While the number has dropped in years past, there are still many, many shops around the world. To be named one of the finalists for the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award is an impressive feat, if only because of the sheer amount of shops. Chicago’s Challengers Comics + Conversation have been named finalists for award the last three years, which is even more impressive.
They’re adored by the comic community, thanks to their tireless work as ambassadors for the comic industry and their work spreading the best the medium has to offer to readers both new and old. Patrick Brower and W. Dal Bush teamed up to create this store to do just that, and today, I have a chat with Brower about their shop, the misperceptions about selling comics to kids and women, digital comics, and much, much more. Thanks to Brower for chatting with me, and if you’re in Chicago, make sure to check out their dynamite shop.
Challengers launched in 2008, and since it’s received accolades both in the form of award (and major nominations) as well as customers and creators singing its praises. How did the two of you decide you wanted to start up a shop, and what was the original idea behind it?
Patrick Brower: Both Dal and I had worked at other comic shops for a very long time, but were unhappy in the way the comic sales were treated. It felt like the product didn’t matter, only the money. Dal actually left that job because it almost killed his love of comics and was employed at a medical billing firm, but he couldn’t stop thinking that there had to be a better way to present comics to the people who want to be entertained. He came to me with the idea for Challengers with such passion and energy that I knew I would always regret it if I said no, so I said yes. The idea behind Challengers is simply finding a comic that each customer will love. We are not a collectibles store; we’re a comic shop for people who want to read comics. We realize that if we do our job right, we’ll be bringing in many new comic readers and those readers won’t have any preconceived notions as to what a comic shop is supposed to be, so we wanted to be as new-reader friendly as possible. And that means carrying just as many graphic novels and trade paperbacks as single issue comics. That means having a clean, organized, well-lit store that appeals to people who have been reading comics for 20 years or 20 minutes. We’re not a clubhouse where you have to prove your level of fandom to gain acceptance; we are a progressive comic shop that caters to everyone. A common criticism we receive is that Challengers doesn’t have the usual ‘comic store funk’ and to us that is a compliment.
Wow. That is a huge compliment, and I think that’s something the industry needs more of, if only because I often think the traditional comic store experience – that “prove your level of fandom to gain acceptance” part you spoke of – is a major roadblock for new readers.
One thing I love about your name is the “+ Conversation” part of it. Given that my favorite aspect of the comic shop experience versus buying digitally is I still get the thrill of commiserating with fellow comic fans about what is happening on comics. How big of an emphasis is that “+ Conversation,” and how did you decide to include that part in the name for emphasis?
It’s funny, I didn’t even think about that, but many shops are the “and _____” variety. That’s totally true.
One thing I really loved recently is the opening of Sidekicks, your all-ages centric shop-within-a-shop. I also noticed that, outside of yourself and Dal, your staff is predominantly female. One of the biggest stigmas in comics these days is that both of those audiences can’t really be reached. I’d wager you disagree. Why do you think those two audiences are perceived as more difficult to reach than others? Is it a real problem, or do you think it’s one that stems from the delivery of the product?
As far as Challengers’ staff goes, a good employee is a good employee, regardless of gender, and we’ve got some great employees. But yes, 6 of them are women. Some of them are so hardcore in their comics knowledge that they give us a run for our money, and some of them are fairly new to the medium, but they bring in a sense of wonder and help us see the store thru the eyes of new readers. As you would expect, our clientele is predominantly male, but it’s probably 65/35, so that’s not a terrible ratio, but it can always improve. And with the quality of and subject matter of so many of today’s comics, there is more available to be enjoyed by EVERYONE than ever before.
