I’m NOT Opening a Local Comic Shop… Here’s Why

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:05]Welcome to the new Brize Comics. Can you believe that I had all of this stuff inside of my house? In this video, we're going to talk about why I decided to not open a brickandmortar LCS that's open to the public and how we ended up here. And so, we're just going to jump right into it. I've been a full-time comic book dealer for about 6 years now, and it's always been out of my house to some degree. There was a short period of time back in California where I had a shop similar to this one. Um, but then we moved to Montana. And when I moved to Montana, I bought a house um that was huge, a five- bedroomedroom house, so that three of the bedrooms could be used for comic books. And as many of you can relate, there's a little thing that happens with comics. They tend to multiply and multiply they did. They kept multiplying. So what was originally supposed to be just kept inside the three bedrooms turned into the entire basement as well and then the entire garage, the entire storage area and just permeating into literally every part of the house. Packages, you know, coming in the kitchen on the front porch, etc., etc. And it just got to the point where I wanted to separate the shop from my home. And so my longtime dream had always been to open an LCS um an open to the public fullervice LCS. And I thought this would be a great time to do it. And so I started looking for properties to purchase because I wanted to purchase the actual property um for tax advantages and whatnot. And that was the first snag is that there was nothing available on Main Street. So I wanted Main Street frontage. I wanted to catch the 15,000 cars that drive down Main Street every day. That was really important to me because there's if you're not in the line of view, you're just not going to be seen unless it was like a destination shop and um people were looking it up online and so like just the other day I found a brewery right around the corner from here that I had no idea about and I would have never known about. The only reason I found out about it is I I took a wrong turn. And so my point is that being on the main street is um really really important for you know foot traffic and visibility and stuff like that. So first snag couldn't find a commercial space available for sale. And I'm kind of glad that I didn't because foolishly I thought it would be you know relatively easy to find qualified help. And that is what turned out to be, in my opinion, um, impossible to find qualified help here in Callisbell, Montana, that would be able to run an LCS completely hands-off because I work about 50 to 60 hours a week just processing slab collections.

[00:02:51]Um, and I can't take away my time from what's working really, really well to something that's probably not going to work, which is an LCS, where the the whole the dream of the whole goal to open LCS would be to break even. Just enough to pay the employees and to stock the shelves, pay the rent, pay the electricity bill and all of that and just break even just for the aspect, the community aspect of it. That's the whole dream. It wasn't to, you know, bring in more money. the business is running fine online, completely online. And so I thought, you know, I'm probably going to have to outsource to get an employee with those kind of skills. I met someone. I flew him out for the weekend.

[00:03:28]We spent the weekend together and he was perfect. He was totally comic book knowledgeable. Could run a shop from start to finish. I'm talking about like, "Hey, here's $100,000. Go buy all the shelving, stock the shelves, you know, with all of the accounts from the distributors, etc., etc. just run it from start to finish because I I can't focus my time on it. And this person had those skills. And then it came time at the end of the weekend, we're like, "Okay, so you want to move to Montana?"

[00:03:56]And it we both had like incredible hesitancy. And um it's just too much to ask. It's such a big ask like to have somebody move to where they have no family or friends, you know, and that's what it came down to is it just didn't feel right. And it also is a little bit too much to commit to somebody like that, like that you don't really know that well to get him to move across state lines. So, I don't think that that's a viable option because he would have been the perfect person to do it and it didn't work for him. So, um I I think that that option is out. It would have to be someone local. So, I posted some job openings locally here. I spent a ton of money on advertising and I got nothing. I mean, not even close to something that would work um to open the LCS. And so, at that point, I decided, let's put this on hold. I I really need to get this shop out of my house. We're bursting at the seams. And that's how we came to this place. And I'm going to give you guys a little tour here. Um so, I signed a year lease on this place.

[00:04:55]It's uh I think it's a little over 3,000 square ft. I thought it was going to be too big. It is not too big. I can't believe that all of this stuff fit into my house. And I got to tell you that it is such a relief. I feel tremendous relief to have this place where I can go to the packages. I just got a delivery here. Um, in fact, let me turn the camera around. Also, while I got you, this is one of the last opportunities to get in on the May giveaway here on the YouTube channel. If you subscribe, comment, and like, you're entered to win this awesome 9.8 vintage signature series X-Men slab. And if you shoot over to bryzecomics.com and sign up for the newsletter, we have a monthly giveaway over there. Every single month you stay subscribed. Also, another vintage X-Men signature series 9.8 this month just for being subscribed. So, I just got this delivery here. Four different collections that just came in from UPS and it's it's in the middle of the day right now. And USPS comes as well at a reasonable time. When it was out of my house, sometimes UPS would come at like 900 p.m. at night. So, it's just so much better to have the deliveries come and go um during actual business hours. So, let me just give you the little tour here. This is going to be my pressing station. I want to extend it. I want to get 10 presses total and have those puppies running full-time. This is going to be the little desk for right now.

