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Leon Emmett is the owner of probably the oddest comic shop in Toronto
called The Hairy Tarantula. It's located on 354 Yonge St. and if you are
walking north, your likely to miss the stairway leading up to the store
on the 2nd floor. Once inside you'll see friendly cats and a selection
of graphic novels and manga so huge you'll be whispering "holy shit!"
under your breath. Leon answers my questions about the stores
beginnings, his ordering/stocking methods, customers, convention sales,
expanding and more.
Jamie:
Can you tell us the origin of Hairy Tarantula?
Leon:
Two Earl Haig grads took a small business loan and started up in
1992. Two years later they signed the business over to me after buying
and selling a large collection of silver age comics.
Jamie:
What made you want to own a comic book store?
Leon:
A combination of a love for comics and a need to be independently
employed.
Jamie:
Let me guess, you didn't like working for other people? :)
Leon:
My experiences working for other people on a personal level was
OK, but a lot of working for other people is highly impersonal, and I'm
not interested in being a robot-worker. I won't even do that for my own
business, never mind anyone else's!
Jamie:
You sell books at a number of conventions in Toronto. Do you find
different cons attract different types of readers?
Leon:
Jamie:
There are a variety of conventions going on in the Toronto Area.
There is the big HobbyStar one in the late summer, the 3 day Paradise
Comics one and those 1 day shows also put on by Paradise. Can you tell
us how those cons differ for a retailer?
Leon:
All of those shows draw a different crowd. The Hobby-Star show is
just a big experiment in charging fans for exposure to their favorite
"personalities". I'm not into "hero-worship", but for those that are,
this show offers an opportunity to learn why such behaviour is degrading
to all involved. The Paradise shows have a much friendlier feel, but
lacks adequate promotion. I can't help thinking that if someone could
harness the mercenary energy of a Hobby-Star show and temper it with a
genuine love of the people and products in our industry, as per a
Paradise show, we'd have a real winner in Toronto.
Jamie:
Tell me about your first Anime Con.
Leon:
We attended Anime North for the first time in 2004. We took 3
mini-vans worth of inventory and left with two. I had never sold an
entire mini-van worth of product at a convention, never mind from only
two booths. In 2005 we rented 4 booths, and this year we rented 6.
Next year we're likely to take 10. Incidentally, Anime North is by
far the best run and attended anime/manga convention in Canada, period.
Jamie:
When I first visited your store, it was known for catering to the
art/lit readers. Years later you have become a big advocate of manga. Do
you feel you switched?
Leon:
For some time, anime and manga fit into art/lit, in the sense it
was one of many "indie" sidelines we nurtured, so we've only grown the
wee sapling we'd been watering all along. If anything, some art/lit
customers found the emerging gaming business (Magic cards especially)
detrimental to their enjoyment of the shop, and they switched.
Jamie:
Was the addition of gaming worth losing some art/lit customers?
Leon:
Yes. For my own enjoyment if nothing else, adding gaming and
growing that business over the last decade has been a terrific move for
Hairy Tarantula.
Jamie:
You've accumulated a *lot* of books, mainly manga. Is there a method
to your madness of having that much manga in stock?
Leon:
The method entails madness - it just happens when you're dedicated
to keeping everything in stock for as long as possible. People bringing
books in are tripping over people taking books out, and we duck and
weave the restocks onto the shelves as soon as we can.
The madness is my simple retail philosophy, which I will share free of
charge (because knowing is only half the battle): A customer cannot buy
that which is not available for sale.
Jamie:
Are you specifically looking to have books available after they are
out of print? 20 years from now there could be a nostalgia market for
those manga titles.
Leon:
I'm not expecting older mangas to appreciate in value like comic
issues. The speculative aspect of collecting is in my mind largely
responsible for the death of the comics industry as we knew it.
Jamie:
What do you see happening to the Superhero market?
Leon:
Well it's not growing. It is sort of re-inventing, so I don't
think it's going away, at least not anytime soon. If you hadn't
guessed, we're going to continue to keep superhero graphic novels in
stock for some time. At the end of the day, the worst we can do is to
be the last remaining superhero book store around.
