When Aaron Haaland was offered $10,000 by his competitors to sell his comic book store two years ago, he said no.
"Do I want to get a real job in the real world or do I want to take the plunge to own my own store and take that chance?" Haaland said.
He took the only chance he had to succeed on his own terms.
"Without risk there is no reward, and I'm passionate about comics and I have this genuine feeling that my ideas of how to run a comic book store would resonate with fans," Haaland said.
After some hard pitching, intimidation and insults, Haaland left the meeting thoroughly disillusioned.
"They said, literally, exact words: 'a single store can't make it in today's world.'" Haaland said. "What does 'make it' actually mean anyway? Does 'make it' mean driving around in a Bentley?"
Since then, Haaland and co-owner Jason Blanchard have run the store from its single-unit Winter Park location at the intersection of University Boulevard and Semoran Boulevard. In 2007, A Comic Shop unseated the Coliseum of Comics' number one spot for "best comic book store" by the Orlando Weekly.
The store's big black walls stock more than 1,700 titles that stay on top of the tastes of even the most well-read comic junkies. Titles like The Boys, Bomb Queen, Fables, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, The Walking Dead and Y: The Last Man, to name a few, are good starter material.
"At some point, everyone's like, 'I've read that, I've read that, I've read that,'" Blanchard said. "Well then, have you read this? And it's so off-the-wall and it's so different ... and then they buy that and they like that."
Like any self-sustaining sub-culture, comic books have the power to captivate its fans' wandering attention spans while repelling its naysayers' tired objections. Comics speak to both Haaland and Blanchard like any other life-changing work of art, in print or on canvas.
"I love reading comic books because it's like reading a novel," Blanchard said, "but they don't have to explain the setting, they don't have to explain what everybody was doing, because you can see it."
"It's its own medium that can tell stories that other mediums can't, because of it's structure," Haaland said.
Unlike its predecessors, the store has strict policies against creating artificial scarcity for popular titles and rarely sells above cover price. When they do, the difference is always donated to industry-related charity. The store's ideals, Haaland said, is what puts them above the mark of other stores.
"It's not the size of your store or how many stores you have," Haaland said. "It's what you have on your shelves, who's interacting with the customers, are the customers satisfied and do you add value to their life and part of their identity."
Blanchard understands certain characteristics of the comic book market that compel competing stores to employ gimmicks or co-op the tactics of more successful operations.
"The reason why comic book stores are so competitive is because there's such a limited amount of people who read comics," Blanchard said. "If a whole bunch of those people who read comics in that area start gravitating to one store because they like that store, the other stores ... will do whatever it takes."
Haaland sees the store's prominence over other stores, like the Coliseum of Comics, simply in terms of the interests of his peers and the 18 to 24 demographic.
"[The Coliseum] don't really push what I would consider R-rated comics or mature-reader comics, they push comics for everyone," Haaland said. "I cater to an older clientele. I think that someone college-aged who gets into comics for the first time, comics will become, probably, part of their life as long as they find something they enjoy."
But Haaland still sees their businesses as complementary.
"My favorite thing about the Coliseum of Comics is they can get kids to read comics," Haaland said. "And then when they become college-aged, they can shop with me."
First-time customer Nikolaus Fink likes the alternative scene that the shop provides.
"They're organized and they're clean," Fink said. "In most comic shops, everything is all clustered together, all stacked up in boxes."
The employees left the biggest impression, Fink said.
"I just got a good vibe with the workers … they actually notice that I'm in the store," Fink said. "Normally when I go into places, they don't even look at you, they just start talking with each other."
Customer Nathan Jennings had his own criticisms of other stores in town. The difference was a relief.
"The Coliseum is like a Wal-Mart of comics. They're not organized and other than that we have the Sci-Fi City and Sci-Fi City is incredibly expensive," Jennings said. " I like the people that work here … I like the organization of the stuff on the walls."
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