[00:06:21]It's my um summer college intern that's here for the summer that's helping out with outgoing packages and running the shop and things like that. There's this nice roll door for uh receiving and sending to the delivery trucks can just come in right there. There's basically just one one big room. Um we've got this little sink and the refrigerator. I need to get like a little microwave. Got a little bathroom. This is the shipping station which is not completely optimized yet. Um but we will dial that in. We've got this storage which is just bags and boards. honestly is pretty much all that is. Um, and then the comic. So, the moving help that I had was just short of a disaster. Just short of a disaster. Um, it wasn't a complete disaster because everything got moved over here. Nothing was stolen and nothing was damaged. So, that's good.

[00:07:16]But, I colorcoded everything in the hopes that we would move the blue stickers and then have the blue stickers with the blue stickers. And somehow we got completely mixed up. So, that didn't work. Um, and I'll just leave it at that. There was more to it, but I'll just leave it at that. This here is the bobs, the build-a- box. So, all of these are build-a- box. If you didn't know, I offer a build a box um option on the website where you can check out, pay for slabs, build yourself a little box, and then pay for shipping once at the end when you're ready to ship. And lots of people are taking advantage of this. Um, it's just it's been really, really successful. These are all my whatnot slabs, which I need to have a show tomorrow if you're watching this the day it comes out because my whatnot slabs just keep multiplying as well. And then these are the graveyard, which is just what where slabs go to die. No. Um I don't know why I call it the graveyard.

[00:08:14]It's basically books that have been on the site for more than like three or four days. Um these are newly listed slabs. Those are from today. These will be tomorrow. And then these are all new slabs as well, not to mention those new collections that just came in. Here's the um picture taking station, which um if you know anything about photographing slabs, it's very difficult. So, this is what works for me. It's a 45 degree angle right here between the slab on the table and the light. And then you angle that light about 35 or 45 degrees as well. And that indirect light and then you have this little black foam backer board. You stick your camera right through that hole directly down with the slab. It works really well. This is going to be my desk. I'm still in the process of hanging everything up. I got to get my Stan Lee original art up. I got my little shrine to Elizabeth Olsen here.

[00:09:14]Um and a bunch of other goodies that are going to go up on the wall. And then this is the slab wall. I'm going to get like a little cocktail table and put it here. And this will likely be where I record videos from. And this will be the background if I can figure out the lighting. It's going to be very difficult to get the lighting on those slabs to be correct. Tons of shipping supplies. So the thing about Uline is the more you order from Uline, you start qualifying for free gifts. And I really wanted the big daddy chair this time.

[00:09:46]So, I had to order four pallets of boxes, which I'll use. It's probably like three months worth of boxes. Um, and if you order $10,000 worth, you get a pizza oven. And I want that damn pizza oven one of these days. And so, that's how we ended up here. We're going to take a beat for at least a year. I signed a year lease. One of the things that's interesting is this shop next door. Also, if you didn't know, we always have the 10% off going at brizecomics.com. All you have to do is add to cart and that discount is applied excluding big boy books. We also have a clearance section which is always 20 to 25% off. Also, all you have to do is add to cart. And every single day, typically every single weekday at 9:30 Mountain time is when I post new drops. So, if you don't want to miss out, go head over there at 9:30 pretty much every day. Um, and I also send a notification through the newsletter. Let me show you the shop next door. This is actually the same building. It's got two giant roll doors in the front. So, this is like suite A.

[00:10:46]I'm in suite B uh in the middle here.

[00:10:50]But this would be like the perfect place, except for the location, the perfect building type to have an LCS. I mean, you could fill this with like the LCS side of the comics and then have this side be the online operation. So, you know, I'm not completely giving up.

[00:11:07]Oh, there's Miss Cali trying to get out.

[00:11:09]I'm not completely giving up on the dream, but for now and for the next year at least, we're just going to take a beat and just get settled in here. And if the right person comes along to open that LCS and the right, um, you know, opportunity presents itself, maybe we do a hybrid version, like a slow open um, where, you know, we're just open a few days a week. I'm not completely giving up on it, but um I got to say that it does feel like a tremendous relief to make this progress. I did all of this on Memorial Day weekend getting this all moved over here and now I'm in the process of selling that house because the only reason I bought that particular house was because it worked for both of the shop. So, it's just crazy time. A lot going on, but everything's moving in the right direction and it's all luxury problems. I'm incredibly blessed. I'm incredibly grateful for all of the the support from all of you guys. Um I'm still living my dream. Um it's just taking a little break of taking the dream to the next level. And maybe, you know, this is all we do. We just have it online from here on out. Who knows? But one thing's for sure, there is a ton of awesome goodies in those raw book collections in the center there. I really got to start digging and doing some more whatnot shows. I'm going to have the college intern for the rest of the summer and then I am going to hire a full-time uh position for shop manager.

[00:12:33]So, depending on what kind of skills they have, um hopefully the goal will be to have more like uh bi-weekly raw book shows on whatnot or something like that.

[00:12:43]But in the meantime, we will have a slab show this Friday if you're watching this day it comes out. There's a link in the description for $15 towards your first purchase if you're new to whatnot. And it's a great time. We have a lot of fun on a Friday night just in a room with a hundred other comic book nerds looking at cool comics. It's a great way to spend a Friday night and I hope to see you there. Thank you for sticking with me to the end of the video. Thank you for coming along with with me on the journey. We'll see you in the next video. Bye.