First I'd like to apologize for the lag between columns lately.  At home we're in month eight of renovations on our house (been without a kitchen sink for three weeks now).  And on the work front I've attended both the Diamond Summit in Baltimore and the GAMA Retail Division Board meeting in Columbus.  So it's been a very hectic time.  But it's also been an extremely interesting time, and I hope to be able to write about it all much more in the coming weeks as things are now much calmer.

That said, this week's topic is the need for invisibility.

When I was a kid reading comic books in the 70s, the future was a mystery.  At the end of each issue we were left with a teasing little box telling us to come back in thirty days for the next story.  Maybe that box told us the story's title, maybe it even gave us a few teasing statements like, '...The return of the most unexpected villain!'  But as far as the future went, that was pretty much all we knew.  Our biggest source of information was 'Stan's Soapbox'.

Getting your new issue each month was exciting.  It was all-new all the time.  You didn't know what to expect and didn't know where it would lead.  As far as our comic stories went, we were living in an eternal present, watching the lives of our characters play out in real time.  And thirty days between episodes was an eternity.

But things are different today.  Thanks to Wizard, Previews, the Internet, and the myriad other ways that information moves around today, we know a tremendous amount about the future of comics.  We know things about Ultimates Vol. 4, even though we still haven't finished Vol. 2 yet! We know which artists and writers are late and who's blaming who.  We know who's going exclusive with what publisher.  We know what books are coming out sometimes a year before they actually arrive.

In some ways this is obviously a good thing.  Fans have plenty of information on projects that they can anticipate from their favorite creators.  But in other ways, it takes some of the mystery out of the process.  Can we really worry about our favorite character when we know he/she is a central figure in the next story arc?  And how many times have key plot points been given away in the covers used for soliciting future issues?  The constant elevation of hype for each project has in some cases made the hype more interesting than the project itself.  We've established something of a future-oriented focus, constantly looking to what's on the horizon.  In the 70s and 80s we were a back issue-oriented hobby as people went back to discover what happened before them.  But now, we're a future-oriented hobby with people anticipating what they'll read months before it actually arrives.

I think that much the same thing can be said about our stores.  Our customers are aware of the 'business' behind their hobby.  They know the names of distributors (Some even offer to provide me with the names of the ones they use!).  They often know about discounts and pricing.  They know the deals that are going on at the publisher and manufacturer levels. They hear about which companies are 'friendly to independent retailers', which are running good organized play, and which are pulling the rug out from under us.  They read articles on the state of the industry, and many of them are eager to discuss it with us, to sympathize and side with their favorite retailers.

In a sense, our industry has lost that sense of invisibility it once had.  And in many ways we are responsible for it.  Just like in the Wizard of Oz, when we look behind the curtain, a certain amount of the magic is gone.  And ultimately, what we deal in is magic.  We offer an escape from the haunting realities of life, of the burden of worrying about mortgage payments, or office deadlines.  We offer a journey into a world of heroes, a world of selfless acts, and courage in the face of overwhelming odds. But as our industry 'matured' we've let our customers peek behind the curtain to see how all that magic comes about.

At the Baltimore Summit, Joe Ferrara made a statement that's still making me think.  He had described all the work he had done on his store, all the training he had given staff, and yet his customers sometimes still just wanted to deal with him.  He said, 'I went through all this trouble to build Disneyland and now you want me to be Walt Disney, too?!'  And the answer is, 'Yes, they do.'

While some of our customers might be fascinated by business dealings, most of them really just want the magic.  Part of what makes Disneyland so amazing and magical is that it all seems effortless.  All the hard work that makes up their operations takes place 'behind the curtain' in the tunnels beneath the park, or at night when the park is closed.  They never let you 'see the wires' and ruin the illusion.  Joe was kind enough to take time out of his busy day to talk to me about all the analysis and work that went into 'hiding his wires' and I know that I have quite a bit of work ahead of me to hide mine.

The one quality we retailers collectively seem to possess is the desire to complain.  I had a mechanic once who was outstanding, a real genius with cars.  I had done some consulting work for him when he was expanding his business and as a result he felt comfortable talking about the horrors of his industry with me.  I definitely sympathized with him, but eventually I stopped making the trip.  Really, all I wanted was my car fixed, not a half hour explanation of why it was so hard to manage his employee that was working on it.

It's time that we all worked hard at stepping back behind that curtain and letting the magic be the predominant quality of our stores.  Since the other levels of the industry are all intent on pulling that curtain away, it's up to us to keep the magic alive.  After all, our customers aren't coming in to listen to our problems; they're coming in to escape theirs.  We know they have plenty of entertainment options, so let's give them the best possible escape they could have.