godzilla Monster Piece Theatre is excellent by the.

Way.

Yeah, it's a good.

Work.

We both know TomTom is awesome.

Yeah, Tom is awesome.

And I'm currently reading Godzilla, the Kaisi series.

Has done really.

23:04

Well, that's that's not bad.

Some of the writing is not exactly how I would like to see it done, but I think the the art in the presentation and just the, the overall vibe of that particular series.

Like, there's so much Godzilla stuff, it's hard to, it's hard to keep up with all of it because because Godzilla seems to pick a fight with everybody from every franchise in every universe and every license.

23:22

I mean, it is Godzilla.

And I just last week I just saw the 99 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon Godzilla cans and in the in the beer distributor.

They're really nice.

Done by attack.

23:38

Beater is is the artist.

I'm not sure where the artist is, but I don't know how you would you you would need a full size pickup truck to get that case into you.

I did get that case home.

It was huge.

Several collectors have already done it.

I, I like Godzilla.

I'm not sure I like Godzilla enough to need 99 cans of PBR.

23:53

But I guess, you know, I guess that depends what's going on that week.

So do you still get a chance to sit down and relax and read comic?

No, no I don't.

That's how I felt about video games, and I was doing the classic.

Game room stuff.

That's not entirely true.

I try to read a smattering here and there.

24:12

I've been trying to keep up with absolutely absolute titles, but yeah, not as much as I should.

And and and could and, and, yeah, but I mean, there's so many comics coming.

Oh my God, it's crazy, but I try, you know, I I'm still interested in older comics because that's, I think, you know, where my heart lies truly for comics.

24:35

But but yeah, I try to keep up with at least least, you know, yeah, I try to keep up with some new comics.

But like lately, my focus has been, as I said before, the absolute stuff and anything Tom Julie does.

Look at Tom, stuff is right here behind me.

24:52

It is.

Space opera Xanadex.

He's done some very cool work.

Yeah, that that's that also was an excellent graphic novel by Tom.

Do you actively collect any older comics or, or is like our comic books, literally the last thing in the world that you want to see when you get home?

Well, I can't avoid it when I get home because there's comics everywhere.

25:12

I would say currently I'm not necessarily collecting anything or getting more, more comics in my collection.

I still have a collection of sorts.

Nothing.

I don't really have anything terribly valuable, really.

25:28

I have lots of lots of odd stuff.

But yeah, I guess if anything got caught my eye, especially some things I would have, I would have had when I was younger and and and and lost some more along the way.

I might be interested.

But I was like, Colonel, I'm not necessarily collecting comics, with some exceptions.

25:49

So you got a bunch of old Fantastic Fours behind you in the case right now I'm looking at them.

Do you have a favorite comic book writer or artist?

I've always been from the get go.

I've always been totally enamored with Jack Kirby.

Yeah, Jack Kirby, hands down.

26:08

Forever.

Well, he seems to have inspired an awful lot of people.

That's for sure.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Jack Kirby in all his phases, all his parts of his career, is, you know, a strong, you know, maybe the strongest influence in American, especially superhero comics.

26:30

Like I'm, I'm reading a book of interviews from Gil Kane right now and I think that there, I may be may be getting this wrong, but the paraphrases, I think Gil Kane said to Jack Kirby was so good that other artists didn't want to work anywhere near him because they just couldn't stand it.

But he was like banging out pages, like sure, no, he was a machine in the middle of the page and like drew outwards and.

26:50

Stuff.

He was a machine.

He did a lot of, you know, I'm not sure what the page counts these days totals are, but he certainly, if not the the most prolific, certainly you know, at the very top.

For those who may not know what what did Jack Kirby do?

27:06

Although it was quite a bit but like what's he most well known for?

Well, I don't know him along with Joe Simon initially the creation of Captain America and the Golden Age, he does other titles in in in the the Golden Age War 2 area.

27:23

When he come came back from fighting World War 2, he's one of the few combat veterans, art comic book professionals that went as a as a combat personnel in World War Two.

He came back and he started working with with Joe Simon again doing various things.

27:43

But his real heyday, I mean his real advancement in his careers when he started working for Marvel game in the very early 60s and doing mostly giant monster stories, which snowballed into them thinking they want to get back into superheroes, which really resulted in Fantastic Four number one, which was the kickoff of the, you know, of the new Marvel era of superheroes.

28:14

You know, he did, you know, him and Stanley did it all that they did.

