snap judgments

When I worked at my first comic shop down in the City of Industry in sunny southern California, I was handed a small pamphlet titled “How to get Women (and other new customers) Into Your Store!”.  Well, something like that at least as that’s the impression that was left to me upon seeing the cover. The actual title might have been worse. I do remember the cover was pink.

Now, back then, this excited me. I was the only real fangirl around the shop that knew her DC from her Marvel and the idea of attracting other girls into the store was just as much of a mystery to me as it was to the people who made this handy little guide. I was disappointed to see less of a ‘how to promote your reading material to a group of people who have been somewhat trained to disregard it’ and more of a ‘how not to run a crappy store’. One of their suggestions was to make sure the store was ‘well lit’ and didn’t smell. Another was to showcase featured books towards the front door to interest people in the covers and artwork. By the time I got to ‘be friendly and approachable to questions’, I was done with the little pink book.

Wasn’t this stuff self-explanatory? Wouldn’t a dimly lit, smelly store with unapproachable staff and hidden product turn off anyone?

I’m lucky to have worked in some fine funnybook establishments. Both my first job and my current employer run pretty kick-ass stores, if I do say so myself. I work at a very inviting and easy to navigate store with an  eye-catching layout and less cardboard boxes, kept ship-shape by helpful and attentive staff. We love comics and so should you.

So how do we attract that ever elusive ‘girl’ market? By getting Minx books? By stocking manga? Can you lure in one type of customer over the other like that?

Now, I purely speak in a snap judgmently fashion here, so take this with a grain of salt, but to be perfectly honest:  NO.  You can’t make a Lifetime channel for comics.  You can’t just stock manga and expect the chicks to roll in.  Mind you, certain types of books attract the female reader more than others but when you really look at it, do you know what’s really selling it?  A GOOD STORY.  That’s right: good writing, aesthetic artwork and some drama will attract ANYONE let alone women.

Recently with the influx of Buffy comics (one of Metro’s top sellers!), I was asked to make another display for ‘Girls’s Comics‘, getting my goat as if I had gift-wrapped it for them.  GIrls’s Comics?  REALLY NOW?  Thinking baout it, I sadly realized that it was a valid sales point.  How many mothers called us a ‘Boys’s Store’ or bee-lined straight for comfort zones?  So I set about making a display that solved the issue and I felt groovy with.  I tried to find books that were engaging, interesting and well-drawn that just so happened to have a female protagonist.  I know, it’s not like women only watch TV shows or movies about women, why should the protagonist matter, but again…. comfort zones.  Next to our display of Buffy and Angel comics is a little rack with a sign that reads: “Real Women, Real Comics”.  Why yes, it is cheesy!  We even have Strangers in Paradise, front and center!  But we also have Whiteout and Queen and Country, Manhunter and She-Hulk, Blue Monday and Nana.  I tried to make it diverse, but what can you do?

Especially when it sells.  I’ve been able to put Manhunter in the hands of a few folks who’d never pick it up and you wouldn’t believe how many guys stand around flipping through She-Hulk (remember kids, this isn’t a library). I can’t say that a primarily female audience is catching on to these books, but the very fact that they’ve been taken from their usual place on the shelves and given a little section of their very own seems to be doing the trick.  Mind you, so does the Movie Themed endcaps on our aisles, so what can you say?

So in the end, what’s all this mean?  I am no feminist blogger; there are so many people who do it bigger and better than I do that I would feel like a moron to dare step into incredbly well covered territory.  All I can say is that a retailer and reader, try not to shoehorn people maybe?  Maybe the quality of the product is the only thing that’s going to sell the book?  Maybe that all of this is pointless?  Be a good store with a great selection and you should have anyone beating a path to your door.

Also, make sure your store is well lit and smells nice.