Comic Store In Your Future: Rodman Comics Year One

Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, rodman comics

Comic Store In Your Future: Rodman Comics Year One, as we look to our 15th anniversary this October

Fifteen years of Rodman Comics this year. On October 4th, we will celebrate the anniversary. I am even surprised. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first opened. I will write a series of these about the store’s history over the years. This is mostly from my memories. I wish I had kept a diary or something to help me remember dates and details better. Truthfully, with all the twists and turns, I never knew for sure if the store would be around for fifteen years. Back when I opened, COVID did not exist, Diamond was the only game in town for comic stores, and so much more. There is a lot of material with the store history to write about, and a lot I will have to gloss over to save time.

What I did do was try to research and learn about the comic business as much as possible before opening. That meant budgeting, figuring out how much costs would be and how much sales would need to be to break even. Many businesses have not lasted for the past two years. I figured if it were easy to open up a business and make a living off it, that would make sense. Why work for someone else if opening up one’s own business is easy?

What did I do to increase my odds of making it? I did not quit my full-time job when I opened. I also had a rental property. This was nearly fifteen years ago, and I was younger and lacked experience as a business owner. It was an expensive education.

Over the years, I have read about other stores opening and why they did it. One article in the Des Moines Register newspaper mentioned a store owner opening, hoping to be on a reality show that did not pan out. Everyone has their reasons.

Why did I open up Rodman Comics and call it that? I did look at calling the store another name, thankfully, I googled it and found out it was already being used. I went to the site, and it was something I wish I could unsee. So that killed that idea. Rodman Comics, it was. What were the goals for Rodman Comics? Make money, of course. Expand comic readership/collectors, help local schools, increase kids’ reading skills, be a friendly business, and actually talk to the people who come in and be a fun place to game in. I thought that working for myself could control my destiny more so to speak; I was tired of my other job, doing a lot of work while watching the bosses’ friends and family, sometimes doing very little and being promoted past me. They looked down on me, thinking the store would not be able to pay me as much as they did. They were wrong. During the height of COVID, their newspaper had an article that included the trouble it was causing local comic stores and my own. They thought it was funny, but I didn’t.

Before I left that job, I asked if there was a future there, and I was told I would get a raise. I made a mistake and was strung along for years about the raise. Being told “these things take time” or someone else being blamed for the delay. In all truthfulness, I knew I was getting strung along. After one excuse by a boss, I left his office and went outside because I was laughing at how bad the excuse was. When I finally got a raise and the yearly amount increase, I almost blurted out that I make more than this in one day at my store, and if I don’t, then it would be a bad day. After that, I did leave. My last day, I walked out; I had had enough of the lies and getting jerked around. I regret that I did not do it years earlier.

What did I learn before opening? I set up with an accounting company to help me out. I remember being confused at our first meeting, like we were not discussing the same thing. The accountant thought my “comic” store was about selling jokes. I replied no, though it could be a joke if it goes badly enough. He did not know they still even made comic books. This fact I would learn applied to a lot more people than I ever would have thought before opening. Iron Man’s first movie came out in 2008, along with Batman: The Dark Knight, yet there were still a lot of people who had no idea new comic books were still being made. When she lived in Texas, my younger cousin said she had never seen a comic book before. After I opened the store, I would pass out comic books and candy over the years for Halloween at my house, and kids would ask me what a comic book was, even ones who were dressed up as Captain America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more. They thought the characters were just from movies and cartoons.

What else have I learned? One could do everything right when running a business, but still have to close when Captain Picard tells Data in Star Trek. “You could do everything right and still lose. That’s not weakness, that’s life,” that is the sad truth. I was not sure Rodman Comics would get through the first year. The U.S. was still recovering from the Great Recession, and not as fast as I had thought it would. I stood in my store and thought I failed. I tried and was losing money. I won’t lie; it hurt. I told myself that if I do fail, it will not be for lack of trying. Giving up is easy. I would also figure out that my plans for the store simply would not work; I needed to change myself. Admitting that you are wrong can be tough, though necessary.

A customer’s kid at the time told me that his dad told him not to get attached to the store, and the odds are it won’t last. It hurt, though it could have been true. Amazingly, his dad and I have now been friends for roughly fifteen years and joke about what he said. I learned that people behave in mysterious ways. Often, what one says and does are two different things. When I first opened, people would come in, surprised that we would order something that was not on hand for them, and they would say another store would not do that for them. I learned why… they would never come back to get it, not even after getting called repeatedly that it had come in, and sticking the store with unsold material. I was baffled as to why they would have us order something that comes in and then not get it?

After the first year of the lease was up, a person from the leasing company I leased the store from called me and asked if I wanted to renew. I said yes. She replied, “Really?” With that, the adventure continued.

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