The Four Color Media Monitor

The CBC announced a specialty shop in Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island, is closing down:

One of Charlottetown's longest-running comic-book stores is closing at the end of the month, and the owner says inflation is to blame.

Dylan Miller said what's happened with the economy recently has forced him to close his doors at Lightning Bolt Comics and Games.

"There's a lot of shipping costs and stuff involved," he said. "The profit to be gained from it wasn't meeting the expectations of my life."

As well, flooding from post-tropical storm Fiona damaged his premises in the basement of a Grafton Street storefront. As a small business owner, he couldn't afford to repair it and go on.

Well, that's certainly a shame the store had to close. But while economic inflation obviously has some blame to shoulder, what if lack of interest in brand new stories from the Big Two did too? That's why I can't understand why any specialty store still relying on their products does so. It's only a good way to lose money, and there are independent publishers out there who can adhere to PC standards too, in effect dragging down quality and discouraging people from buying.

I think a vital lesson to be learned here, along with those about finance and shipping fees, is that if the major publishers aren't delivering good items anymore, then specialty store owners going forward should try to avoid being overly reliant on their modern output. That way, they can save money by not filling their stores too much with the book equivalent of spam. And, they should try to move away from such a huge emphasis on monthly pamphlets, and concentrate more on paperback/hardcover formats, because it's not like realists want to spend $5 on a mere 30 pages or so that don't amount to anything in the long run.

Labels: msm propaganda, sales