They laid the the foundation with with X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider Man not as much.

That was more of a Stanley Steve Ditko thing.

28:34

Yeah, Jack Kirby, you know, and then later they reintroduce Captain America.

So Jack Kirby was back doing Captain America, the Mighty Thor.

So he a lot of you know, a lot of the the base plate of the Marvel units we know today was from Jack Kirby and Stanley's work do.

28:53

You have a favorite writer.

You know, I think I'd have to say I think I like Alan Moore.

I think Alan Moore always has a very interesting, intelligent approach to writing comics, even though I think he currently acts like he doesn't like comics or almost regrets what he he's he's done, I think.

29:14

That's Alan Moore of Watchmen fame.

Correct.

I'm off for he regrets, but yeah, I always thought he was a, you know, an excellent writer of comic.

What would you direct listeners to by Alan Moore?

I would say a Swamp Thing work for the late 80s Excellent.

29:33

He did some various one shot stories for DC or short stories which they used to have a a graphic novel had all these short stories together, which I think is currently out of print.

Unfortunately.

There was a one off story which I remember reading, which I thought was like a really excellent Superman story was I think a special or an annual called with the the villain mogul.

30:00

And it's the story was for the man who has everything.

And I believe DC is going to reprinted soon in a facsimile edition.

It's a it's a it's an excellent one shot Superman story, which includes Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman.

30:16

But it's it's really good.

So you know, you know, he Alan Moore did some things with all American comics, which was part of the image line.

But as soon as DC bought that, I think he he, he, he bailed out.

30:36

I mean, Watchmen, I almost forgot.

Watchmen, another just milestone of the comic medium.

I'd recommend Watch, which is available right now in an affordable $10 volume for from the DC Compact Comics lunch.

30:53

I highly recommend.

Yeah, Watch Room's fantastic.

But yeah, Alan, anything by Alan Moore, you can't really lose well.

When I walk into the store, this is like, for me, it's like a kid in a candy shop.

I mean, I'm just surrounded by shelves of of comics.

And in some respects it does seem a little bit overwhelming because there's so much to choose from.

31:14

And there's the covers are gorgeous.

And I'm looking around Jeff's store and around Phantom of the Attic right now.

And I just, there's, there's just so much fun stuff to read and to collect.

Do you have advice to anybody who, who walks into a comic store might think that I don't know where to?

31:31

This stuff sounds kind of cool.

I'm sick of my phone.

I'm sick of social media.

I'm sick and I'm sick of Netflix.

I want to go and I want to read some comic books.

Where do they start?

We get that question actually a lot.

I try to ask them what they're interested in and to see if I can or like.

31:47

Also, if it's not for the person that sells for the age of the person they're looking for, sometimes parents or other people looking to get stuff for the kids and I try to get seen what they're interested in and direct them and that, you know, probably direct them in that part of the store or make some examples.

32:06

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes there's nothing really.

It's good to introduce people with for things they're looking at.

I try my best, we try, we try our best to direct people in that fashion and it does work.

32:22

Is there a a series or or character or franchise that you like to direct?

I don't know, I hate to say first time readers, but just people looking to dive into it because the superhero stuff I find overwhelming because you you jump in and it's like, you know, you get that.

You have to know the whole back story.

32:39

Well, I don't think you really need to because it's so gigantic.

I try to tell people just, you know, I try my best to direct them in, but also just jump right in.

I mean, you know, if you're unless you're so like you really need the very beginning and I I can make of of a story, I can, I can direct you, but I just think, you know, just jump into a comic series is fine.

33:03

And then it's part of the mystery.

So, you see, if you're wondering what's going on in the story, then you can ask us, ask the Internet, you know, and try to figure it out a little bit.

But yeah, you know, I think we try our best.

And, you know, we don't directly, automatically, you know, have a, a, a, a plan strategy for that.

33:25

But we try to really see what the customer is looking for, what they're looking for.

A lot of people are interested in Spider Man and Batman.

So we try our best with that.

And we'll for Spider Man and Batman, those those comics soup, the popular comics seem to have a lot of collections, trade paperbacks, and that's sort of a more of a recent last couple decades thing, right?

33:48

Correct.

I would say, you know from the late 80s it's ground novel.

It's a snowballed in popularity.

You guys have an entire section over there devoted to graphic nominee.

That whole wall is devoted to trade paperbacks, graphic novels.

There's some hard covers up there.

