TJIC,

I don't claim that Hijinx is a typical store, but customer service and outreach is our number 1 goal. We have the largest all ages section I've ever seen in a comic shop and we have a ton of happy female customers from age 3 to age 90. That's one of the reasons we were recently named the best comic shop in silicon valley.

I not only developed my online store and website but a whole suite of open source software for managing comic shop inventory, customers and more. It's all available at www.hijinxcomics.com and is licensed under the GPL. I have a lot of experience interfacing directly with my distributor's website and may have some useful tidbits for your developers that I'd be happy to share.

400 people is not really a lot to have surveyed, and I'm curious what geographical area those 400 were from. There are world class comic shops all over the country that have a lot to offer comic fans that they will never find on an online store.

Unfortunately there are too many areas without such shops and your website may be a real boon to these folks, and I wish you the best of luck!

If you're lucky enough to live in the SF Bay Area you've got lots of terrific stores to choose from. If you're ever in the area, I hope you'll take a moment to visit us in sunny San Jose!

Sincerely,

Dan Shahin
Hijinx Comics
ComicBookShelf.com

Looks like a really nice site. I run Hijinx Comics (a brick and mortar comic shop) as well as www.comicbookshelf.com an online graphic novel store that has some similar features to your site. We have automatic recommendations, RSS review feeds, author and collaboration search features and other neat stuff like that. I wish I had a big team like yours to develop my site, but I had to do it all by myself!

We don't discount and we only sell graphic novels, but our shipping is also always free and 10% of every purchase goes to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Hero Initiative.

I think your site will be useful to many people who don't have a good full service comic shop (Like Hijinx Comics!) in their area.

The only thing I found that I don't like at all is the following statement on your "about us" page:

*

The local comic book stores are not much help - they've got a limited selection, and while the staff is friendly, they know more about Spiderman and The Hulk than they do about good writers, interesting plots, and obscure titles.

Which really does a disservice to the many, many great comic shops that provide service, selection and carry and know about a lot more than just superhero comics. Hijinx Comics carries comics for everyone, including art comics, comic strips, children's books and much much more.

We carry a LOT more than just what's available
through Diamond (whom you refer to as the largest distributor). We buy direct from many publishers not carried by Diamond and books you wouldn't find in an average comic shop.

Otherwise I think you've got a lot of really neat features and a nice looking site. Keep up the good work!

These real-life cookie monsters must be made an example of. I'm surprised this has yet to be linked to the Keebler / Little Debbie turf war that has claimed the lives of countless patriotic elves. Stop the madness, end the US dependence on foreign snack foods!

"Still...some comic shop somewhere donates X% to some worthy cause....you could fill a blog with just those posts."

If only that were true. Show me all those other shops donating and I'll buy something from them!

"...the main anti-slavery piece students read is that shitty Twain novel when there are so many amazing accounts of slavery written by the slaves themselves that go largely ignored."

Huck Finn happens to be an amazingly moving piece of art by an American genius. It's my all-time favorite novel and was the first books to ever make me cry. Your dismissal of it as "shitty" makes me question your opinion of this whole matter.

While the teacher in this case may have officially "resigned", you can bet it was done under tremendous pressure by his superiors. Read more about the case and you'll see how he was railroaded.

dan shahin

While it's true that the teacher did more than simply recommend the book, it's also true that it was from a list of advanced works meant to challenge high school freshmen English students.

Maybe the teacher overstepped by providing a copy of the book, but there's no doubt that the reaction was way out of proportion with his misjudgment. Does a man deserve to lose his job and be maligned as a purveyor of "borderline pornography" for recommending a legitimate work to a student?

Would you fire a white teacher for giving a copy of Huckleberry Finn to a black student and label it "borderline hate speech" because it contains the N word?

Sadly, I'm afraid some would do just that.

Dan Shahin

"It's not like the only people who are allowed to wax rhapsodic about the Psion 3's ARM processor, but it's just a bit shocking to realize someone in the real world is still a major nerd."

Am I the only one having a hard time parsing this sentence? Does it make sense grammatically? There's been a lot of sloppy grammar in BB Gadget postings. I like the posts, but sometimes I can't stand to read the writing style.

Sorry!