988 Valencia

988 Valencia was the talk of the Mission earlier in the year, but has now fallen off the radar and still sits empty.  For a few months I thought the space was too large and the landlord wanted too much for it to work for Mission: Comics & Art. But I finally met with the owner a few weeks back and learned of his plans to sub-divide the space into two separate storefronts, one of which would be the perfect size. Unfortunately, the owner was just starting the process of  submitting plans to the city for the sub-division and renovating the storefront for the larger space and was estimating that it won't be available for another three months. And of course, his preference was still for a tenant that was willing to rent out both spaces, which is understandable. And I'd certainly prefer to find a spot before September. Regardless I sent him over a copy of my business plan to look over. I'm guessing he has a good eye for the neighborhood and the possibilities my proposal offers since he also own Muddy Waters Coffee, but I'm still struggling to figure out the best strategy to use when pursuing commercial real estate.

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April 2009 comic book sales rebound

Even in this economy comic book "sales increases versus the previous year were observed in all categories"

Diamond Comic Distributors recently released its charts of comics and trade paperbacks ordered by retailers in April 2009, and as reported earlier, the market appears to have made up some of the ground lost in the first three months of 2009. Sales increases versus the previous year were observed in all categories, including, just barely, unit sales of Diamond's Top 300 comics.

The largest gain was seen in the widest category: overall orders for comic books, trade paperbacks, and magazines were up at least 14% in this five-ship-week month. The operative term is "at least," as there is evidence to suggest it was higher still — but The Comics Chronicles approaches this statistic with some caution this month. At least one very large backlist promotion put a much larger than normal amount of volume in the system at much deeper discounts, causing the full retail value of orders in the "long tail" to increase far more than did orders in the Top 300 trades.

Excellent space on 24th St. Not for rent. Yet.

I saw the door was open to this space that I've been eying for months now, but had heard the landlord wasn't renting out. So I stopped to to ask what the deal was. The guy said he was just the contractor that was readying the building to put on the market, two street level commercial  spaces that were previously a plumbing store and four residential units up above. I love the space and the location, so gave him a card to pass on the owner. I would think that having both commercial units rented out to good tenants would be a plus in a sale, but maybe that's not the case. Either way, I'm going to be watching the space closely and hoping that it comes on the rental market soon.

 
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Getting it out there. Word.

Last night I was at the first-ever Shitty Kitty Meetup. Much fun was had, and TONS of Shitty Kitty came into being, many of which were collaboratively created by friends of telephone and soup, and of course Steven and Casey themselves. During the festivities, Steven gave me some great advice about stepping up my online activities in getting the word out about Mission: Comics & Art. I guess I had been operating under the impression that it ain't "real" till I had a location nailed down. But the hunt for the right location is taking much longer then I would have anticipated. I think this is partly because most of the places I was eyeing while I was writing my business plan got snapped up, and maybe partly because other are still holding on despite all the naysayers about the economy. People will spend the money on the essentials no matter what, and this does include haircuts, manicures and booze.

So in the meantime, there's no real reason not to be getting the word out there more, gathering support, marshaling the troops, and all of that. So henceforth I'll be trying to document my steps forward with more vim and vigor. And maybe just the effort of that will help get the ball rolling on and letting the "perfect" location manifest itself.