34:04

Yeah, we, I think we have a pretty good collection is curated by the staff, I think.

Yeah, we try to carry mainstream and independent alternative graphic novels.

Whatever, you know, whatever looks interesting, we try to get in.

34:21

How has manga?

We do lots of special orders.

What's that?

How has manga affected the business?

Oh, that's.

Incredibly popular, you know, really is.

We probably, we do have a manga section.

We probably have a bigger manga section.

Manga's extremely popular.

34:38

We do a lot of special orders for manga since we can't carry everything but.

There's so much of it.

We probably could fill the entire store of manga.

Yeah.

We're probably really could, but it's just.

I find it hard to follow online.

34:54

I look on I look, I I actually enjoy manga.

I grew up on, you know, 80s and 90s manga and I but if if you go and search on it, search, search online or look, just look at that.

Whatever's come out this week, it's just like 1000 romance and.

Like, oh, there's a lot, there's a lot.

35:11

There's lots of different.

Varieties of romance romance sports.

You know.

Celebrities, Celebrities.

I mean, there's a lot more genres represented in a manga.

Yeah, micro genres, I guess that's the word I was looking.

35:26

For you said romance and different formats of romance in in sports horror.

I mean our Jinji, Jinji Ito is incredibly popular here.

He's a Japanese manga horror writer and artist.

35:43

Lots of different mangas, different diversity.

It's pretty amazing.

So what's next for like I've exhausted all the questions that I wrote down.

You've you've answered everything great detail, but let me that just goes go off subject here.

35:59

What's what's next for fame of the attic?

What's next for comic books?

Well, that's a great question.

I'm doing my best to combine it with beer drinking and getting out there and relaxing.

And thank you.

Yeah, we're just going to continue.

36:16

I mean, in some ways it's it's like the comic, the new com business is such a lot almost like.

So while we're trying to try to keep up with everything.

So we're trying our best.

We have a new subscription online service which really helped us out and just maintaining that is a lot of work just trying to keep up with the industry.

36:35

I'm not sure if you know, and maybe try to be more cognizant of, of where directions are going if possible, but things swerve and, and, and change so quickly.

Yeah, just be, you know, just be more sensitive of that.

36:55

You know, just try to do what we're doing now just better.

Well, here's here's a here's a good question for you.

I I did notice when running the website that some of the most popular terms that people search for are to read the comics online.

Presumably people are looking to either get them for free or whatever.

37:11

Just down download PD FS.

I have no idea what.

What is the benefit of collecting physical comics and supporting your local comic book shop?

Well, I mean the the physical comics, it's a source product.

When you buy a comic, you don't have to get an update to your system.

37:29

You don't need to plug it in.

It's not going to break unless you break it, you know, do what I do and, and pour accidentally pour coffee on it or, you know, or it's, it's perfect in that, that regard.

37:45

Of course, when you start accumulating too many, you have boxes and you have to worry about storing them and and maybe moving with them.

But they're, they're completely old school.

You can touch them.

You can.

Yeah, they're they're, it's the core product.

Everything else is just a.

38:05

This could probably have arguments with.

OK, the hands are going.

Up.

I was going to say Jeff.

Jeff's getting excited now.

Watch out.

I think there's other formats, you know, you could read your comics online, but in in online or whatever format or play Batman or video game.

But the core, the core product is the physical comics, always has been.

38:26

And I would like to think always will.

Yeah.

And it's possible, you know, you can come to the store, you can talk to people that have, you know, like talk to people who.

Know something?

Know something, I guess you can maybe do that online and talk to a computer or talk to an AI something you know you'll get a but you, you talk to an actual human, you actually can actually pick up and look at the comics and decide whether you want to get it or not.

38:54

So these advantages and you want to pay for shipping, you know, if you're going online to buy something and worry about shipping and come and check it out and make your decision if you like something or not.

I think there's a great benefit to supporting your local comic book shop, as I'm sure you do.

39:11

For sure.

Because there's, I guess, as you've already mentioned, as I've said, I sometimes I find it overwhelming if I wanted to get into Fantastic Four, like I would have no idea where, where to go, where to start reasonably.

We'll take care of you.

Mark, but you could send, you could you could direct me to that.

For sure.

Well, so where do I go to start Fantastic Four?

39:30

You know, there's, I would, I mentioned to you whether you you're interested in older, you know, the original stuff.

Some people don't really like or feel distance from the older stuff because they feel it's dated.

That's fine.

We can find some more modern kickoffs.

