Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, diamond

Comic Store In Your Future – The Road Ahead

Comic Store In Your Future - a look at the road ahead, quite literally, for Rodman Comics

Published Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:27:03 -0500

Article Summary

Rodman Comics celebrates 15 years despite challenges impacting store destiny and collectibles sales.
Employee turnover and hiring struggles prevented a second store from becoming reality over the years.
Upcoming road construction threatens parking and access, with local businesses already feeling the impact.
Comic industry must innovate to convert movie buzz into stronger comic sales and secure the future of the store.

Rodman Comics made it through fifteen years, and even I am a bit surprised. I opened the store to be in control of my own "destiny". I was thinking that I would be better able to put hard work into the store and not have to worry about being laid off or having a terrible boss, but I learned that outside factors would still play into my "destiny" and still be beyond my control, such as the economy. When things get tight for people, collectibles are one of the first things they stop spending money on. Food, rent, and insurance are more important than collectibles. Collectibles do not do anyone much good if they do not have a roof over their head to keep them in.

My dream of opening up another store was squashed by the lack of quality long-term employees. We have had great employees, though most have moved because they worked here for extra money while working their full-time job, or they were done with college and found their long-term career goal, and so on.

I have talked with plenty of other business owners who have a heck of a time finding good employees. I was even offered a manager position at a Dairy Queen. I stayed with Rodman Comics, though I will miss the access to ice cream I could have had.

When I opened fifteen years ago, COVID, derecho (I never heard of such a storm before), and Diamond going bankrupt did not register on my radar. Most of the time, I do at least have a heads up on the next challenge. Road construction, after years of countless accidents where one car somehow got airborne and tangled into powerlines, even though the speed limit on the street in front of the store is 35 miles per hour, will be expanded. Further north, construction on the road has already been going on for months. Lanes are closed, turning lanes are blocked off, and, in short, it is a mess. Businesses alongside the construction are being affected, and the Post Office, which I am a frequent visitor to, has told me that they have even seen a drop in customers.

Comic Store In the Future After 15 Years What Will the Future Be? — By Oxymoron, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

The summer of 2026 is when road construction is scheduled to start in front of my store. Part of widening the street will mean we will lose parking spaces. I might have to stop parking the RodMobile in front of the store and start parking behind, to save space for customers. We have a cafe, a tattoo parlor, a smoke shop, Rodman Comics, of course, a shipping store, a kitten place, and Visual Eyes here in the strip mall. Construction on the road means a tougher time with sales. Odds are that a lot of people will have to come in the back way instead of the main road because it will be blocked to get here. As they say, that is life.

I hope that the comic industry starts trying a lot more. Movies have made various comic characters better known than ever before. Aquaman, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, Thunderbolts, and so many more characters have been exposed to so many people thanks to their movies. Yet, their comic book sales are so dismal that they cannot even carry a comic title. Harry Potter's popularity expanded with the Potter movies and helped increase Harry Potter book sales. I did not know about him until the movies. Why do the comic book movies fail to help comic book sales?

I fear that after so many people claiming over the years that comic books will stop being published, some clueless higher-up who finds out their company publishes comic books and doesn't understand how print still survives in this day and age, decides to end their publishing of comics. Sounds far-fetched? These same companies lost a lot of money going into streaming and just shoveling money into a pit without a real plan. I would love to see Marvel try more. Work on getting new talent that the next generation can latch on to and love. Instead, we get them cancelling titles that I can sell, such as Magik ending with issue 10. [It's coming back in a different form, Rod – Rich] How can we disappoint customers and get them to stop buying comics? Marvel has that down. Yes, I told my customers that Magik is coming back next year, [Oh, okay – Rich], and they were still disappointed.

The whole DeadpoolBatman and Batman/Deadpool one-shots saw people coming in, thinking the backups were one-shots, and were amazed they were just backups. A Batman vs Wolverine one-shot would have sold; instead, they made it a few pages in a backup. That says Marvel and DC do not know what they have. Harley Quinn and Hulk? Top ten seller, instead make it a backup in a Batman/Deadpool that will be a top ten comic without any back-up stories. I joked that Marvel and DC were actually saving themselves money by doing this. I want Marvel and DC to put out comics that people want. Not another Batman title or X-related title.