Comic Books for the Better Good

It’s been awhile since I posted. I’ve been focused on the comic book store, for the most part. We now have a presence at the First Friday Art Walk in downtown Phoenix, and Friday, Feb. 5th, found us out in front of our friend’s shop – Of the Earth Cafe – peddling our books. It is such fun to be downtown on First Friday. There are so many people and everyone is so unique. We sit in a small area of vendors who peddle anything from Tarot card readings to really funky homemade pins, not to mention the artsy clothing styles in the shop behind us. I love sitting amidst the creativity all around us.

On Saturday, Feb. 6th, we had our first focus group in the store. We gathered a bunch of our customers and frequent visitors and asked pointed questions about comics. It was delightful to have such candid conversations with our participants. My business partner, Linda Simpson, led the group and she has no idea about comics, which I think helped fill out some of the questions very well. Many of the suggestions made were for things we have tried, and/or things we are thinking about doing, so we at the store really feel we are on the right track, which is very good. Two members of the group happened to be school teachers – one teaches high school English and the other is a special ed. teacher. Both of them talked about how comics could be used in the classroom – one as a way into other literature, and the other as a way to get students to read. Both are in the realm of what I visualize when I think of comics paired with education, so I am excited about the possibilities.

In the past few days, I was in San Jose at a large pagan festival, where I actually had the opportunity to talk to several people about comic books! Hopefully, we will gain some new online customers after the networking we did in CA. It was quite inspiring to talk to others who see the archetypal energies of the superheroes in comic books and how we can use these archetypes to understand ourselves better. This is, of course, in line with so many of my other interests. In fact, I see a book in there.