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The Isotope Communique
Daily news and updates by Proprietor James Sime & the Isotope Staff
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Friday, July 15, 2005
First of all, both Nora and I would like to start off by thanking Dave McOwen, practitioner of Non-Violent Web Design (www.mcowen.org) for this fan-freaking-tastic new website. Cash donations and monkeys can be sent to the store c/o Nora and she'll forward them on to him.
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Nora joined me this afternoon, shortly after a really entertaining dog fight spontaneously occurred right outside the door. Really, it was the damndest thing. Nobody was hurt and some cool barking and jumping around went down.
So, Nora shows up and we got into the groove, stylin' at James' new custom-made, hand-built sales counter. As such - I did my David Letterman impression, to a thunderous hail of laughter:
Then Nora vamped it up to a deafening shower of hoots, hollers and whistles:
Then something really funny happened off panel.
Then it was time to get down to work. One of the things James has explored on his website, but hasn't incorporated into the shop itself, is the ever-helpful Staff Picks. I really like this feature when I find it in video stores; I look around and try to find someone who likes, say, three movies I already like. Then, inevitably, they suggest I rent something I was THINKING about, but I needed that extra little nudge. There's a lot of ways to do this; weekly rotations for new releases, "old" product cycles... one idea I had was to "Pick" one or two items from a number of different price ranges. For example, here are Sean's Picks for this week:
We've got The Pact #3 in there for folks with only a fiver in their pocket; The Goon, Weapon X and Hench for folks looking for something under twenty books; the second, excellent Lucifer trade for anybody looking to drop a Jackson; and the Sandman: Endless Nights and Age Of Bronze vol 2: Sacrifice hardcovers for high rollers looking to drop some serious coin on quality comics.
Nora lent her own impeccable taste to the adjoining shelves:
Nora went with the first issue of Ultra for an affordable, enjoyable comics read, a host of great books in the $15-or-so range (1000 Steps to World Domination, Transmetropolitan, Electric Girl, Fables, Invincible), Hellboy and Tin Tin collections for about twenty bucks (man, Tin Tin is cheap! That's a hardcover!), and a fancy-pants hardcover of Wanted.
Then Graeme made his picks. Along with the intelligent, layered volume of Eddie Campbell's How To be An Artist, Graeme selected books such as Captain Dingleberry and Aquaman: The Water Bearer.
One thing I've noticed about setting titles aside, on display, on shelves: folks tend to assume they're off limits somehow. They pick up the volumes tentatively, looking at me as if to ask permission.
The whole point being, of course, to get the books into the hands of the customers. But hand-selling is a topic for tomorrow. Food for thought.
So, after we got our Staff Picks displays up and running, we got a call from the inimitable Neil Kleid, wishing to carry on the long-celebrated tradition of Isotope phone shots.
So after a quick raid of James' liquor cabinet...
We raised our Isotope Warren Ellis Scotch Glasses in honor of our favorite dummy stuck on the East coast. (Look forward to a little more Neil Kleid goodness tomorrow, when we take off the kid gloves, grab a pick-ax in our hands and really get down to work. Jared's gonna KILL us.)
Here's to a successful day and the awesome time we're gonna have tomorrow, putting together our own Isotope event.
Signing off.
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