Muscovites Vasily Shevchenko and Ivan Chernyavsky borrowed 30 thousand rubles. in 2011 they opened a comic shop. Now two points bring them about 0.5 million rubles. profit monthly

Co-owners of the comic book store “Chuk and Gik” Vasily Shevchenko (left) and Ivan Chernyavsky

RSUH graduates Vasily Shevchenko and Ivan Chernyavsky were never fans of comics, but they loved to read. In 2010, Shevchenko, who worked for four years as an editor at the Comics publishing house, decided to change his type of activity. “I was just tired, just like Vanya, I was tired of working in the record label (music studio) Snegiri,” Shevchenko recalls in an interview with RBC. During a joint trip to India, the guys came up with the idea of ​​opening their own bookstore. “Some people at 18 dream of opening a bar, but we dreamed of having our own bookstore,” explains Shevchenko.

Two racks at the start

Preparations for the opening took two months. Shevchenko’s former employer managed to get a significant discount on a batch of comics, which were purchased with 30 thousand rubles borrowed from friends. They decided to open the shop itself on the territory of the Novodel gallery on Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane. “This is a very old gallery of gifts, which for a long time felt that it was taking up a little more space than it wanted,” explains Shevchenko’s choice. “Before us, the Pangloss store sold foreign books here.” So this place has always been sympathetic to live book projects.” To begin with, the gallery offered aspiring entrepreneurs two shelves and three free weeks of rental: from the opening on December 8, 2010 until the new year.

The meaningless name of the shop “Chuk and Gik,” Shevchenko admits, was born in communication with friends: “It caused the most emotions and controversy.” Friends of friends came to the opening of the store, who learned about the store from social networks. A tiny note about the new bookstore appeared in Time Out and on some specialized sites. Shevchenko admits that at the start of the project, the partners made full use of their acquaintances.

Figures "Chuk and Gik"

30 thousand rubles.— initial investment in the first store

1.5 thousand comics are presented in chain stores

From 100 pages- volume of modern comics

3.5 million rubles. per month - the revenue of two shops “Chuk and Gik”

800-900 rub.- average check

Near 5 thousand purchases per month are made in two shops

Source: company data

Already in December, sales amounted to 60 thousand rubles, which made it possible to repay the debt taken at the start. In January, Chuk and Gik already had three shelves, in March - four, and by the summer it had occupied separate room in 20 sq. m, to which a warehouse of 50 sq. m has now been added. “At that time, comics were sold mainly in bookstores, which made fantastic markups, and with a normal discount and the absence of insane greed, we managed to set prices much lower than book prices,” explains Shevchenko’s rapid growth in sales. For the first three months, the guys stood behind the counter themselves, but then they hired a salesperson. “I still remember how in the spring of 2011 I received a symbolic salary of 5 thousand rubles. in his shop,” Shevchenko recalls. — We invested all our earnings into expanding our product range, living on what we earned as freelancers as journalists. What saved me was that I love three things: kefir, buckwheat and seaweed.”

Economics of a Comic Book Store

The increased interest of the metropolitan public in comics prompted Shevchenko and Chernyavsky to open a second point. “Opening the first store next door to the gallery allowed us to avoid many of the mistakes that we made when creating the new Chuk and Gik,” says Shevchenko. The search for premises for the new shop was carried out by the new partner of Chuk and Gik, Maxim Andrianov. “The requirements were simple: location in the center, larger area, adequate rent,” recalls Shevchenko. Room with an area of ​​80 sq. m was found in Klimentovsky Lane near the Novokuznetskaya metro station.

Investments in launching the second point amounted to about 1.2 million rubles, of which 300 thousand rubles. went for renovations, 350 thousand - for the purchase of furniture and commercial equipment, and 550 thousand - for rental payments before the opening. “We were offered bookcases from 350 thousand to 2 million rubles,” says Shevchenko. “I still didn’t understand the difference, but we learned that money can be invested in the project endlessly.” About 1.1 million rubles. were required to purchase the first batch of goods. Already in the third month of operation, the new outlet reached break-even. This is largely due to the fact that the large area of ​​the second Chuk and Geek sells not only comics, but also regular books in the genre of science fiction, fantasy, children's books, and related products, such as construction sets and keychains.

