We recently connected with Caleb Gilbert and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Caleb thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so one thing we think people don’t talk about nearly enough is investments – either time or money. What’s one of the best or worst investments you’ve made and what did you learned from the experience?

I’m the comic world, we retailers have access to custom covers featuring our site logo on the back. Make big shops do this because the books usually sell for a premium.

I was the artist on our first custom cover and we damn near sold out! Wonderful! Great! Shazam!

I thought, why not do a couple more. Now the part where I tell you about order minimums….300 per cover is the least any company offers. Marvel and DC have a 3,000 book minimum for a custom cover.

Fast forward to a book I took a gamble on called Shadow Doctor which is the true story of Nathaniel Calloway. Dr. Calloway was the first black doctor west of the Mississippi; but before he made it big he worked for AL Capone! I thought this was bound to sell well. It didn’t, I still have about 270 copies.

Basically I was drawn into this idea of custom covers selling well because my first did! I’ve since tried with 3 books (one a dual cover) and have basically foisted money down the toilet. $2.50 per book…. about 1,400 books left over.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are a local comic shop, or LCS as we’re often often referred too. This means we have a regular rotating stock of new comics on our wall weekly. Then we sell higher dollar books, graded and encased books, and other collectibles.

I started the shop because I was working too many hours and not enjoying life. I picked up a copy of Saga at someone’s recommendation and feel in love. I had put comic books down years before, but suddenly Iwas enjoying these 10-15 reads far more than most things in my life at that time.

So I slowly started my business plan. We were in Brooklyn at the time, but bought a house in Colorado. We had plans to move July of 2020… needless to say we moved early. We didn’t want to be stuck in NY during the shutdown.

In Fort Collins (where we’re located) my mother owned a flower shop that was expanding. Bloom Floral Boutique gained access to a large storefront but couldn’t fill it with enough stuff. My mother suggests I start my store early, like 5 years early. But, what else was I doing? Life everyone my life had stopped because of Covid, no work, no income.

I thought why the hell not! So I basically jumped in feet first with an anchor tied to my leg. It’s been a challenge for sure. Finding the right vendors and creating a clientele from nothing is still an ongoing battle. I try to set myself apart from the other stores in town by offering a little extra customer service. We have an online system for organizing subscriptions and we’ll order a single book if only one person wants it.

At the end of the day people come from the other stores and are amazed that they’ve never been in before. It brings a smile to my face when they start coming back every week.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Comic stores have a rotating weekly inventory and I have numerous customers with subscriptions. I order books for them and they’re in a box, ready to go when the customer arrives. Unless the boss are not there when they arrive because I forgot to order them!

I do a weekly order, every Sunday night. This is from three different companies and a few times I’ve forgotten one or two of the companies. I go through the motions and fail to do the final step…. at least I think that’s how it happens, could be wine.

Anyway I usual catch it before it’s too late, but just recently I was excluding a package that never came because it was never ordered. This was the days before the on-sale date. I ordered everything and crossed my fingers nothing sold out.

Then, on New Comic Book Day, I was honest with all my customers. I told them I forgot to order their books.

Some found them other places, but most were very understanding and I had them the next week.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

There is one large comic shop in town and has been around for over 20 years. They have loyal customers, but the shop itself is more dedicated to selling games. Comic books feel like an afterthought.

I’ve strived to counter this by offering better back issues and more high dollar books. I cater to more collectors than this other store.

Early on I decided I needed cool books behind my counter. I needed books that cost $20 and books that cost $2,000.

Having these types of books in the store quickly set me apart from the other shop and was integral in building my customer base.

I also added a comic book cleaning, pressing, and grading service geared towards the investors in the loofah comic community. This illustrates my knowlefge of comics and the collector market. It instills a bit of trust.

Contact Info:

• Website: Beedasthingamajigits.com
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• Twitter: @beedasC