I worked in a comic book shop for a week

Are you a fan of comics? Card games? Statues? Manga? and all things geek? Well, I got to live the dream for every geek for a week, and here are my thoughts.

First some back story. My dad had my brothers in his early 20s, and in the 80s he didn't know of fun activities to do with them. So my dad figured he would get my brothers into baseball cards because that is what my dad collected as a kid. They had fun going to shops looking for cards. One day he took my brothers into a comic book store to get some baseball cards and saw a poster about killing super. "WHAT?? They are killing Superman?" My dad said shocked. The comic book employee said it was a huge story and would even be on the news. My dad wanted to see what was going on so the employee helped him get the run of comics leading up to Superman's death to catch him up on the story.

After that, my dad was hooked, which of course led to my brothers also turning into big geeks, which then spilled over to my sister and me also being big geeks. As we got older our geek journeys have all evolved differently. I got into anime and manga, which you might have already known because I write a blog about it. My sister is huge on D&D, she watches the critical role show 24/7. My second oldest brother got super into Pokemon and his kids now build decks and play in tournaments. But my oldest brother and dad stayed in the realm of comics and have collected thousands throughout the past 30 years. I grew up in a household that would regularly go to conventions, and any geek topic would come up like normal conversations.

In May of this year, my dad and brother fulfilled a lifelong dream and opened up a comic book store. Now they have everything you can think of, from graphic novels to card packs, to insane statues, manga, dice, and even a life-size dead pool, Because a shop wouldn't be complete without one. They even rent the space next door to the shop and turned it into a gaming room, for people to play D&D or magic the gathering.

Opening week was insanity. To go from an idea to opening in under a month was a stupid idea but my dad and brother thought it would be awesome to open on May 4th which also happened to be Free Comic Book Day. Magically and through a lot of hard work, we had the shelving built and up, the inventory which is a crazy story in of itself, the shop was all set except we didn't have the system to do inventory and we didn't have any way to take payment. We opened and there was already a line out the door. Luckily through Venmo and Zelle, we managed to make it through that opening day. We live in a pretty small town, but when we opened the shop it was the largest opening in the history of the town! We had no idea how many geeks lived here, all of them were so excited to have a local shop. It was so huge we made it into the local paper and got the back page of the local magazine that gets sent to everyone in our town and the next two local towns, People even made YouTube videos walking through the shop. The next day I went to the post office and the lady recognized me from opening day. From then on our family became the comic book family.

We have been open for a few months and my brother runs the shop full time. However this past week his wife needed a major surgery and he would have had to close the shop for a week. Now being the amazing little sister I am, I moved my schedule around to work the shop for a week. I am how can I pass up the opportunity to live a geek's dream for a week?

The first day I was there people were already lined up by the door waiting for me to open it. I was already crazy nervous but excited to get some stuff sold. My brother showed me how to do everything but pack up the statutes. He said they rarely get sold so you should be fine. However of course within my first hour of working a girl bought matching mortal combat statues. They looked very cool and she was waiting for her pay day to treat herself. While she was excited I was panicking on the inside. I had to find their boxes and then try to fit them back into the foam. Luckily she gave me some grace and we talked about Tokyo Ghoul while I was struggling. Finally got it all packed up and she was beyond excited to set them up when she got home. On that first day, we sold almost $800 worth of inventory which was our best single day as a shop and I had a blast. So many interesting people came in, some you could tell were geeks by the shirts they wore and some you were shocked to find out were geeks. Everyone had different passions, and it was fun to see their faces light up as soon as they found something that they loved. I learned so much about comics, games, etc, and had many wonderful conversations on that first day.

The second day things slowed down a lot. I guess that's just shop life, some days are packed and exciting while others are slow and make you feel as if time had stopped. We do have a TV in the shop and I ran Studio Ghibli movies all day but I also was smart enough to bring my iPad and started to watch One Piece. When it came to the questions people asked I was shocked at how much I knew. I guess when you grow up surrounded by geeks some of the information just gets locked away in your brain.

On the third day, things started slow again, which gave me enough time to put the new comics away. I had no idea how long it took to bag and board every single comic but it kept me entertained. From what I was told not a lot of shops bag and board their comics, but my brother likes to protect the comics from damage. Then a lot of people came into the shop that afternoon to evening. I had no idea how many people get their comics pulled weekly. It seems to be the best way to make sure you get the next copy in a series. All of the regulars came in and they had a lot of patience with me struggling to figure out which comics to pull, and if they wanted a variety cover.

The fourth day and the last day I had to work was by far the slowest. I wished every day was like the first but time was stopped and very few people came in. I did have fun talking to the people that did come in. Most of them had never seen the shop before and were having fun looking through the long boxes of comics. I can see how shop owners have to find ways to entertain themselves on slower days. Cleaning, reorganizing, posting, and order.

If my brother ever says working the shop is hard I now have permission to smack him. It is a super easy job, yet you do have to be mentally prepared for slow days and fast days, and you won't know which day you are going to get until the day starts. My respect for comic book shop owners' knowledge is through the roof. The number of topics you have to not only know but be actively knowledgeable in is overwhelming, to say the least. Staying up to date on trends, Ordering what you think will sell well, and answering such a wide range of questions is not the easiest task. I can see how it might ruin someone's hobby of collecting geeky things by turning it into work. I had no idea about the people skills involved either. Some geeks might not be the best at holding conversations, they can be more on the shy side, and it could be hard for an introvert to be chatting with people all day.

Overall I can see that being the dream job for some geeks, To be able to talk about your passions all day, to order all the things you think would be cool and now have a place to put them, to connect with local artists and sellers at conventions, and to be able to bring joy to a community. However, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Building a community, marketing, making sure to sell enough to make a profit, keeping up with inventory, planning events, knowing how to order from each wholesaler, and maintaining the shop.

Would I ever work full-time in a comic book store? Probably not, but if my brother needed some help again I'd be happy to help.

If you want to check out our little shop on Instagram and give us a follow that would be amazing! My brother's shop is also online, so If you want to support his shop by buying online I will also link the website below. If you are in the area or passing by stop in, I promise it is worth a peek, every time I go in I find something new, and who knows, You might just find exactly what you are looking for.

Do you think working at a comic book shop is the dream job? If you could open any kind of geeky store which would it be?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below

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Bye for now!