Now both shops bring in about 3.5 million rubles. revenue per month. The average bill in a store in the Novodel gallery is 900 rubles, on Novokuznetskaya - 800 rubles. The total number of receipts is about 5 thousand per month, of which 15% comes from the online store, opened in 2012. The core of the “Chuk and Gik” audience are young people aged 14 to 25 years (60%). “There are slightly more boys than girls,” says Shevchenko. “There are super strange characters, but cool ones - once two healthy bearded men came in kangaroo costumes.”

Co-owners of the comic book store “Chuk and Gik” Vasily Shevchenko (above) and Ivan Chernyavsky. (Photo: Vlad Shatilo for RBC)

“Chuk and Gik” has many regular visitors, whom Shevchenko knows by sight and name. “I have always admired family businesses in Europe, where the buyer knows the seller. Yes, we are small shopkeepers, but I’m not ashamed of it,” Shevchenko smiles. Good personal relationships with the buyer and within the team, according to him, help business more than advertising and various motivational programs.

“Chuk and Gik is the oldest comic book store in Moscow and the most hospitable,” says Artem Gabrelyanov, co-owner and editor-in-chief of the Bubble publishing house, the largest producer of original Russian comics, to RBC. “You can often see a situation where the owners bake a pie for their regular customers or treat them to hot coffee in the winter cold. Chuck and Geek is more than just a store. For many comic book fans, it has become a second home.”

The average markup at Chuk and Gik is 50% versus 100% in regular bookstores, says Shevchenko: “Now we buy comics directly from publishers, who ask us not to dump. We can set the price at 880 rubles, but the publisher asks for 920 rubles.” The business operates as an individual entrepreneur of Ivan Chernyavsky and pays tax according to a simplified taxation system (15% of the difference in income and expenses).

An average of 2.2 million rubles is spent on purchasing goods. per month. Comics are purchased for the store every week, with a large shipment made at least once a month. Unlike the book market, where payment is made upon sales, comic book publishers ask for 100% advance payment. “We usually try to have 500 thousand rubles in reserve so that we can buy something unexpectedly,” says Shevchenko. About 320 thousand rubles are spent on rent. per month, to pay the labor of four salespeople, an accountant - 200 thousand rubles. About 30 thousand rubles are spent on advertising. Taxes and trade fee - up to 90 thousand rubles. per month. Of the average profit, 500 thousand rubles. per month, Shevchenko and Chernyavsky keep half for themselves, and invest the other half in business development.

Interior of the Chook and Geek comic book store. (Photo: Vlad Shatilo for RBC)

Not just sales

Back in 2014, up to 35% of the assortment of Chuk and Gik were comics in foreign languages. But due to the devaluation, the price for them has more than doubled, so now the assortment consists of almost 100% domestic products (including transferred ones). At the end of 2015, the co-owners of Chuk and Gik became partners and investors in the new comic book publishing house Jellyfish Jam, which was organized by former employee of Chuk and Gik Beata Kotaszewska. “For now, there are only three people working in it: me and Beata as editors and translators, and a technical director,” says Shevchenko. The main advantage of the new publishing house is its partnership with Marvel. “We managed to grab several good licenses,” Shevchenko boasts, without revealing how he managed it. According to him, in 2015, Jellyfish Jam released several comics - Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy - with a total circulation of 50 thousand copies, of which 30 thousand have already been sold. Shevchenko estimates investments in launching the project at 1.5 million rubles.

“The tandem of a store and a publishing house gives greater independence and stability: sometimes the publishing house feeds the store, sometimes the store feeds the publishing house,” Mikhail Bogdanov, director of the St. Petersburg comics publishing house “Come il faut” and the store “Twenty-eighth,” tells RBC. “Some comic book publishing projects require so much investment that you have to take out loans until the project is completed - the store becomes the only source of profit that helps the company stay afloat.”

14.12.17 40 890 1

Andrey started making comics in 2014 - then he opened a small island in a shopping center.

Now he has two stores of 150 m² each in Stavropol and Krasnodar, in October 2017 he opened another store, and by the end of 2018 he plans to launch a franchise.

Asya Chelovan

talked to the owner of the comic book store

Andrey brought the idea of ​​opening a store for geeks from America. He went there in 2013 and was inspired by the popularity of Think Geek and Newbury Comics. "Sink-Geek" specializes in paraphernalia associated with geek culture - it sells T-shirts with "Doctor Who" and "The Big Bang Theory", figurines from " Star Wars", gaming mice and keyboards, office supplies. Newbury Comics' inventory centers primarily around vinyl and CDs, but they also sell posters, T-shirts, action figures, and accessories featuring popular characters.