You ask an interesting question about the current delivery system of comics… It would makes sense that the digital model is a very easy way for new readers to get the books they want without having to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of comic shops, but I don’t know that they’ll know what to look for without some gentle nudging towards books they may not know of. And while we always (always) hear stories of women who have had bad experiences in other comic shops, it’s not anything we get to experience ourselves so it’s hard to judge the comic retail industry as a whole like that. Dal and I have not been average customers in over 20 years, so it’s hard for us to see retail from the other side. Even when we visit other shops, it’s never just as people looking for comics; we look at how they run their business compared to ours, and that isn’t always a good way to judge a store. What works for another store may not work for us, and vice versa. There are many (many) comic book shops in Chicago, and I have no doubt the best selling comic in each one is different than the others. For example, The Sixth Gun is a huge book for us, and I know several other Chicago stores that don’t even stock it. So we’re always looking at other stores like that and not as stores. It’s part of the business, sure, but it also means that we can’t rely on only our opinions of how the shop should be run. The customers have to decide that for us, be we have to listen to them to make it all work. So I guess my point is, if it is a flaw in the delivery system of comics, it is one that we (Challengers) can’t control. All we can do is try to make as many people aware of as many comics as we can, one at a time.
Continued belowI think your point about digital is correct, but I’m curious what you do for new readers in general in your shop besides the “gentle nudging” you mentioned. Recently, I went into my local shop with my girlfriend, and she looked at everything and asked, “how do you even know what to buy?” How do you overcome that almost exclusive nature comics have to them?
PB: The hardest part is getting people in the door. When they come in, it’s (hopefully) because they want to buy comics. And that’s when we take over. Every Graphic Novel shelf has a “Challengers Choice” recommendation on it, and that’s a great place to start. But it’s on us to watch how people navigate the shelves… are they just browsing? Looking intently with a purpose? Actively sampling the books? Just talking to people is the best way to find out what they want. Too often someone is about to leave empty-handed, and all it takes is a, “Did you find what you were looking for?” to turn that visit into a purchase. Or, even when people come right in and say that they have never bought a comic before but want one, it’s easier for us to navigate the shelves than it may be for them, so putting a book in their hands is the best way to start. Once they read it, and if they like it, they’ll get used to the shelves and understand how to find what they like. It boils down to this: we start a conversation.
PB: I have to answer the second part of this first, and that would be, as stated, The Sixth Gun is the most criminally underrated comic on the stands today. And this isn’t just me preaching about a comic I love; this is what I do–this is me telling you about a book you may not read that is certainly worth a look. The Sixth Gun is so very, very entertaining, each and every month. You can say it’s Deadwood meets Hellboy if that helps, and you can say it’s not a western so much as a supernatural drama that takes place in the old west. So if that helps give you an idea, great, but I don’t want to narrow it’s potential reach by classifying it too much, you know?
Our most successful monthly books are Batman and Saga. And Revival is up there, along with Hawkeye. But one of the things we’ve noticed is that the Diamond Top 100 lists really don’t reflect what we sell. I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of stores, and honestly it often makes us say, for example, “Why can’t we sell Teen Titans like the rest of the country can?” But if you take a book like Hawkeye… we liked issue #1, but we LOVED issue #2. We read the Marvel and Image preview books every week, and Hawkeye #2 was so good we ordered 100 extra copies and we hand sold it to everyone, because we believed in it. To give that number context, we order 4 copies of Teen Titans a month. That’s all we can sell. But those extra 100 copies of Hawkeye have translated into Hawkeye becoming our largest Marvel title. Now we can’t do that with every title, but we can and should put that much enthusiasm into our recommendations every day.
You’re talking about books that we genuinely love. We’ve been big supporters of all of those books since launch, and it’s really exciting that they do so well at Challengers. You mentioned Revival though, and I know that’s not a book that has met a huge national audience yet. I know Tim Seeley is a Chicago guy. Do your geographical roots play into some of the success with certain books you think, or is that just coincidence?
Continued belowPB: Well, a good book is a good book, no matter where the creators are from, but I can tell you that a good relationship with local creators doesn’t hurt. Specific to Challengers, our love of The Sixth Gun helped us forge friendships w/ Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, but we were already fans of the book (and they are not local). We don’t know BKV or Fiona Staples and as I’ve said, Saga is HUGE for us. But, our friendship with Mike Norton and Tim Seeley certainly put Revival on our radar earlier than it would have been otherwise. I think the basic answer to this is yes, but not as a rule. Some events we run with local creators don’t change the sales of a book at all, but when they do, it’s in a very positive way. I hope that doesn’t sound like certain books are only successful because the creators are local, but all stores should be happy to embrace their local comic creating community. We try to do it as often as we can, with creators on major books and creators who print their own comics on photo copiers.
