The Four Color Media Monitor

Here's an article on Australia's Commercial Real Estate about King's Comics in Sydney, New South Wales, one of the most significant specialty stores Down Under that's been in operation for nearly 4 decades, and has a few subsidiaries around town:

In high school, George Vlastaras started a mail-order business trading comic books as a way to make extra pocket money to buy more comics.

The then-15-year-old’s side hustle was the start of a bright career, and the beginning of Kings Comics, one of the most well-known comic book stores in Australia.

“He started reading comics when he was a child,” says his wife, Christine. “He grew up in the small country town of Scone and the only place he could buy comics was a newsagent. He absolutely loved Batman, Donald Duck, Scrooge.

“He is actually a civil engineer but he wanted to sell comics.”

Vlastaras opened his first comic-book store on Elizabeth Street in Sydney in 1986. It was underground and out of the way. “If you didn’t know we were there, you wouldn’t see us,” Christine says. But it was a success, winning over the hearts of comic collectors.

I think it's great they're successful, but I still take issue with the way collector's mentality is catered to, if we take the following as an example:

“The bottom level we made a vintage feel. It’s more of an area where you’ll find high-end collectibles, like a coin worth $20,000.”

Or perhaps a mint-condition Incredible Hulk No. 181 comic, in which Wolverine makes his first appearance, retailing for a cool $50,000.

Can we be clear about something? This Hulk issue's been reprinted in some of the most significant archives like the Marvel Masterworks and Epic Collections, and anybody interested should seek to buy those formats, not something small costing a whoppingly huge sum, considering there's little more than 20 pages of story in it. With all sorts of reprints in development, there's no need to go miles out of one's way to rummage through back issue bins anymore, when you can get a lot of this stuff more complete in paperback/hardcover, sans the advertisements accompanying many of the standard pamphlets. Oh, and before I forget, a shame we once again have an example of Batman cited as an absolute favorite, rather than Superman. The store managers even made sure to repeat a claim made by retailers stateside about film influence:

Films, in particular the Marvel movies, have had a huge influence on the sector in recent years, and thrust comic characters into the mainstream, she says.

“There’s a lot more readers coming into the store rather than just the collector market.”

There’s been a noticeable shift in demographic too. “It used to be mostly male; now it’s probably 50/50.”

And they're not clear whether women are coming to buy comics they see as more to their liking from different publishers. Chances are likely the ladies aren't buying the Big Two's modern offerings with all their identity politics pandering. The store's customer arrival, however, has taken a blow due to one of the worst illness outbreaks of the century:

The effects of the pandemic continue to impact the business, with fewer people working in the CBD.

“Ever since COVID, store traffic has decreased significantly.”

Retailers in Australia’s CBDs have felt the loss of browsing lunch-time office workers. However, the weekends remain busy, with tourists, first-time visitors, families and collectors spilling into the store.

CBRE national director of retail leasing Leif Olson says foot traffic has been “steadily improving” but is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels.

Well that's certainly sad if sales and employment have suffered due to the 2020 outbreak, but I still wish they wouldn't follow the knee-jerk playbook and say the movies have literally sent sales soaring in many departments. If the mainstream comics aren't doing well stateside, there's little chance they're doing any better in Oz. Why must so many retailers not be willing to offer a more realistic viewpoint?

Labels: Batman, dc comics, Europe and Asia, history, Hulk, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, Superman, X-Men