Andrey himself has been fond of computer games and comics since childhood. In the US, he looked at the comics industry and decided this was a chance to make his hobby a source of income. I tried it and this is what happened.

Room

Andrey rents premises in popular shopping centers with cinemas due to high traffic.

This has its drawbacks: repairs in such shopping centers can only be done at night, and goods can be delivered at night. And he can even shoot a video for his own YouTube channel only after the shopping center closes. These are the terms of the lease: all work is done at night.

The cost of renting premises is pegged to the dollar, but with the caveat that the price cannot be indexed by more than one and a half rubles per year. Now in the shopping center one dollar costs about 45 RUR. The landlord also charges an annual advertising fee - about 90,000 RUR.

Utility costs for one store are 30-50 thousand rubles, depending on the time of year. 80% of this amount is electricity: the store must have good lighting.

Renting premises

Rent per month

RUR 320,000

RUB 640,000

90,000 R

Utilities per month

40,000 R

900,000 R

Equipment

As in any store, you need a cash register and merchant acquiring. About 30% of store purchases are made using cards.

To equip a store, you need stands for all sorts of small things such as stickers and key rings, as well as racks for clothes.

Larger souvenirs and comics require a different type of display. In total, Andrey ordered 103 racks different types. They cost 472,520 RUR.

Rare collectible figurines require special closed display cases. Without them, the figures quickly become unsalable because visitors can't help but hold the rare collectible Batman figure in their hands.

Shop equipment

Racks, 103 pieces

472 520 RUR

Seller's place

6350 R

Cash desk, acquiring

15,000 R

Staff

Now 22 people work for Andrey: salespeople, logisticians, commodity experts, SMM managers, an auditor, and an accountant-economist. The fixed minimum salary of the seller is 20,000 RUR, then interest. During high season, under New Year, “star” sellers receive more than 100,000 RUR.

In August 2017, Andrey paid salaries for 1.4 million rubles across all stores - this does not include taxes. But these are not all expenses: for employees of the Krasnodar store who come from small towns, Andrey rents a private house close to the store.

This concern is due to the fact that, according to Andrey, the staff is his biggest headache. The job of a comic book seller looks deceptively simple. From the outside, you’re just chatting and taking selfies with Thor’s hammer, but in reality, you spend 10 hours on your feet. You also need to be able to talk to people, select products that are interesting to them and, no matter how funny, sell them.

Andrey is looking for new employees in several stages. First, he makes an advertising post on social networks. This post on VKontakte is shown to people who are members of thematic groups and public pages about comics.

Everyone who responded and wrote a letter will be sent a task. As a rule, you need to write short video with a short self-presentation - tell a funny story from your life, sing an excerpt from your favorite song. The video allows you to evaluate how sociable and charming a person is.

After completing the task, the applicant is invited to a personal meeting; If everything goes well, they sign you up for a three-month internship. If everyone is satisfied with everything, then the contract is extended.

Assortment of stores

Now in Andrei's stores you can find any souvenirs related to comic book or game characters. The most marginal - cheap goods: stickers, calendars and badges. The markup on them is 300%.

Notepads, mugs and clothes bring 150-200%. For comics and collectible figures the markup ranges from 30 to 100%.

There are topics that do not lose popularity: “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “Back to the Future”, “Warcraft”, heroes of Marvel and DC comics. The popularity of products with characters increases slightly when a movie about them is released. At the same time, there are always trends that you need to guess in order to make money, for example, Minecraft.

Andrey monitors margins, so he tries to order exclusively large quantities of goods. To make no mistake, he communicates with gamers and bloggers - people who have the opportunity to see the new product before the premiere. So far they have never made a mistake.

For example, Andrey did not buy a crazy amount of goods with Pokemon - he settled on standard items such as pokeballs. There are no spinners in the store either. But there are attributes of “Minecraft” and “Far Edge”.

Goods are brought from all over the world: from other cities of Russia, from the USA, China, Turkey. Andrey makes some of the goods himself: he has a small foundry - silver figurines of comic book heroes. They also make wooden and plastic badges, mugs and some T-shirts themselves.

