While print media across the country fights a downward slide, a locally owned comic shop is bucking the trend with a Baldwin County expansion. 99 Issues Comic Books & Gaming is opening a 1,400-square-foot second location at the Jubilee Pointe Shopping Center in Daphne in mid-October 2014, with a grand opening planned for Nov. 1.
A Celebrity Artist for the Grand Opening
Headlining the grand opening will be artist Steven Butler, a veteran illustrator whose work includes Spider-Man and X-Men for Marvel and Superman for DC. Butler was set to sign autographs for collectors and fans.
99 Issues is still a young business — its first store opened in March 2013 at the University Village Shopping Center across from the University of South Alabama campus. Together with FOS Comics, the two shops are the only local retailers catering to the area’s growing market for comics, graphic novels and related merchandise, a boom tied to superhero films becoming Hollywood’s defining product. Owner Chris Barnett credits comics’ collectibility for their staying power in a digital age.
“Digital will eventually take over the news and book formats. What will save comics from the slow death of digital is the fact that comics are also collectors’ items,” Barnett said. “Most physical copies of comic books include a code that allows the reader to download the digital copy for free… My feeling is that digital and paper can live together in peace, feeding off of each other.”
The numbers back his optimism: year-to-date sales growth averaged 223 percent since the original store opened. And if Daphne goes well, Barnett said a third store — in Mobile — could follow in the second quarter of 2015.
Export-Import Bank Backs U.S.-Built Airbus Jets
In news with direct bearing on Mobile’s Airbus assembly plant, Export-Import Bank chairman Fred Hochberg told Reuters the bank would finance exports of Airbus airliners provided they were assembled in the United States with sufficient domestic content. “We’re about U.S. jobs,” Hochberg said. The bank’s authority faced a Sept. 30 congressional renewal deadline, and Airbus confirmed its U.S. factory then under construction in Mobile — due to begin deliveries in 2016 — would qualify under the policy.
Gallery 450 Opens Downtown
Downtown’s creative community gained a shared home as Gallery 450 launched at 450 Dauphin St., combining Port City Realty, LA Fotographee and Crush Imaging Studios in one co-working environment for startups, freelancers and artists. Associate broker Ivey Welch said the space doubles as an art gallery featuring Southeastern artists, with new exhibits planned for each monthly art walk plus regular weekday hours and rentable event space.