39:46

I mean, they've done much like a lot of the common properties.

I mean, they've done so many storylines.

We can find a more modern something for you to try and like.

Once again, if you're in the store, you can look at it and say this looks interesting or I'm not really into that.

Do you have anything else?

And this I know they published all the Fantastic Four stuff, the older stuff in collections, so you can do.

40:05

And sometimes they're in print and sometimes they're not.

Unfortunately, Marvel's not the best in keeping, especially their epic lines in print and their omnibus in print.

But most importantly, I think the epic line, they had a a line called Mighty Marvel Masterworks which were affordable $16.00 trades that I think they've decided to discontinue, which I'm I'm not really happy with because it was a good way for new readers to read the original source material for an affordable price.

40:37

Well, let's get into.

We're going to, I'm going to get close to the end here because I know you got to open the store pretty soon.

Jeff, let me record this before he's open.

I do have an announcement, a very end too, to say.

But this is a very important question, which is who would win in a battle between Conan the Barbarian and Batman?

40:54

Oh wow, you don't get this main question like this anymore, but occasionally it comes up.

Do you know who would win?

Whoever the rider decides is going to win.

It's not the answer you wanted.

Well, both of those can Either one of those characters can ever die, They just keep going.

41:12

That's right.

How will the rider want to write the story?

Personally, I'm going to say Batman, but if I was writing, you know, well, I, I, it wouldn't be a very good comic if I was writing it.

But personally I would.

If you want to answer, I would say Batman, but both formidable fictional characters for sure.

41:29

But whoever the writer, whatever, how are they want to do with the story?

But you never know, there might be a Batman Conan story in the.

Future I I'm I'm assuming as I'm thinking about this, a Batman wouldn't give up.

Batman would just keep going and going and going until he wins.

Then Conan would eventually just get worn down and just have respect for Batman and be like, I'm done, I'm going to go to the bar.

41:48

I'm going to go wenching.

Think you're probably.

Right.

And drink some flagons of ale, yeah.

Yeah, I think you're.

I think you're.

Right.

So I think they would leave like on equal terms, you know, cool, cool with each other.

You know, I think yeah, it would be an interesting one shot story so that, you know, these days with all these crossovers, it very well could happen.

42:10

As I begin to conclude, so that's when I drop into my deep voice, the serious voice listeners, as we as we start to wrap this up here, what else would you like to add, Jeff?

The only thing at the end there, I want to remind everyone that this year's Free Comic Book Day is Saturday, May 2nd.

42:29

We'll be doing here at the store, but probably almost all comic shops in the in North America and the world will be doing some semblance of this event.

It's always a really good thing that happens at stores.

Major companies have special edition comics available for giveaways at the stores.

42:48

The stores all hand.

You know how that's done differently.

Usually stores will have maybe guests or sales while we'll be doing that here, but I would recommend it's also it's really good for kids.

They usually have some good stuff for free for kids.

43:05

It's a really good it happens once a year, so Saturday May 2nd Free Comic Book day at your local comic shop, so make sure you keep that in mind. 2026.

Correct this year.

And what is the origin of Free Comic Book Day?

43:23

I don't know this one.

I'm going to learn something.

Early 2000s, a retailer, I think Joe Field from Flying Colours Comics I believe in near Seattle, I think I have it right, pushed for this, this event and it's snowballed and it's been a success ever since, at least for us.

43:45

Some stores, you know it.

I mean, the interest in stores varies, but we've always been a proponent of the event and has always done pretty well for us.

I do see you hype that every year.

Does it does it bring in a lot of new people or just a lot of?

44:00

Yeah, you know, you get to reequate yourself with with people, come in again.

Anytime you get an event that moves traffic to your store, it's it's, it's always a good thing.

So recently I've asked Jeff to pick up some comics or some, some, some collections, actually some special editions of things rather than purchasing them from a giant online retailers.

44:23

And I, I, I like to do that so that, you know, we, we can keep Phantom of the Attic going.

And how can customers, how can listeners buy things around the world from Phantom of the Attic Comics?

That's a great question.

And keep this going.

Unfortunately, we're incredibly 20th century.

44:41

We really don't have an online store of note, but we certainly will take phone calls and messages from various, you know, Instagram, Facebook, contact us and we will see what we could do to get whatever grout comic or graphic novel to you.

45:00

In some ways I like it that way because we have a direct you're just not pressing a button and something may or may not be coming your way.