New business directions

The peculiarity of working with comics made Andrey think about his own publishing house.

The fact is that the first volumes of the comic are always in short supply, and the next ones, on the contrary, are too many. This is due to the fact that all volumes of comics are published in equal editions. Let's say 100 people buy the first volume of the comic. Of these, only 70 will like the story and buy the next volume. Another 30 will want to know how it ends, and they will buy the third, and only 15 fans will get to the fourth volume.

Andrey would like to create a publishing house with a more flexible system for generating circulation.

Exhibitions

We talked with Andrey at the Igromir and Comic-Con exhibitions in the fall of 2017. This is Andrey’s third trip to such an event. For the first time, he was looking for partners. The second and third time I came with the Lootcase project.

Andrey bought the Lootcase project from his partners in 2016. A “lootcase” is a box containing a random selection of geek paraphernalia - T-shirts, mugs, badges, posters. The color and composition of the box depends on the price.

The simplest box is green - it contains 6-8 items, it costs 1099 rubles. Cooler box - blue, 8-9 items, 1599 rubles. Purple - 10-12 items, 2199 rubles. The coolest one is orange, 12-16 items for 2599 rubles.

According to Andrey, at the last Comic-Con, every day he brought a truckload of boxes - that’s about 1,500 pieces a day. The boxes did well this year too, with him selling over 5,000 in 4 days. Some of the goods in the box are made in Andrey’s own production.

This year, Andrey stood at the same stand with friends who sell furniture for gamers, so he was able to sit in the main hall for reasonable money. For each of the four days of the exhibition, Andrei earned up to 1 million rubles, and spent only 714 thousand on the event.

According to Andrey, Comic-Con is an opportunity for him to show off his product, especially since he is bringing something that is not quite ordinary for Moscow. You can only buy a Lootcase box online or directly in a Krasnodar store.

If you collect comics, you probably have some that you'd like to sell to replace them with something new or just to free up some shelf space. Therefore, we are pleased to provide you with our store as a platform for selling your goods. To sell comics through the Comic Street store, you simply need to bring what you want to sell to our store in the Central Children's House and hand it over to our employee. Then we will do everything ourselves: we will display your goods in a special cabinet with used comics, add the site to the “Used Comics” section and try to find a new home for your comics as soon as possible.

NICE BONUS! When you return comics to the store, we will give you a one-time 10% discount on the entire assortment!

ATTENTION! We do not buy your comics, but take them for sale. This means we will transfer money to you when the comic is sold.

- What is the procedure?

Bring your comics to the Comic Street store in the Central House of Children's Museum (Teatralny Proezd 5/1, 4th floor) and hand it over to an employee. Once your comics sell, we'll transfer the money to you. bank card.

— How much money will I get for a comic?

40% of its cost in Comic Street. Tax fees and we bear the transaction fees.

— When will I receive money for my comics?

When your comics are sold, we will transfer the money to your bank card. Payments for sold comics are made from the 1st to the 10th of each month.

— How quickly will my comics sell?

Depends on the comic itself and its condition.

— Where will my comics be sold?

Your comics will be sold in our store in the Central House of Art in the section with used comics, and will also be available for order online on the website

— Is it possible to give you something other than comics to sell, for example, action figures?

IN this moment, No. For now, we are ready to sell only comics in Russian and other languages.

— Do you accept any comics?

Yes, any, except BUBBLE singles.

Write to us if you have any questions:

Alexander Arkhangelov opened the city's first comic book store, Time to be a Hero, more than four years ago. Since then, competitors have appeared, disappeared, and reappeared, and the businessman himself has increased his assortment forty times. He now has three stores, open 363 days a year.

The “read and sell” formula did not work

It all started very spontaneously. I myself loved comics, read a lot, ordered them abroad. I came across the fact that they stopped delivering Russian-language comics from one publishing house to us. There was an urgent need for new ones, and I thought that I should open my own store. I invested two and a half thousand dollars and opened a small outlet. I started by selling original English-language comics, but gradually, through trial and error, I realized that I needed to sell in Russian. I delivered the first batch, and comics began to sell better, more people came. But still it was very slow, because it was a novelty for Belarus. No one really wanted to read comics, mostly a bunch of people came in who had previously communicated with each other on the SpiderMedia forum.