One thing we briefly talked about was digital comics, and there are many retailers who are very frustrated with the idea of digital comics, and it’s understandable given the threat they are to a lot of the way the retail comic shops work. Since the ascension of digital as a format for reading comics, have you seen any downturn in sales? Do you see digital comics as a threat, or something that could be beneficial to you as a retailer in a way?
PB: I do not in any way think digital comics are a current threat to comic book retail. And as far as I know, Challengers has not lost any customers to digital. But let’s face it, it’s not like someone would actually come in to tell us they’re not going to come in again because they’re buying online. Maybe people do that, but I have yet to experience it. The people that shop weekly at comic stores want to be able to browse, sample books, pick them up, have that tactile sensation, and to talk to other people about comics. All the things you don’t get digitally. I think digital comics are great for people that don’t have a shop near them, or people who constantly travel, and I think digital comics are great in the way they can expose comics to so many new people; more than we IN the industry have the ability to reach. And if they like what they see and want more, hopefully they come into a shop and that’s when we have to do our part to show them all the great, great things comics have to offer. I think the more people reading comics, in ANY format, is better for comics as a whole. I think more comic shops in the world would be a great thing, just, you know, not across the street from Challengers.
The one thing that does give me a pause, is when young new comic readers only experience comics in a digital format. When youth discovers a format with no knowledge of the past, they don’t really go backwards. And for that I always look at the history of the music industry. How many kids today even know what a compact disc is? And they sure don’t own cassette tapes. We’ve been fortunate that for the past 75 years comics have really only been in one format. This is the first time we have to encounter a new delivery system for comics, and that has been to our benefit. People are used to format changes for music and movies. When something always changes people get used to it; when it rarely does, people resist a little bit more and I think that actually helps strengthen the printed form of comics.
I couldn’t agree more with pretty much all of what you said, and the numbers seem to back it up: sales are up in the industry, and after some frightful times, it seems that it is in a pretty healthy place right now. For you as a person with their ear pretty close to the ground, what do you think the impetus for the improved health of the industry is? Is it excitement tied to the movies and TV shows derived from comics, improved quality of the books, something else entirely, or some combination of all of that?
Continued belowPB: More great comics and more comic shops. The movies and TV shows are wonderful for keeping the subject matter in front of potential readers, but my experience has been that movie-goers don’t come looking for the source material as it pertains to comics. The few exceptions were the first Tim Burton Batman movie and Watchmen. But Watchmen stopped selling for us once the movie actually came out. None of the recent Marvel movies, as great as they have been, have made a significant impact on our sales. There is also no direct tie-in for those characters (For example, if you liked Thor, the current comics are nothing like that movie). And really, this answer is only my opinion, because if I knew what would strengthen the industry as a whole, I would do it every day. I mean, I HOPE Challengers is doing it’s part to cultivate new readers while keeping the current ones invested in continuing to read, but who really knows? I do firmly believe that the more stores there are, the more comics will be sold. I’ve always believed if, say, Challengers is doing $1,000,000 a year in business (we’re not; this is just an example) and someone opened a store directly across the street from us, while our sales would surely drop, the combined total of both stores would equal more than that 1 million. Every time a store closes, some people that shopped there just quit reading comics altogether.
Last question for you, and it is a pretty simple one: its clear you love comics both as a fan and as a retailer. What are your favorites now, and the books you can’t help but recommend to new readers?
PB: I don’t think my answers will surprise anyone who has read this far, by my current favorite monthly reads are HAWKEYE, REVIVAL, THE SIXTH GUN, SAGA, THOR GOD OF THUNDER, LOCKE & KEY, THE MASSIVE, and MIND MGMT. Great stand-alone graphic novels I like to point out are PETROGRAD and ONE SOUL. For younger readers there’s so much great stuff like AMULET, JELLABY, SMILE, DRAMA, and, of course, BONE. And lastly episodic graphic novel series that usually entice new readers include THE WALKING DEAD, Y THE LAST MAN, LOCKE & KEY, and PREACHER. But that list barely scratches the surface of all the exciting, captivating titles that are out there, hungry for new eyes.
