And it's not very emotional any more - it has largely been wrung out of me a long time ago; at least the shame, failure, etc. Except for the desire to see my creation continue on in some form, rather than have it just disappear, "die" so to speak. I'll admit to holding on to that desire when all others told me to let go. If there was a crisis, it was 4 years ago, and to be honest, if anything, I've been in an economic "crisis" (as society tends to loosely define it) my whole adult life. I eventually reached the point of trying to actively sell and/or shut it down just last fall, and I know some would have said "I've heard that before." But I knew it was different this time.
This resolve resulted in the "downsizing" of Comic College from 550 square feet to about 200, with about one-third the number of books, comics and toys on display. In January, I held a major sale and moved a lot of product in 3 weeks. The first week of February, much of what was left was packed up put in my van to wait for the next show (actually 5 in 3 months). Chris, my ex-partner and owner of the Nostalgia Zone, expanded his 500 square feet to take over the rest of my half, and now I sublet my space from him. His employees worked my register for many of my open hours, and I reduced my open hours slightly to conform with theirs. This was supposed to allow me to work at a full time day job, but I still worked just part-time at NRG, and full-time for the store, web, and Ebay auctions. With the cost-savings and extremely tight budgeting, this plan got me about half way to my goals, but I was still overworked and the road out of debt still looked long and hard.
Selling the "bricks" part of Comicopolis, Inc., is just the latest stage of a long process of divestment-with-honor. In 1995, my 2 companies (anyone remember the mall stores?) combined were almost $50,000 in debt and I was on the way to an eventual personal bankruptcy of about half that. I've been crawling out of those holes for 8 years, so I am finally close to zero (that's good compared to large negative numbers) for the first time since I came back from California 17 years ago. But it's not recommended to start there at my age. Time for a little history...
I met Bob Borden when I started working for Capital City in California in 1982. I did everything needed to start their distribution warehouse in San Leandro, just southeast of Oakland and its airport, and managed to manage it for 4 years. Soon after I left the operation in other hands in 1986, Bob began expanding his retail business and opened a warehouse nearby in San Leandro. He eventually owned 5 stores from Santa Rosa to LA, and his warehouse was acting as the distribution point after Capital City folded and the whole industry started to crumble and contract in 1995.
He now owns the same warehouse, and just one store (#1) in Livermore, about 30 miles east. He has a big pile of comics and other merchandise, too much to push through that one store. We have kept in touch by phone over the years, and through my infrequent visits back there. Last fall I casually offered to sell him my company, because my immediate future looked particularly dismal at the time, and because he needed a website to sell all his comics, statues, et al, and I needed to sell a lot more on online, to make it worth the effort. I thought the idea made sense, except that it didn't do anything about the regular, on-the-street-with-regular-customers storefront part of my business. (I tried to sell the whole thing to a couple of local people, too.) He didn't immediately jump in with an offer and I didn't ask a price, so the idea languished in inertia and indecision.
This March, he was told by both of his employees that each would be leaving soon. He visited Comicopolis.com and saw the news about "downsizing", and was suddenly moved to wonder whether I was ready to revisit our last conversation AND ready to move out there with my website and toys and comics and "expertise". (Being just slightly technologically challenged, he realized that he needed someone other than himself to manage it.)
THAT conversation moved ME to go back and talk to Tim Lohn and see if I could interest him in just the "kiosk" that I was left with after the big sale and restructuring in February. Limiting the discussion to the newly down-sized storefront made it something Tim might be interested in, and Chris chimed in with an offer to hire Brian Donnell (one my housemates) as a "new comics specialist", among his other duties. After weeks of budgeting, negotiating, training, and creative thinking, on April 26, we shook and hands and ran to Kinko's to print a flyer to distribute at the local convention the next day to generate some curiousity and interest.
Yesterday, we had a "Meet the new Dean" event at the store and a ex-faculty party afterwards, both of which were fun and very gratifying for me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I was a likable guy and compared favorably with my competition at least in areas NOT involving the profit/loss statement, but it has been nice to hear all the good wishes and such from my customers. Bob and I are still in the store everyday, packing mail orders, using the store as our front door, helping Tim get a handle on all the minutae needed to operate it. Now I finally have time for the hard work, getting all the pieces of the California gambit into place.
Hey, those are our green awnings facing Hennepin, and that might be Chris's white van in the back parking lot.
Bob's got a fantasy life that can be a little embarassing.
But he is a handsome little devil!