Elsewhere: Reframing Variant Edition in the Wake of Disaster

“It’s Night and Day, Honestly”

One of the cats is out roaming in the yard. Another has been locked away so she can eat her food in peace. The other is glaring at me with suspicion from her tower under a big sign that says “Be Nice or leave”.

I have a few minutes to write undisturbed, so let’s dig right into it.

One week ago, David Harper of SKTCHD fame ran an interview with me talking about the shop’s closure and all of the lessons we learned from that hardship. Graciously recorded during his time away from his regular grind on the site, David was the first person we spoke to once we locked in a new location for the store. Because of this, I feel like the interview is the first time I could convey a sense of grounding instead of just voicing nebulous hope for the future.

As a result, it has a lot of interesting bits that I haven’t really talked about anywhere else - including how participating in Canadian Independant Book Store Day might have solidified a huge change in how we think about Variant Edition as a store.

The interview itself is behind a paywall, but in interest of thanking David for his time and efforts, I won’t be digging into the details here for another week or two. Suffice to say, the comic industry has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go to find some of the respect that it deserves. You can give David a subscribe to find out more, and then reap the benefits of the best long form journalism in the comic book industry happening today.

Tomorrow, I’m sharing with everyone a wild bit of Alberta history. For a while, I’ve had my hands on a reproduction of a pamphlet decrying my province’s declaration of war on comics from back in the day where such things were fashionable. It is a wild ride, and as part of The Indirect Market’s dedication to sharing comic industry history with you all, you’re going to be privy to some wild bullshit.

I’ll see you all then. Talk with you soon.

-B.