I've spent the last couple of days making CD artwork, chiefly. I have so many bootleg shows from my old trading days that I never had art for, and new glances around places like artwork.easytree.org don't show anything new, so I've made some pretty new sleeves. Anyway, if you still are interested in such old-fashioned things as CDs and jewelboxes and haven't uploaded everything into a small box like all the cool kids, easytree is the best site out there for artwork. And if you ever run into anything designed by Mr. Monopoly, or kudzu for that matter, don't sell it on eBay because they're not for profit. Credo!

I mentioned in the last entry I had something to say about comic shops, but I wanted to wait until I had a chance to swing by Champion today to say it. See, Legends, Gordon Lee's shop, was not really great, but it's heavenly compared to some of the crappy stores in Atlanta. And the market is unforgiving and harsh. At least two shops closed in 2005, including the superb Batty's Best, and two have closed so far this year.

And I don't feel particularly bad to see them go, since 80% or more of my business goes to Bizarro Wuxtry in Athens, and most of the remainder goes to Great Escape here in Mayretta, but the fewer shops that are out there, the harder it is for kids to get into comics. Without parents who know where to take them, kids won't start reading them, which is really sad. And most of the shops that have closed have only themselves to blame for sucking so hard and hitching their horses so firmly to superhero books that people tend to grow out of. A good store will forge enough of a relationship with their client base so that when their customers start to order fewer books, the good store manager will notice this, realize they're getting bored and sell them on titles more geared to what they are interested in. Thinking alphabetically, Golgo 13, Hellboy, Invincible, Jinx, Judge Dredd, Kabuki, Powers, Queen & Country and Sin City should be on hand for any Marvelite or DC-er to be shown as their interest wanes, or when the latest cross-universe stunt drives them away. (Speaking of which, She-Hulk is the only monthly superhero book I'm buying right now, until Grant Morrison's run on Batman starts, and I was pissed beyond words to find this stupid Marvel Civil War stuck in it this month. This ain't a Reese's peanut butter cup, man.)

And shops that don't have these on hand and ready to sell, with staffs who know how to freaking sell it, well, they deserve to go down in flames.

But then we have incidents like I had on the last week of school. I may have mentioned Sami, a classmate of my daughter's who is like gasoline to my daughter's flame, a hyperactive little thunderbolt who's just all about tackling and hugs. I spoke with her mom, who's the PTA treasurer, for a short time that day and she sadly confirmed that they're holding Sami back a year because she is not reading up to par.

I told her that was a shame, because my kids love to read. They'll sit back for hours reading. She said this sadly was not the case with her daughter.

I asked whether she'd thought about comic books, and you know exactly how it went from there. She had never thought of comics, she had no idea where to buy them, or, if she found a place, what to buy.

So I told her about the Johnny DC line, and Cartoon Network Block Party and Cartoon Network Action Pack. Naturally, her daughter watches the characters on TV already; she recognized them. I told her one of my daughter's biggest thrills was having a drawing published in the now-axed Powerpuff Girls # 66. This blew her mind. I told her Great Escape had the better staff in the area, but Dr. No's was nearer. She agreed this was a fabulous idea, and would try comics to get her girl reading. She asked what else they read. My son gets Teen Titans Go and Simpsons Comics and my daughter is also crazy for Betty & Veronica digests. They also love Peanuts and Fox Trot and Calvin & Hobbes collections, and when he finishes the funny pages of the Mayretta paper that my folks save him, my son asks me whether I want to read Doonesbury.

We're losing so many potential readers - not just comic readers, but readers - by not having material out there that kids want to read. These crappy Android's Dungeon stores put themselves out of business watching all their sales go to the Borders across the street because they were not racked to support graphic novels beyond token shelving in the back, and have never had any idea what the hell this big-eyed Japanese shtuff is, and - here's the kicker - have never made an effort to change their floor plans, layouts, ordering or hiring practices to adapt to a market not based on back issues. Specializing in "superhero back issues" is an idiotic move in an eBay world. Specializing in "Japanese books" makes sense. Specializing in "independent releases" makes sense. But the days of people driving store to store looking for that one missing 1979 issue of Fantastic Four are long gone. If your regular store doesn't have it, you try eBay.

