What do you picture when you think of comic book stores? Usually a non-descript location in a mini mall with boxes of comic books and where the owners are having a personal conversation with a friend about a particular comic book you don’t know much about. This is far from The Secret Headquarters, a local comic book store in Los Angeles, California. Walking into the store you get the sense that you stumbled upon an old reading room. With its wood floors, rustic bookcases, and comfortable leather chairs, it is reminiscent of an actual secret headquarter where villains or heroes plan their night’s adventures. The shop owner and his business partner have created a very unique thing, a comic store that is completely welcoming and comfortable to even those not well versed in comic book lore. The store’s selection of titles will satisfy the veteran comic book reader to one that had no interest before.

How did this all come about?

My business partner David Richie and I had been talking over the years about having a store of our own. He is someone I've known since early high school. I moved out here over five years ago and I decided; okay, now's the time, let's do something. We talked about it a good while before we settled on a skate shop. He's been working and skateboarding since he lived out here which is close to 14 years I think. We both have been skating since we were kids. We did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people to learn what it took to run a business in the area. We soon realized that skate was not the best answer.

Why was that?

Mostly money. When thinking about who was going to shop there, who wasn't going to shop there, what really made a skate shop money, and that wasn't what we really cared about. Mainly it's about the shoes at this point and not skate parts.

Why comics?

The night we had decided not to do skate we had decided we had done so much research and we were like "what else do we have?"

We had both been reading comics for a long time and he hit me with the pitch for this place and it is pretty much what you see here in front of you. A well rounded, clean, comic shop that is welcoming to anyone. So that is pretty much what we did. He even had the name ready to go.

So did both of you read comic books growing up?

He read more growing up than I did. I read sporadically as a kid and I really started after high school to devour comics.

You don't only focus on the mainstream superhero comics but also more obscure ones done by emerging artists...

The idea was to have books that potentially anybody that walked in here could find interesting. So, I do most of the buying for the store and I find most things interesting so it's easy for me to say "I like this abstract comic" or "I like this emo book" or this "Marvel Wolverine title" and on and on. It just made sense to have books in here that we liked the most and have the neighborhood dictate from there what they really want by buying it. So as time went on we realized some of these things that maybe I do like or don't like should or shouldn't be in here because the neighborhood wants it or doesn't want it. In general it's stuff that we want to read more than anything.

What is it that this store provides that other comic book stores can't or don't?

I think our size makes it a little easier. How we look at it is, we are providing the comics for the neighborhood that they may not have known that they wanted. So when somebody comes in over the weekend out of the blue and they don't know anything about comics but are on a walk with their girlfriend or family or whatever, they can walk in here and they might develop a new appreciation for a particular book. The biggest difference really is somewhat the layout/atmosphere combined with the attention to the product and customers we like to give.

A lot of people tell me that they think you have the best customer service in town, is that a goal of yours?

Super important for us. When I go into stores and people are just laissez faire and aloof, I think it is a bummer. They don't realize how much that affects the aesthetic and the buying experience. Even if the store has what you want in it, it's so easy, especially in a place like Los Angeles, to go out and get it somewhere else. I never think I know comics more than this person, I think that this person might like this title, or let's see if they like this one.

Where did you come up with the look of the store?

Mostly, David had the idea. We just started sending each other images and a lot of the things we kept sending each other were old libraries, old colleges, old book rooms, reading rooms, men's clubs, a lot of things like that. Once we realized we were on the same page we talked to this guy named John Wilbert who built the place.

It has a reading room and aged look. That helps it to be welcoming...

We are happy with the way it is but we aren't even finished with it.

What were you doing before this?

I worked in production in New York and before that in Boston.

Was that movie production?

Mostly commercials and still photo shoots.

How do you like Los Angeles now?

I grew up in South Florida, which is a good amalgamation of East and West Coasts in a way, and spent some time in the North East. Yeah, there are things I haven't gotten used to nor do I feel like I need to get used to. It has it's up and downs. Los Angeles is great for so many things it's a shame that it costs so much money to live here.

What is the best part of your job?

That it's mine. That's pretty rad that I don't have to worry about my job because there is no one out there that will fire me.

Is it different waking up and going to work, knowing it is for yourself?

It is all the difference in the world. I've had 50 jobs over the years before I had this place. I've had a few places that I loved to work and there is really something about doing what you are told and finishing your work, but overall having to really grow a sense of discipline is great and priceless in a way. I wouldn't necessarily be as disciplined as I am now if I didn't have my own place. It's easy to do what you are told. Here if I don't feel like coming in, it doesn't matter I have to come in. If I don't feel like doing something, it doesn't get done and it's going to be a problem. Pretty quickly you realize you have to manage time the right way.

You have a lot of art shows and book signings, was that part of the plan?

Originally we decided we didn't want to leave just one thing hanging on the wall and wanted to do shows. It was pretty tough at first. I think the first year we might have done 8 out of 12 months. Now we have it where we do 10-11 months out of 12. We love to see people's work, we love to get people interested in these people's work and comics in general.  It is kind of the advertising for our store; we don't do the standard print media stuff because it is so expensive. We have a good size mailing list which has been great for us. The shows go from great to mind boggling fabulous.

How do you like being at this location?

It's great, we waited kind of a long time to get a spot here. It took us about six months to find a space.

How did you know this was the right place?

I was living in Los Feliz at the time and David was in Atwater. Between gigs I was driving all over the place and realized that Los Feliz might not be the best spot for it and I just kept coming back to this area. We realized that this was the walking district for Silverlake. I think this area is a good mix of Echo Park and Los Feliz and that's kind of what we need.

Can local artists sell their work here?

Yeah, when people come in with their minis they leave a copy. I check them out and I say I want X amount or how about we put this on consignment and see if they sell.

Can you recommend a few titles if they want to be more adventurous?

This Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? book right here is really cool. It is by Esther Watson and Mark Todd. They are a local couple who teach at an art college. They got all these local cartoonists to explain how to put comics and zines together. It's super local and pretty good how-to book. Black Metal by Rick Spears and Chuck BB is about a couple of heavy metal kids that get in over their head. It's a really fun book and they are going to start working on a second one.

What's your comic book collection like?

It is very small. I have the store so that's sort of my collection. Over time I just kind of let go of all that stuff and sold off a lot of it.

So you are not a huge fanatic collector of it?

No

What are some of your personal favorites?

Recently, D.C. comics has a series called Wednesday Comics, which is a weekly series going on for 12 weeks. It is pretty amazing and is like a Sunday newspaper. Each issue has about 16 different stories in it and they have some of the better talent to do it. That's something pretty adventurous for D.C. to do.

What do you do in your time off when you are not in the store?

I have a kid now and he is seven months old.

Congrats!

Thank you. I have a BMX that I have been riding with my business partner and some other friends of ours. We have been doing that the last 8 months or so.

We are BMXing now because David and I watched some videos on old school BMXing in the early days. We opened a new store also. It's called Vacation. It's a record store up the street on Hollywood and Vermont.

You have been at this spot for about 4 years now? What is it that made it so successful?

I think that our original idea was solid enough and since we didn't really bend at any point or need to we kind of been able to do what we want. Since we paid attention to what the neighborhood wanted instead of ignoring it we have been able to survive here.

What is the biggest headache to running a comic book store?

How full time it is... The first year that we opened I was pretty much the employee and I was doing maybe 70 hour weeks. That's a lot of time. Now that we have things situated and having about four of us here has brought it down to a 40+ hour gig.

Did you expect that?

It's crazy how all encompassing it all becomes.

 

Find out more about the Secret Headquarters here.