Last night, a group that I'm part of concluded an agreement with the current owners of Comic Relief in Berkeley CA, to purchase their remaining inventory and fixtures.

The other members of the group are Jack Rems, owner of Dark Carnival Bookstore, a unique science fiction and mystery bookshop, and Chris Juricich, the present store manager and a long time fan and Internet comics dealer.

Collectively, we've got a huge number of years as both dealers and fans, and we're confident we can make the store successful. We're going to operate in the same location, under a new name which we will announce later.

Comic Relief is a genuinely great shop which has fallen on very hard times since the death of its founder, Rory Root, in 2008. His family has had the store since then.

I've worked there for 12 years as the old comics specialist--there's no reason why a well run shop in that location, with the same attitude, shouldn't be profitable, even in the current economy.



That's one of the reasons I've been gone so much lately--been working on this since November.