We started with about 80 titles, all of them one-off: one Batman comic, one Deadpool comic, and so on. At that time I imagined it very strangely and was guided strictly by my taste: they say, I’ll bring it, read it, then sell it - someone else will read it. But it turned out that this business doesn’t work that way.

Now we have about three thousand titles, some popular books may have twenty copies. I can freely carry on a conversation about half of them. If you haven’t read the whole thing, then at least read it, and be sure to read the summary.

We employ five people. Closed only on January 1st and 2nd, on all other days we are open from 10 am to 8 pm. We have two stores in Minsk, and another one in Gomel. Unfortunately, experience has shown that it is too early to open branches in the regions; the Gomel one may have to be closed.

We have little competition. We opened our first Time to be a Hero store at the beginning of 2013 in the basement of the Silhouette shopping center. Three years later, right across from us, very arrogant guys opened a Comics Point store: they thought the tactic would work. We import comics from Russia, we have to pay VAT, so the markup was a little higher. And the guys from Comics Point made the price almost the same as in Russia in online stores. They started with very serious dumping, and this greatly undermined the entire comics business in the country. But now their outlet has closed: they got involved in the Unicon comic convention, got into debt and apparently still haven’t paid it off. How did Comics Krama come about? Former sellers from Comics Point decided to do the same thing as before, found an investor and now opened a new point. We welcome competition, it is an incentive to grow and develop. Loyalty in our business cannot be called high, but still there are buyers who, based on some moral and ethical principles, come to us, the founders.

Photos

Alexander Obukhovich

It's not funny

Why do people buy comics? This question is easy to answer if you pick up the comic and read it. If it's a really good story, you'll understand everything yourself. In the book, imagination works 100%; in a film, on the contrary, the point of view of the director and cameraman is imposed on you - nothing can be changed here. But a comic is something in between: you see what the characters look like, you understand what motivates them. The story, in principle, is told, but between the frames there remains empty space, unexplored periods of time, where the imagination turns on and the reader begins to think: but that character - did he die or not die? What happened there?

Comics have long since departed from their origins: if in the century before last they were truly comic stories, then for about eighty years their genre has changed radically. In the late thirties and forties, cartoon superheroes appeared, and now up to 90% of all comics are superheroics. But this stereotype is still alive: they say, all these comics of yours are children's reading, funny fables. It is very easy to destroy it by giving a skeptic a couple of our books.

One day a woman came to us: she just saw the sign and decided to stop by and see something for her son. I saw the comic “Photographer” - this is a story about a Red Cross mission trip to Afghanistan. The comic is a mixture of documentary photography and hand-drawn footage. This woman’s father served in Afghanistan, and she gave him this book. Then she returned to thank her, saying that her father read with tears in his eyes. This story shows that comics are a universal genre.

Our average customer is a student final courses or a graduate who has just started working and is approximately 22–25 years old. That is, these are people who are able to earn money to satisfy their interests. After all, comics are a hobby, an industry, and the prices here are comparable to the prices of going to the cinema. If you want to watch a movie, you pay money; if you want to know the continuation of the drawn story, you pay money. Many of our customers are collectors, while others, on the contrary, will read a book and immediately sell it at a flea market or exchange it.

The store receives most of its money from the sale of Russian-language comics: they account for 90–93% of the profit. We also sell English-language comics, but for the last two years they have hardly been in demand, well, we have stopped importing them. Figurines, statues, busts are now also sold less and less often. Just a few years ago, Russian comics accounted for about 65% of profits, and 35% for everything else.

Our main buyers are on weekends and days when new items arrive. On a good day, up to fifty people leave with a purchase. And on some rainy day a couple of people will come in and not buy anything. The average bill is most likely equal to the cost of one comic book (laughs): Many people take one book at a time. But there are also collectors who buy almost everything that comes out. Although, of course, with such abundance you have to somehow moderate your appetites. This week we received forty new products - and these are only those that have been released over the past three weeks. The buyer has to be more selective. About 40% of our customers are girls.

