Indie-A-Go-Go Home & Cry To Mama
...it takes almost no time nowadays for someone to either make the most non-frontational issue political. If someone posts an article about how there is a petition to allow a bus bench to be decorated with Marvel Comics art, someone will find it within themselves to groan about taxpayers having to foot the bill for it. It would be a stupid argument if everyone in the town received a bill for the 4 cents it would likely run them, but it never stops someone.
One of the arguments a commenter made opined that the owner should go to a bank for a loan. True, the store owner COULD go to a bank and take out a loan. If he qualifies, he can expand but then have to pay back the loan with interest. It is entirely possible that he pays off his loan and the expansion succeeds, keeping his business going strong. If he fails, he is still on the hook for the leftover principal and interest, not to mention fees and fines for possible late payments.
OR...he can go the crowd funding route, the route he is going. In this case, he is offering people signed comics, signed prints, t-shirts, trades and collectibles for their tax-free contributions. If he succeeds, he keeps a cool store alive and the contributors get a keepsake of their assistance in a good story. If he fails, the funders can keep their items and he walks away with a bit less dirt on him.
I am no banking expert, but I was of the mind that bank loans are somewhat dependent on deposits. Deposits that are made by...people. People deposit their own hard-earned money into the bank who then turns around & doles the funds out in the form of small loans to make money back in interest. In simple terms, it works just fine and does help people. But in the crowd funding scenario, people are giving their money direct to the loanee, getting swag in return for their help and they eliminate the middle man altogether. To me, it feels like a win-win for everyone involved.
It feels very much that with a still-bleak economic outlook and the rise of digital content, cool places to congregate and shop are not easy to come by. It was hard for indie record stores to compete with iTunes, Best Buy, Amazon and now they are practically extinct. Comic shops are feeling the pressure of competition from digital and chain bookstores. With comic book films becoming mainstream, it is not inconceivable that Target and Wal-Mart retrofit a graphic novel section in their stores in the near future. Indie shops are given a little bit of the power back through crowd funding projects.
I understand that all genre fans do not think with a hive mind. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Ask any comics writer of any political stripe imaginable and almost all, if not all, would never say that they want to alienate potential readers. As an avid comics fan, the more niche titles that I enjoy alongside Captain America and Batman are not always readily available. To that end, it is nice to have a few indie comic shops to find something like Hair Shirt or Petrograd.
As you probably guessed, I am very much pro-crowd funding. I feel as if this method satisfies most political divides. It is both free market and community-driven. And from what I have seen, it keeps the flow of cool and interesting projects alive. But I suppose for some with such stringent political views that often read more like penis envy, there is no greater victory than pissing on everyone else.
This Alabama comics shop is currently running a crowd funding initiative to expand. Their goal is to raise $5,000 to match the out-of-pocket funds the owner is throwing in to expand to meet his current demands. For those who donate, they receive varying degrees of swag or reward for contributing. So, in essence, it is the opposite of begging. It is a small business owner trying to accommodate his growing market demand. It sounds like a very cool project. Scroll down to the comments and towards the bottom, a few people had to make it into a gripe session about mooching and so forth. Sigh.
One of the arguments a commenter made opined that the owner should go to a bank for a loan. True, the store owner COULD go to a bank and take out a loan. If he qualifies, he can expand but then have to pay back the loan with interest. It is entirely possible that he pays off his loan and the expansion succeeds, keeping his business going strong. If he fails, he is still on the hook for the leftover principal and interest, not to mention fees and fines for possible late payments.
OR...he can go the crowd funding route, the route he is going. In this case, he is offering people signed comics, signed prints, t-shirts, trades and collectibles for their tax-free contributions. If he succeeds, he keeps a cool store alive and the contributors get a keepsake of their assistance in a good story. If he fails, the funders can keep their items and he walks away with a bit less dirt on him.
I am no banking expert, but I was of the mind that bank loans are somewhat dependent on deposits. Deposits that are made by...people. People deposit their own hard-earned money into the bank who then turns around & doles the funds out in the form of small loans to make money back in interest. In simple terms, it works just fine and does help people. But in the crowd funding scenario, people are giving their money direct to the loanee, getting swag in return for their help and they eliminate the middle man altogether. To me, it feels like a win-win for everyone involved.
It feels very much that with a still-bleak economic outlook and the rise of digital content, cool places to congregate and shop are not easy to come by. It was hard for indie record stores to compete with iTunes, Best Buy, Amazon and now they are practically extinct. Comic shops are feeling the pressure of competition from digital and chain bookstores. With comic book films becoming mainstream, it is not inconceivable that Target and Wal-Mart retrofit a graphic novel section in their stores in the near future. Indie shops are given a little bit of the power back through crowd funding projects.
I understand that all genre fans do not think with a hive mind. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Ask any comics writer of any political stripe imaginable and almost all, if not all, would never say that they want to alienate potential readers. As an avid comics fan, the more niche titles that I enjoy alongside Captain America and Batman are not always readily available. To that end, it is nice to have a few indie comic shops to find something like Hair Shirt or Petrograd.
As you probably guessed, I am very much pro-crowd funding. I feel as if this method satisfies most political divides. It is both free market and community-driven. And from what I have seen, it keeps the flow of cool and interesting projects alive. But I suppose for some with such stringent political views that often read more like penis envy, there is no greater victory than pissing on everyone else.
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