eBuying Comics: Week 73 – Lucky Target Comics Q&A
This week I have a brilliant Q and A with Sumyra of Lucky Target Comics. I discovered Lucky Target Comics last summer after seeing a Tweet from the writer of Alex Automatic, Fraser Campbell. He had scored an excellent collection of Daredevil issues from the site, a number of which I myself had on my want list. The site is easy to navigate and find the issues you are looking for. They offer a good selection of newer and older back issues, as well as trade paperbacks and bundles of complete runs. More sellers should be doing this in my opinion. It is a great way to attract readers who are either completely new to comics or old fans looking for something new to read. I found everything I wanted at the time more than reasonably priced. I was able to check off some later 200 issues of Daredevil as well as getting #44 for a very good price indeed. From other items I purchased and from browsing the site I found the prices and the grades to be very good value for money. It seemed they weren’t giving into speculation or jacking up prices just for age and rarity. Of course there are expensive books. From my own experience, I have been looking at the TMNT training manual issues on eBay off and on for about 2 years now. The Raphael and the Leonardo issues are always the most expensive, ranging from ridiculously priced to fairly priced but with extortionate P+P. I was able to purchase both from LTC for £3 and £5 respectively. The steal of my purchase had to be the TMNT Michaelangelo Christmas Special for ust £1!. It was listed as low grade but I found it to be more than reader copy quality. Before diving into the interview I would just like to thank Sumyra for her time. She gives very in-depth and personal answers. If you have never shopped with LTC it is well worth a read and hopefully it will then push you in her direction.
What is the secret origin of Sumyra and comics?
It is no secret. I have blabbed out my origin story dozens of times. My eldest sister, Iram, started buying comics sometime in the late 1970s/80s just after I was born. There were some real U.S. comics (though they might have been pence copies) available in newsagents, alongside UK reprint mags, all over the UK back then. I have to thank her for making that choice and our Mum for giving her the cash to buy whatever books and comics she wanted. One day when I was around four or five years old I knocked on Iram’s bedroom door and she let me in and showed me a Ghost Rider comic as he was her favourite. I was completely enamoured.
A few years later our Mum died. I am not so sure about the middle sisters but both Iram and I were big into reading and we would go to the library every Saturday and spend long hours lost in books. It must sound strange to younger generations but back then there was no internet, no games consoles in every home and very, very limited TV. There were books, of course, but nothing like the wealth and diversity of literature that we have now. The books that I could access at school and the local library filled the time but they were dated and often unsatisfying. I wanted exciting, action-filled stories with strong female leads but I literally had to wait for people to start writing them. I guess one day I was complaining about needing more reading material so my sis said “Here ya go. You can have all my comics.”
What was in the mini collection she gave me? She had some UK Star Wars and Blake’s 7 mags. That was more her thing than mine but I still read them repeatedly. There were the DC The Super-Heroes UK mags with the painted covers. A whole bunch of DC and Marvel including Dazzler (my favourite), Ghost Rider (S1), Savage She-Hulk, Spider-Woman (S1), Wonder Woman (the latter end of S1 with the Huntress back-ups), Firestorm (S2), a few Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, JLA and probably some others. I read them all so many times they would be very low grade by now. They were ‘well-loved’.
We didn’t have much money to play with after my mum died but my sister would sometimes pick up a new comic on her way home from college for me. I don’t remember the first comic I physically bought myself but I spent years wandering around newsagents in Manchester grabbing anything I could. I have a vivid memory of buying Flash Series 2 #20 from a Woolworths type shop in Wythenshawe but that won’t have been the first I don’t think. I also remember when we found the back issue comic stores in Manchester and I went straight to the Dazzler section to buy the missing bits of story I needed. When I was around twelve years old I actually got a Saturday job in one of the stores. I was paid £5 per day, which I usually took in comics.