From Tintin to same-sex love

The price of an average Marvel comic book in paperback is 12 rubles; books from DC Comics in Russian are published only by the Azbuka publishing house and only in hardcover. But “singles” - short, complete stories - are also printed in paperback paper; in our country they cost 4 rubles. And the cheapest comics - singles from the publishing house Bubble - cost 2 rubles, there are about six episodes, and they come out every month. The biggest comic we have on sale is "Little Nemo", a reprint of the 1896 comic. It is both the largest (about one meter per meter and a hundred pages) and the most expensive - 170 rubles. There are about a dozen of these throughout Belarus. The thickest comics are omnibus-type collections, where the entire story from beginning to end is collected under one cover. We have them for sale in Russian: A4 format, hard cover, up to 500 pages - and only 50–54 rubles. On English language Omnibuses up to 1,400 pages are published.

Now the standard circulation is five thousand, and if it is a very popular series - Batman, Deadpool, Spider-Man - then it can reach ten thousand. Rare author's comics are printed in circulation of three hundred to seven hundred pieces. A novice author can be advised to contact the St. Petersburg publishing house “KomFederation”: they print small series of comics, over the past six months they have published a lot of books, and we have nowhere to put them.

Classic comics are much less popular in Belarus than in Russia. For example, 22 volumes of a comic book about Tintin were published in Russian, and I put together a collection for myself. Now a complete collection of comics about Asterix is ​​being prepared for release; two books have already been published. There are crowds of fans of the genre in Russia. We also have a layer of readers who would like to see such cult publications on sale.

Occasionally they ask for hand-drawn adaptations of classic works. These are completely unpopular issues - they are like small seeds that are planted in fertile soil. We had on sale “The Bronze Horseman” by Pushkin, a manga adaptation of “The Brothers Karamazov”, and a thousand-page “Ibicus” by Tolstoy.

All of today's most popular series continue to be updated. More than seven hundred issues were published about the same Spiderman. A global event is the release of comics with characters from different series and even from different publishers; such books are very popular. In the Daredevil series you can meet the Punisher and Spider-Man, in the X-Men you can meet the Avengers, and vice versa. In the cinema, all these meetings are limited by the copyright holders, but on the pages of comics such series - “crossovers” - appear quite often.

We have several erotic collections, they are all in opaque film, labeled “18+”, and you can’t even just see what’s inside before purchasing. This is, for example, “Click” by Milo Manara - the publishing house released all the series under one cover. And the female audience is more attracted to such a manga genre as yaoi - when people of the same sex love each other. We have some volumes, but the readers themselves are better versed in them.

Belarusians without swearing

We haven’t seen any Belarusian comics yet. At the beginning of 2014, the Polotsk studio released the comic DreadCore: Anamnesis, but it was some kind of overhype. It looks like a Belarusian comic, but with a team from Russia and Canada. They made one issue - they disappeared for a year, they made a second - they disappeared completely. I wouldn’t say that this is a Belarusian comic; rather, they simply exaggerated the situation. But at the end of the summer, an interesting project should be launched, and if the guys succeed, they will loudly declare themselves. I didn’t try to create my own comics: we have no artists, no authors, no one is interested in this. All hope lies in this secret project. We want to open a coffee shop based on our second store on Internatsionalnaya Street, decorated to resemble the world of Harry Potter. There you can buy your favorite comic and read it with coffee.

There are at least two publishing houses in Belarus that print comics. One of them is Smart Owl, which has been publishing Italian comics since 2013. There have already been 17 issues of the Dylan Dog series, one of the most widespread and popular in the world. The second - Alden Comics - appeared as a result of cooperation between Smart Owl and our store. They published the book “Diabolik” in a circulation of two thousand copies. You are your own boss” and suffered a complete fiasco: they were able to sell about 450 pieces. Now Alden Comics publishes Marvel comics: we buy a license, localize, translate and try to distribute. So far they have released little: three volumes of The Punisher, two volumes of Iron Fist and Fury. No one except us has the right to print them in Russian. Our comics are highly valued in Russia because we have no mistakes and no obscenities. Although we put the “18+” mark, we replace obscenities with rude, but acceptable words. This is also welcome, because the law is strict about this. Unlike other publishers, we print comics with matte covers.

Comics published by Azbuka, Komilfo, and Bubble are popular in Russia. The "Major Thunder" series, which ended with its 50th issue, is well known; Now the sequel is being published - “Igor Grom”, written by our fellow countryman and my good friend Alexey Zamsky. In general, Russian publishing houses are closer to reality: they rarely have other worlds, but they do have spy series and detective stories. Today is a significant day for us: comics from the latest publishing house that prints comics and which has not previously been represented here have arrived - this is Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. In total, we cooperate with approximately 25–30 publishing houses from Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Kazakhs print “Mask”, “Fantastic Four”, “Dup”.

