Image Comics Community

There are two comic shops in the area that have a great vibe:

Isotope Comics in SF and Fantastic Comics in Berkeley which is paritally owned by Erik Larsen.

Both have a very open floor layout. There's more open space than comics in both stores. Fantastic Comics is huge, but Isotope is a little more "hip."

For more shops though, the key to really bringing in a new crowd is, of course, location. But that will only get you so far. If you only stock superhero comics or focus heavily on them you probably won't get a diverse crowd. If you make a store with a wide selection of new titles, then you'll probably draw in more people (new comic readers). Plus there's the female clientele - they're much more likely to walk into an open, brightly lit store than a dark, cramped one. The

A store with staff members who want to sell books,have personalities and want to help.

I absolutely love my comic store here in Vegas - Maximum Comics. Some things that I like about it:

1. It's clean, well lit, and smells good.
2. The employees are uniformly friendly and helpful without being overbearing.
3. They will give you recommendations if you ask without sounding like pompous comic snobs and never look down on you no matter which titles you pick up.
4. Hardcovers and trades are 20% for all pull box customers that are current on their account.
5. You get stamps for X amount of dollars spent and when you fill out the stamp card it's entered into weekly drawings for free comics.
6. They regularly throw parties with free food and raffles.
7. They try hard to get signings. Recent signing include Ryan Ottley and Jason Howard (twice) and Mike Allred.
8. They have get togethers for local artists.
9. There focus is on comics with only a small amount of time spent on gaming and cards.
10. All comics are on the shelf already bagged and boarded.

Stuff like that. It's a very pleasant experience and I've made friends there. Some other things that I think would be interesting:

1. A setup like Barnes n Noble has with couches, chairs, coffee/cafe, etc that makes the shop a destination for picking up and reading comics and not just a quick stop once a week.
2. A book club type of group where everyone reads certain comics or trades and then can gather to discuss their readings.

Not sure what else.

A comic book club would be awesome

A store with staff members who want to sell books,have personalities and want to help.

This.
i am a salesperson and i always have people referring their friends to me. a referral program for friends and shit would be nice. if you get someone to start a pull list with 5 or more comics then you can get one free comic per 5 comics while your friend gets a 6th comic for free as well.

a points system that tracks how many comics you have bought with your email/phone number/address, you get free discounts and posters and merchandise when buying comics and shit.

marketing (got a BS in marketing as well)
i dont see any advertising for books or comics, yet i see tons of advertising for video games and the target audiences are very similar.

I am in sales as well... marketing is a tricky thing. How many times do you see CAT commercials? CAT is a 50 billion $ + per year company in revenue. I think the movies etc from Marvel and DC are advertising for the industry... though seeing image commercials during walking dead episodes would be brilliant and worthwhile.

seeing image commercials during walking dead episodes would be brilliant and worthwhile.

But who would pay for that ad space? TV commercials are incredibly expensive -- especially on a hit show like THE WALKING DEAD. And Image, as a company, has no money. Remember, Image doesn't own any of the books it publishes. So it'd be up to the individual creators of the various Image titles to band together and buy an ad -- which just isn't financially feasible.

In theory, I agree -- seeing ads for Image books on TV would be awesome. But realistically, it just isn't possible.

-- Jay