Friday, April 8, 2011

decline of comic book stores similar story to Scooter Shops and Importers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXz8yy07Y6s&feature=related

I find the rise and fall of the comic book industry very similar to the Scooter Market in the USA. Its the 1% of the literary world, gets a lot of attention and constantly people either get rich, loose money, or close. Sometimes the movies make more than the comics ever make. In the case of Marvel it almost closed several times, made some people and store owners filthy rich on its stocks in the 90s, then it almost closed, owed money to everyone, drove other distributors under, then the stock was worthless, sold to Toy Biz, made movies that made money and then eventually to Disney. Sounds like the story of Powersports Factory with Mario Andretti except no happy ending or happy story there. In the case of countless distributors who got in the 1990s they went under. Similar to the US gas scooter and EV business.

Booth are industries of passion without reason. Stores either make it big or stay small forever. The Motorcycle industry has Parts Unlimited and then all the smaller US parts distributors. You have the big four Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki/Susuzki comics has DC/Marvel. Very similar business plans. The grunts and fans do the work. Where a lot of distributors take advantage of young kids in love with the vintage Vespa scene, abuse them, they make one or two people rich, and they get burned out and quit after a few years. Similar to the kids who love comics, work at shops for minimum, make stores rich, and then quit after a few years.

Food for thought....

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