I am not great with the whole concept of ‘favourites’ but two of my top artists ever are Joe Kubert and Bill Sienkiewicz. Honestly, the amount of amazing art produced by the comic industry all over the world just gets more mind-blowing every day. It is so incredibly rich. Those of us who take time to enjoy it are very lucky. In terms of series that have had a big impact on me…obviously all the comics my sis gave me with special mention for Dazzler. Halo Jones. Strangers in Paradise (I love everything Terry Moore does and I found SiP at a memorable point in my life). The two Black Canary series in the 90s and then Birds of Prey (S1 and 2). I love the way Greg Rucka writes and Whiteout was a very memorable read for me. Catwoman (S3). Alias (Jessica Jones). I love Dan Clowes, Charles Burns and the Alison Bechdel books that I have read. I could just go on forever naming comics that I have read because I don’t tend to rank them. There has been so much. A lot of comics have had a really great effect on me but that was part of a past place and time and I have grown and changed since. Overall, I don’t tend to embrace nostalgia in the way that some of LTC’s customers do but I do understand it and care about it. I think that puts me on the correct side of the metaphorical counter where LTC is concerned.
How did you go from comics fan to comics seller?
Ha. That is another question that I think I have gone over a lot in the past so I’ll maybe try and keep it succinct. It happened gradually. It was never a planned business or career path until I hit the point where it seemed like the only open road ahead. I did a lot of mediocre to outright shitty low paid jobs after University. Some of them made me really hate my life. I have also had some periods of time managing on almost no money where I just focused on art and painting (I don’t do that at all now). We live in the world we do so there is always pressure on the majority of us to make some money and plan out where to go next. Part of one of my plans was to remove as many material possessions from my life as possible and see if I could get down to a backpack and go travel. My big collection of books all went to the charity shop but I had to go sell my comic collection myself at the local comic marts. That gradually pulled me into the retail side which was the opposite of my original intention. Eventually, I hit the point where I could not see any way forward other than to lean completely into it. I am sure there always are choices out there but I think that my personal fears and hang-ups have stopped me from believing I could do some of the bigger things that I wanted from my life. When I work at anything I do commit, however. I have really devoted myself to LTC and it has given but also demanded a lot from me.
What is the mission statement of LTC? Is there a certain area you pride yourself on doing better than others?
Hmmnn…let’s go to the About page of the website and see what I wrote there. I don’t think most retail businesses need a mission statement but hopefully this works:
We believe that comics are for everyone and we want everyone to find the right comics for them. We care about every aspect of our customer service and our place within the comics industry. We take care with everything we do from the comics we order or buy, to how we view, grade, present, sell and package them right up to when one of our customers starts reading.
The current incarnation of LTC is only a few years old even though I registered it as my full-time business in 2010 and was in start-up and part-time phases for a number of years before that. We rebranded when I created the website and I reviewed what I wanted LTC to be. Of course, I want LTC to be the best back issue webstore in the UK and beyond. LTC offers a clean, smooth, safe, stress-free shopping experience for anyone who likes reading or art or collecting. The one area LTC presents a little differently than many other comic sellers is down to my personality and viewpoint. I see my passion for the medium of comics as interconnected with my love of books and art. Therefore I don’t see any reason why any person who likes literature, art, or any other creative medium, should not also feel able to pick up a comic and enjoy it. The website is not perfect. I have some perfectionist tendencies but I know how to compromise and accept that things cannot always be exactly what I want them to be.
Our webstore does make it as smooth and easy as possible for people to browse the store and enjoy themselves whether they are a casual comic reader, a serious collector or even just someone who wants a related item like an action figure or signed print. We have also added a Book section to the store to further cement the idea that a regular prose book that has no direct connection to Comicdom could bring someone in or be an add-on to a comic order. Reading is reading. Art is art. Stories are stories. It is all human. Booksellers figured out years ago that they could add comics to their inventory, refer to them as Graphic Novels, and make money. That is not a bad thing but I’d like to pull some of that back over to the Comic Seller side of the line. LTC’s branding and image reflect that and is inclusive to a wide demographic.