You're actually talking to us and we'll be in touch as a more, I think, human communication on ordering.

So you, you you're active on Facebook and Instagram.

45:17

How can people find you?

Facebook and Instagram.

What's your what's your hashtag handle at?

I don't even know what it's called anymore.

How do people find you?

It's I think it's a fan of the attic in Oakland in both put Oakland.

POTA.

45:33

POTA for Phantom of the Attic Oakland and I think family out of comics on in Oakland in on Facebook.

That's our two major social media platforms.

I thought you answered that in the same way I would answer, which is I think it's this.

I'm not really sure what my address is.

45:48

I don't even know.

I don't know what I'm.

I don't even know what I'm active on anymore.

Yeah, it's I kind of feel the same.

I need to get better with that.

But you know too much information to deal with.

Sometimes you can always find me on Atari 2600 Live.

46:05

Well, last question is do you have before we wrap up here, do you have any questions for me?

Anything.

Oh wow, I wasn't ready for this.

Yeah, see, look, I'm making the wheels spin.

What's your?

How about this?

If you, if you, if you wanted a beer right now, what?

46:23

What beer would you want at this moment?

What time is it, 1135?

OK, we'll see. 11:35 is getting within the range of reasonable beer.

You know, like if you get your choice right now.

Right now a nice cold.

I I would say at the moment a Hafrel lager would be a terrific beer because that.

46:42

Sounds delicious.

They're delicious and they're not.

So there's not such a big beer that it's going to knock me on my ass for the rest of the day or put me to sleep.

So just something, something, it's got to be something fairly low ABV or, you know, just just just refreshing like a logger.

Oh.

That's that sounds really nice.

I could go from it if I, if I have, if I haven't my, I don't know what I'm doing the rest of the day.

46:59

I've got some other, you know, parental things I have to do take priority.

But if I if I get a chance, a Hofbrau lager would be a be a wonderful thing.

Or if or if anything else, at least just like a Miller Lite or something that's just a tasty, it won't kick my ass.

That sounds awesome.

I've always said that I like the pair of beers and comic books.

47:16

I think so if if you're if I go out to a brewery or, or just sit down on the couch with like with the beer and I'm just going to have one beer, maybe 2 beers like a Conan the Barbarian pair as well with some of those big, you know, ass, ass kicking giant Ipas.

But for many occasions, just a lighter, more drinkable beer is is is always the answer.

47:36

So you drink beer and reconix at the same time.

I'm a beer snob.

It's it's something I've I've enjoyed beer for for quite, quite some time.

And I I just think it's since comics are very personal, single, they're they're like a single player experience, you know, for lack of a better term.

47:53

It's not something that I tend to to do with other people.

I don't gotcha.

I sit down.

I read a comic like this is my time away from the world and I I like I agree with you completely.

I think there is it's an unplugged art form.

There's no messages coming through.

I don't need to leave a comment.

I'm not like dealing with the comments field on comic books and there's no batteries there.

48:11

No one's tracking me, no.

One's going to hack your comic.

Yeah, I mean, DCDC and Marvel don't know where I am when I'm reading them, even though I, you know, pretty much advertise it.

But my point is that it's an analog unplugged art form and I just think it pairs well with, you know, the cold beer.

But I always said you don't need to enjoy beer to enjoy comic book dot beer.

48:29

What what you know, I just I think really the focus is on comic books.

I just thought the dot beer extension was pretty funny and applica and also relevant to what I'm doing.

And also it covers a larger.

I originally I started this as 80s comics, but I felt like that that was too narrow of a window since I do a lot of 70s stuff as well. 90s stuff.

48:49

Well, thank you for listening to Comic Book dot Beer, the podcast, and whether it's Phantom of the Attic Comics or your local comic book shop, just go and support your comic book stores.

Yes, find them and and they will and they'll support, they'll they'll help you with with getting into comics or continuing your comics interest.

49:11

Yes, you can get almost everything online.

I've I've actually used the library frequently and sometimes I'll find stuff on the online, just read it out on the library and read it on on my iPad.

But if I really like it, I like to own it.

And then I come into the comic store and I pick it up.

Thanks for having me Mark.

49:26

I appreciate it.

Thank you for time.

Thank you for taking the time and I hope that we get to do this again that.

'D be outstanding.

All right, So I will see you soon.

See you everybody.

Comic book dot beer.

See you later.

Thank you.

Thank and thank you, Jeff.

49:42

No problem.

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