You can download a huge number of comics on torrents. But here it’s about the same as with ordinary books. No matter what electronic technologies and formats are invented, the rustle of pages and tactile sensations, the smell of printing ink cannot be replaced by anything. In comics, like in any other business, piracy is rampant. Some Ukrainian pseudo-publishing houses download manga comics from the Internet, print them in large quantities and sell them. This goes to both Russia and Belarus. Many publishing houses are trying to combat this: if pirated products are spotted in a store, the publishing house stops cooperating with that store.

Comics like a gold bar

At one time we tried to develop comic bookcrossing: someone came to us, took a comic from a special shelf to read, then returned it or left another issue in return. But in the end it came down to the fact that the comics were stolen and nothing was brought in return. We are not planning to create a second-hand book department.

At online flea markets you can find a lot of comics in both paperback and hardcover. I believe that a used comic should lose at least 50% of its value, but sometimes the price at flea markets is the same as in the store, or even higher. It’s not clear whether they sell it this way out of ignorance, or for other reasons.

In principle, comics can be seen as a store of value. I don’t know if this will ever happen with Russian-language comics, but as for English-language comics, everything is serious. There is such evaluating company CGC, which evaluates the condition of comics on a scale of 1 to 10, assigns a rating, and seals them in a plastic case. Comics like this aren't just going up in price, I think it's best investment money. Sijisies can be found on eBay for fifty dollars or more. If some series shoots, then after some time it may cost three hundred and fifty.

Help The Village Belarus

The first 1938 Action Comics Superman issue, which CGC rated 8.5, sold for $1.5 million in 2010. Another copy of the same issue, rated 9.0 points, was sold in the summer of 2014 for $3,207,852.

At Belarusian online flea markets, the most expensive English-language comic book, The digedags and the Indians (1982), is sold for 450 rubles.

Shoemaker with boots

Everyone probably thinks that if you work in a comic book store, you read them all day long. But this is not entirely true: time is so short that sometimes after work you want to come home and just sleep. If five years ago I read five to ten issues a day, and it was very interesting, now I can afford to read two or three issues before going to bed, and precisely those series that interest me keenly. Plus, of course, what you have to do for work: our publishing house has very strict proofreading, three people do this, so you have to re-read the same comic constantly.

If someone saw my personal collection, they would laugh at me: I store it on the mezzanine. There are maybe two hundred collections of things that I once read and then put there. Of value, perhaps, are only rare Russian-language covers. I am a collector of a different kind: I collect statues of Star Wars characters, I have more than four hundred of them. The most expensive of them costs about one and a half thousand dollars. And the most expensive one on sale is 750 rubles, not counting that huge bust of the Hulk for two and a half thousand. However, no one tried to buy it.

What's next? I can’t say that I will have a network with hundreds of branches. No, I see two of my branches in the future, but each will have some kind of twist. The coffee shop will open. I’m also going to develop my line of T-shirts, collaborating with Belarusian designers. My dream is to open an analogue of the cantina from the fourth episode of Star Wars. There is something to show, I hope someday it will all take off.

Many people believe that the birthplace of comics is the USA. In fact, this is not true at all. The first stories in pictures appeared in Europe back in the 16th century. Then in Spain they began to produce so-called “pictures for the people.” Most often, the first comics depicted religious themes, but “comics” on secular subjects were also released. The new literary and artistic genre of art was called hallelujah. The volume of such a work was 48 episodic pictures with captions.

The first “large-scale” production of “stories in pictures” was launched in the French town of Epinal in the 19th century. A total of 600 different stories were “published,” each consisting of 16 episodes. And from 1830 to 1836, comics about the adventures of Jabot and Crepin were published in Switzerland.

In 1892, comic books finally came to America. The San Francisco Examiner publishes the first American comic strip, The Little Bears and the Tiger. The twentieth century was a turning point in the history of comics in the United States. At this time, the main genres had already been determined - adventures, action films, horror, detective stories. And in 1938, a new genre of comics appeared - the adventures of superheroes with superhuman abilities and fighting evil. And the first character in such stories was the world-famous Superman. The period from 38 to 56 of the last century was called the “Golden Age of Comics.” At this time, after Superman, about four hundred different superheroes appeared. Some of them are known to this day. In the 60s of the 20th century, a new player appeared on the comics market - the Marvel company (founded in 1939, but received universal recognition only in the 60s). At this time, such world-famous characters as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk and Thor were created.