When I interact with other businesses as a consumer I often reflect on my experience and then I think about the experience that LTC’s customers are offered. We have a lot of repeat customers and some of them have let me know that just spending time browsing the webstore is enjoyable and relaxing for them. A lot of work goes into the process of selling comics on our webstore, but what the customer gets is clear info and images, fair grading, interesting options and a bond of trust once they decide to purchase. The difference between selling via a physical storefront and an online one is that online buyers have to stump up the cash first and then wait for their order to arrive hoping it will be what they expect and safely packaged. Our customers know that they can relax and trust us. That is central to Lucky Target Comics.
During the pandemic did you have to change your strategy much? Did any positives come out of the change that you have kept with?
It has been strange to look back and see my personal, and LTC’s business trajectory, in relation to the pandemic. I had no idea anything like this was going to happen but the pre-pandemic years almost made it seem like I was preparing for this time. I made a multitude of decisions in the years before 2020 that felt hard and like I was being pushed down but now seem as though they protected me and my business from the worst effects of the pandemic. When it initially happened I had very real fears that some of our societal infrastructures might collapse completely and destroy online retail. I really thought that it might be the ultimate ‘black swan’. That didn’t happen. Brexit has had a much more pronounced impact on our growth and global trade, particularly because being in the UK means we cannot participate in the EU’s IOSS VAT collection system. I spent a good amount of time last year trying to figure out a workaround for this but to no avail. It really is so far out of my hands. However, I don’t believe that has to close us off to the European market and I can see things settling down and EU customers getting comfortable with the options we are all presented with right now.
This is a question I have always wanted to ask. How do you go about sourcing your stock? Obviously keep your top, top trade secrets to yourself!
I have not needed to actively source stock for a number of years because LTC is carrying a lot of back stock and the work involved with merchandising that onto a webstore is huge. When I first started out in the selling side of things I was approached by an older part-time comic seller who needed help with his business. We partnered up to try and make that business more profitable. The first thing I did was stop his constant buying. A lot of the stuff he was buying was great for investment but, at the time, the cash was not there, the net profit was not there and he had a house full of back stock with limited ways of pushing it out for sale. We often argued about it but I had to bring some logic, organisation and new ideas into that situation and that meant cutting expenditure.
I have bought lots of small and large collections over the years but I am measured in how I do that. I learned after some years not to just invite every random stranger to phone or email me with something to sell because that can lead to a lot of unpleasant and fruitless interactions. We have had to sell some quality stock too cheaply or too early at times to maintain cash flow. We have declined some opportunities for lack of capital or because I am simply not much of a gambler. There has to be balance but it is not always easy to find.
We did have a Diamond account for a number of years and that brought in a lot of good stock at times. Closing that down was one of those decisions I made pre-pandemic that turned out to be quite prophetic and appropriate.
If I want to look for certain types of stock I will go hunting and ask around. If LTC needs more stock intake in the future I will simply push more for that in the way LTC communicates with the public and markets itself. The UK does have a somewhat limited market compared to the U.S. whilst also having a lot of different types of people trying to make money on the selling side of things. I don’t know if I will ever see a nice big Golden or Silver Age collection come my way at a price that I can work with. It would be nice. Right now I feel we already have plenty to work with.
Has LTC ever had a convention presence or likely to do so in future?
Yes, we did have a convention presence for many years. Did you not see us?
I mentioned starting out selling my comics at Manchester’s local marts/fairs (which was also where I used to excitedly go every month or so to spend all my cash as a teen). That is where I teamed up with the older comic seller. We then worked together doing other marts in major UK cities on the weekends. I was also working a shitty miserable job during the week and applying for other kinds of jobs. I started an eBay shop for the business and would work on that in the evenings. I also pushed for us to move into some of the bigger shows. New ones were popping up, existing ‘expos’ were morphing into ‘Comic Conventions’. I saw potential in that and got us into them.