Jamie:
Are your customers regular pre-order type or "casual" comic fans?
Leon:
As far as comic issues, we order to sell out really fast - we
don't intend to keep all of those in stock. Instead we focus on keeping
all the graphic novels in stock. Publishers have become increasingly
accommodating over the years as this has proven a solid market shift
over the last several years.
As a result, most of our comic book customers are pre-order customers
with "files", as we say.
Jamie:
What about Graphic Novel customers? Do you get a lot of regulars from
other stores browsing your shop, or is that more for conventions?
Leon:
We're tucked away quite neatly. There are always people
discovering us for the first time, and there are always customers who do
their "rounds" as well as our regulars that don't feel the need to shop
anywhere else.
Jamie:
As of late, there has been lots of talk about distribution. Diamond
is known for not carrying some important non-exclusive publishers with
any depth. Have you been using somebody other than Diamond to get those
books?
Leon:
An elaboration of the pearl of wisdom I dispensed earlier might
read "He who cannot acquire a product cannot offer it for sale."
Consequently, I deal with just about every supplier I can to some degree
or another, some for just one product.
Jamie:
Outside of Diamond, which other distributors for Graphic Novels? And
what is the benefit of using them?
Leon:
I'll always use anyone other than Diamond, given a choice.
Diamond isn't in the business of giving me much choice. This is beyond
the scope of this discussion, but my opinion of Diamond can be described
as "X-rated" for purposes of your readership. This is my studied and
professional opinion as well as my gut level reaction to their "business
practices".
Jamie:
For a while now bigger prose publishers are getting involved in
art/lit comics. Do you see this as a good thing?
Leon:
Certainly. Anything to conquer that odious myth that some large
companies still insist on paying to promote, namely that comics are
about loners in tights. It occurs to me that these loner heroes in fact
nicely define a "terrorist", such as our collective governments
insistently promote nowadays. Is X-Men actually prescient social
commentary, or was it so once upon a time, where now it has become
merely a catalyst for the very problems it predicted?
Jamie:
For a many years now the comic industry has seen readers switching
from monthlies to trades, do you see this as a good thing?
Leon:
It sure is for the Hairy Tarantula, and the new reader, who wants
a story, not a con game with rare issues worth $25 because you're stupid
enough to want to read a "mint collectors edition #1".
Jamie:
Are you concerned about competing against big box or online
bookstores for GN sales?
Leon:
Do we compete with them? I thought people had recognized an alien
invasion when they saw one and just stayed away.
Jamie:
Like most comic shops, you sell more than just comics. What other
product lines do you sell?
Leon:
The Hairy Tarantula can be likened to an interdimensional bazaar
of the bizarre. We administer a pocket universe of fantasy pocket
universes. Comics, graphic novels, manga, anime, board games,
role-playing games, miniatures games, card games, Cthulhu miscellany,
art books, shirts, plushies, and now with our west-end store, toys and
figurines are what we sell. Since April we've been Canadian supplier
for VooDoo Babies string dolls, which have been a very successful new
product for us.
Jamie:
Have you ever considering moving your store to someplace more visible?
Leon:
Yes. But so many people know where we are, I'd rather open a new
store that's highly visible for long enough for everyone to know where
that is. Moving would be such a pain, such a painfully painful pain it
pains me to even consider.
Jamie:
You recently opened a 2nd store devoted to games, action figures and
the like. How is that store doing?
Leon:
We actually took over a closing toy/comic store and are gradually
"terraforming" as I call it. We're selling off a lot of the toy
inventory and replacing it with our usual mix of everything else that
you'd expect to find in a gaming/comics/hobby store.
We call it "Hairy-T West", and we've got the nose pointing up, so to
speak. As long as the nose stays to some degree "up", things are good.
We're still working at pointing it a bit further up, however, so new
visitors are always welcome. The Junction neighbourhood where the store
is located is about a decade into a gradual renewal (which would
actually be it's third "life") from a protracted period of "decay", and
we've now committed to helping uplift the area in our own hairy way.
You can visit Hairy Tarantulas website at http://www.HairyT.com
Regards,
Jamie Coville
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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