The USA is not the birthplace of “picture stories”, but it is to this country that we owe the emergence of a new popular genre - comics about the adventures of superheroes.

At the end of the 20th century, comics expanded due to a new genre that was gaining popularity - Japanese manga. It should be noted that this type of picture stories has become very widespread in our country.

The comics genre itself is an interweaving of two completely different, at first glance, areas - literature and. It is also interesting that some comics do without text at all. The pictures in them are arranged so logically and consistently that there are no difficulties in “reading” them. A striking example of a “story without words” is a comic book from the 70s by the famous French author Jean Giraud called “Arzac”.

Perhaps that's enough history. It's time to get down to business. Or rather, to several business ideas that can be implemented with the help, which do not lose their popularity in the 21st century.

Business idea one – opening a comic book store

Organizing such a business is not much different from opening a bookstore. The only difference is that selling comics is a little more difficult. It is very important to be a fan of this literary and artistic genre, to understand the genres and characters, and to know the target audiences of certain comics. After all, today's market for stories in pictures is incredibly diverse. Everything is presented here - from short sketches about the adventures of the next adventurer to entire novels in pictures or huge series with a developing plot.

You can, of course, start with everything at once. But it is better, in our opinion, to carve out a certain niche for yourself, and only then, gradually, expand. Nowadays, the most relevant comics are about superheroes (which have never lost popularity) and Japanese manga. Separately, it is necessary to say about the original American comics in English. Conduct a survey potential clients– are they ready to read “works” in the original? If yes, then the range of products in your store will expand significantly. After all, many comics are not published in Russian.

The premises of the future comic book store should be beautifully and brightly decorated. The design of the sign should immediately speak about the direction of the store. Inside you can hang posters with the characters of the most popular comics. Everything here is simple and clear. But you should think more seriously about the location of the store. It should be located not so much in a place where a large number of people gather, but where your business is constantly located. the target audience. The main audience of clients in our country are schoolchildren and students. Occasionally young people under 30 years of age. In this regard, we are far behind the United States, where comics consumers include almost all segments of the population - from children to pensioners. Therefore, you need to open a comic book store near schools, universities, colleges, and cinemas.

You should not count on excess profits. Since this genre in our country is not yet as popular as in the same States. Comics will become more of a profitable hobby than a main activity. Although, everything is in your hands.

As for the range of goods, it should not be limited only to magazines. Add here collectible figurines of superheroes, and animated series based on comics, various related paraphernalia (T-shirts, scarves, baseball caps), and then you will be able to increase the profit of your store by 1.5-2 times.

Another way to start a business is to organize an online comic book store. The difference is that the premises are unnecessary, but that it is necessary to organize a delivery service and electronic payment.

Business idea two – organizing a comic book library

Your task is to create a library that will contain hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of comics from a variety of genres and times. From classics to modern series, from children's works to serious publications for adult audiences.

To organize such an establishment, you will need the following attributes. Firstly, the premises. Its size depends on the planned scale. It is best to “take with reserve” for expansion in the future. Secondly, it is necessary to put up shelves where the comics will be located. Thirdly, a computer is needed to keep records of comedians, client base and counting financial indicators. Fourthly, we need the comics themselves. The best time to start a library is when you already have at least a thousand good comics. You can purchase them from specialized publishing houses or comic book stores.

Earnings will come either from the paid rental of comics, or from the entrance fee to the reading room (if you don’t want your comics to be taken home), or from paying for subscriptions for a certain period. What to choose from this (or even come up with new way profit) - it's up to you.

Business idea three – opening a comic book club

This is the largest business option. It can combine the ideas described above with the addition of many new elements. To become a member of such a club, the participant must purchase club card, which is issued for a certain period (for example, for a year or a month).

And in order to attract the maximum number of club members, you must offer them a truly grandiose set of a wide variety of comic elements. It should have its own comic book library, a theme store, and a cinema for showing new films and animated series based on comic book stories. In addition, you can organize some themed games, competitions with prizes or parties on certain days. In general, to recreate a unique atmosphere for lovers of “stories in pictures.”