That partnership imploded but I continued with marts and conventions with LTC for a lot of years. We traded at a lot of MCM events, Thought Bubble, London Super Con and a bunch of others. I barely had time to get anything serious going online because prepping stock for conventions took up so much time and energy and it was highly pressurised. Again, I made the choice to take LTC out of that arena a couple of years before that pandemic hit and I am glad I did. To be honest, I am so fucking done with that side of retail I don’t envision us ever going back to it now. You never know but there is nothing pulling me that way. I have already dismantled most of the structure for LTC’s convention trading. The webstore make a whole lot more sense.
Have you ever had any of the giant desirable comics pass your way? If so what is it like seeing then saying goodbye to a comic like that?
Some years ago a close associate of mine had a change in his personal circumstances. He felt that he needed to sell his extensive Marvel and DC collection as quickly as possible. I convinced him not to rush into some deal that would leave him at a huge loss and we began the process of selling through LTC. I did quite a lot of work for zero cut in order to get him some cash in and then we gradually settled into a more equitable system where I was able to take a cut of sales. Then on to me just buying boxes outright as I would with any other collector who is selling. We still have an agreement for me to collect and pay for the last 130 boxes. He is kindly and patiently waiting for me to sort out my housing situation so we can complete that process.
He always said he had EVERY Marvel comic to date at that time (excluding pre-Marvel books like AF#15). Actually, I know that he never had Giant-Size X-Men #1 or Incredible Hulk #181 but I can’t say I noticed any other gaps. Some of the #1s were very low grade but the Avengers #1 was something I conservatively graded as FN+ and it was gorgeous. The DC was much harder so he didn’t get as far with that but he did have a Batman #1, which was the comic that caused the biggest stir and excitement.
It can be thrilling seeing big, beautiful key issues and rarities. I don’t personally find it hard to let go of them because I released that desire to own material things when I was younger. I like seeing things flow through LTC. I don’t want them to stop here. The collector that I sold the Batman #1 and Avengers #1 to seemed like a really sweet guy to me so was glad he got them. Of course, some part of me wishes that I didn’t have to sell a lot of the other comics in that collection as quickly or as cheaply as I had to back then. That collection had the potential to make significantly more money in the current market. However, those were the circumstances in that time and we did what we could.
Is there a part of comics retail you feel passionately about either good or bad that needs more of a spotlight on it?
Ohhh you invited me to talk about what I think is bad in comics retail. That is a dangerous ranting rabbit hole of frustrations and irritations that have built up in me over the years. I am just going to step right over that with a friendly wink and a smile.
I was talking to a friend just last night about back issue comics as a concept. When we lost UK newsstand distribution of real U.S. comics and they were replaced by Panini reprint books it vastly reduced the likelihood of newer readers finding a full appreciation of back issue comics. For me, newsstand led to back issue stores and comic marts and mail order buying and the full array of what had been published and was being published. Panini reprints lead people to either drop comics completely or into high street comic stores where they might buy new releases or only buy collected editions. That is all good in its own way. Support for bricks and mortar stores, and new release comics, is vital for the industry. I’d like to make a case for back issues too, though, and not just mainstream ones. There are all sorts of great stories from now-defunct publishers, or short-lived series from mainstream publishers, that are being forgotten. There is a wealth of material that will never be found in TPB format on the shelves of a high street store. I would love more people to look, buy and read openly and widely. I would love it more if those people come to our webstore to look for some sets or bundles that they might not have ever heard of before. There is so much good reading out there if you are open to it.
Where can people find you on social media?
Anyone visiting our website luckytargetcomics.com will see the social links. It would be great if people would follow us on either Facebook or Twitter but also, and more importantly, like and comment on our posts whilst they are there. The best and most meaningful support is open support. We loved Instagram but our account was one of the casualties of FB Meta changes and we can no longer update our account there. I don’t think it is worth the time and effort to start a new one. We also have Pinterest but it does not drive any traffic so we don’t update it much. Facebook, Twitter, join the Mailing List at the bottom of the Home Page or just ignore all of that and get on with some comic shopping.