Earlier this year, there were simultaneous threads on the Comics Journal board and on the Great Escape board about what makes a good comic shop. Based on my comments, a buddy of mine named Dylan Northrup wrote me early last month to ask my advice. He was in the early stages of taking over the management of Champion Cards & Comics in Austell.

Now, I know a couple of my readers stopped by this store when it was in Smyrna and it sucked. Then the rent got raised and they moved out the East-West Connector to a dying strip mall with a dollar store AND a "Super 88-Cent" AND a Food Depot. You know, one of those strip malls without foot traffic, because everyone avoids it? Here, the store sucked so hard that it snagged its own tail, turned itself inside-out and became a singularity.

I'd only spoken with Ron, the owner, for any length of time once, when he was still in Smyrna. He bought the backstock of Benny the Book Trader to get started and he wasn't interested in anything beyond superheroes personally, so that's what he stocked, along with some fad products like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon to keep business afloat as the back issue market disintegrated. I can kind of understand people really liking the cape books and wanting to open a store, but unless your business model encourages customer growth, you won't grow. And he didn't.

In Austell, this shop became the worst comic shop on the planet. And a huge chunk of that was this horrible troll of a manager, the "Ummm" Guy. Just to give you an idea, there was a tub of assorted Heroclix commons on the counter. "Ummm" Guy admitted that he would snap a Heroclix figure off its base once a day just to relieve the boredom by starting a fun new game: once a day, break a 75-cent Heroclix. But it never occurred to him, and he never cared, the impact this has on customers. Someone looking for a certain piece to finish their set is going to remember this tub of broken Heroclix. And that's before we get to the store's many other failures, like the mountains of beat-up back issue boxes full of unsellable 1990s crap, or the broken chairs, or the broken toilet, or the bog-like stench of middle school boys, or the mob of middle school boys who would occupy the back half of the store playing D&D and not spending any money for six hours at a stretch.

So I stopped going out there to play Heroclix. That's in part because I was seeing someone last year and was busy, and in part because Deb moving to Kentucky made it impossible to guarantee child care, but mainly because I hated being in that place, knowing that if I needed to pee I'd have to walk down to the grocery store, listening to "Ummm" Guy blasting his Fountains of Emo nu-metal wank at full volume, looking at all these crappy comics and fad toys like Homies and Creepyfreaks collecting dust. I miss seeing my buddies out there, but we keep up with PMs via hcrealms, and I'll see them once in a while at other events, like Great Escape's games, which are much closer.

Anyway, Dylan wrote to say he was looking into taking over the store and asked what I thought he could do to improve it. He stated upfront that "Ummm" Guy was going and the toilet would be fixed. Also that they were going to slash ordering titles to save money until ordering patterns could be determined, buy some new chairs, paint the interior, dump much of the unsellable stock and fad products and aggressively promote gaming.

I told him that was one hell of a poisoned chalice he was thinking about, but that his ideas were good ones. I certainly agree with dumping the backstock of 1990s Marvel / DC / Defiant / Thingummy in a landfill. I also suggested he really build up the trades and graphic novels and put in some new, prominent shelving in the front of the store for it, and to learn everything he possibly can about Japanese comics, and to make a strong effort reaching out to that community, including the AWA messageboard, to find out what people want and what it will take to earn their business.

We heard Sunday, after a game at Great Escape, that Dylan and his wife had just taken over the store. I resolved to go over there and give him a thumbs-up as soon as possible. Wouldn't you know it, the Hipstermobile needed to go back to my mechanic again today! So I stopped in to interrupt him from a gigantic reorganization, in preparation for some substantial garbage-dumping. (One thing I did notice - you remember those original graphic novels Marvel and DC did in the mid-80s? Things like Super Boxers or Mills & O'Neill's Metalzoic? Champion has had dozens, and I mean dozens of them, sitting around hidden in the back for a couple of decades. Mad.)

I wished him well and told him I'd be in again before too long. I figure he's got a heck of an uphill climb.

Anyway, if you're looking for a new place to get your comics or do some gaming, the place is Champion Cards & Comics 1355 East-West Connector Austell, GA 30106 and the number is (770) 944-8373. The manager's name is Dylan Northrup and he's a super guy, and I hope he turns the place around. So give them a try! The region needs more good comic shops.