What's the Holdup?

Well this certainly hasn’t been going the way I wanted it to. If you’re just tuning in, I’ve been working on getting the online shop for Coffee & Comics launched. However there have been setbacks at every step of the way.

I filed with the state of Texas back towards the end of JUNE but because of the Fourth of July coming up, my documents were delayed. A week or two later I received my packet of documents that said Coffee & Comics is now a company. Next was to sign the documents and mail them in. 

Hell yeah! Right? Wrong. 

I received that packet on a Friday, mailed out the needed signatures the very next day on Saturday. Then on Tuesday I RECEIVED ANOTHER PACKET OF DOCUMENTS. The same one I just received the week before. 

So what’s going on? Was this a mistake? Was there something wrong with the first one? But the second packet had a misspelling so if the second packet is the correct one then I have a problem with that now. 

I reached out to the firm who filed for me again and asked what set of documents I should use? The main point for this all is to get an EIN number, plus tax exempt and a resellers license. Since they’re two different numbers associated with the packets I didn’t want to choose the one that is wrong. Well I didn’t hear from them for about a week. Turns out the entire office got COVID. 

That’s where the mixup occurred. With some employees working from home and some in the office, there was miscommunication and my documents were filed twice. 

I am currently waiting to hear back on what my next steps should be. In the meantime I’m working on more products to add to the shop, setting up my email campaigns, plus doing some freelancing. Hoping with that I can make a big apparel purchase and screenprint it all to have ready for the fall

What Makes a Coffee Shop Great? Great Coffee.

Novo Coffee Roastery Tour and Tasting 

Over the weekend, my wife and I went to a coffee tasting at Novo coffee. Novo coffee is a coffee roaster and wholesaler in Denver in the Rino district that's been around since 2002. They were recommended to me by the president of our Chamber of Commerce because if you partner with them they will train your baristas! I’ve been trying to connect with as many people in my community that are in both the coffee industry and comics industry to get a better understanding of what I'm getting myself into. A couple weeks ago I spoke to my city’s Chamber of Commerce and they set me up with some good resources. I’ve gotten my paperwork submitted to register with the state and get all the necessary documents for sales tax and whatnot so I can start the online shop already. While operating the online shop I’ll be trying to learn more and more about both industries and immerse myself in coffee and comics. 

As I talk about my Coffee and Comics concept, one of the things that I hear from a lot of people is if a shop has horrible coffee. Not often have people been telling me of a place that has great coffee. It seems as though when someone talks about a coffee shop they like, it’s more about the uniqueness or experience. I feel like the coffee industry has shifted a little bit in terms of no longer seeking good coffee, but instead something to show as content in our lives i.e. a very cute Instagrammable coffee shop at the expense of drinking shitty coffee.

Novo had fun coffee menus and signage throughout the building.

A topic of discussion that I had with the president of the Chamber of Commerce, who was a previous coffee shop owner, was that great coffee is important. That’s when she recommended Novo coffee to me, I did a very quick search on Google to check them out and saw that they have a few locations. They also had workshops and tasting tours available that they host at their roastery, so I thought it would be fun to go on a tasting tour with my wife. With both of our parents in town it was a great time to take advantage of the free babysitting and go on a little coffee date. Honestly it was a fun experience that also provided us with valuable information. We got to look at a potential wholesaler that we can partner with that could provide us with our coffee as well as you know just going on a little date.

So on Friday we went down to the Rino district in the Denver area. Very cute community, very cute area, a few cute buildings on the street. Upon arriving we were introduced and told to ask as many questions as we had. It was great to see other people who wanted to open a shop that also chose to tour Novo. When we started the tour, the first thing we learned about was where they get their beans from, but more importantly how those beans are processed. There are four different ways to process beans, we got to see 3 of those 4 at the roastery. If you haven’t seen beans before they’re processed they sorta look like peanuts and have an earthy smell to them.

At the end of the tour we got to do a coffee cupping and learn about coffee tasting

After that, we got to check out their amazing roasting machine, which is one of the most green conscious machines. One thing that I particularly liked about Novo coffee is that they roast to order, instead of roasting huge batches of coffee and storing it for who knows how long. Seeing the process was awesome, the machine they have can roast around 50 pounds of coffee in 15 minutes. Bringing us to learning about roasting levels. The light medium ones have the most flavor whereas the dark roasts lose that flavor because it’s being roasted longer/out of the bean. I had the complete opposite understanding, thinking the dark roast had the most flavor of the bean, so learning that little bit of tidbit information was great. We also saw their nitro coffee process which I’ve never had before and got to taste it. As soon as I saw all the nitro coffee canisters I had the idea to start a nitro coffee cart and post up in front of some comic shops; might be a good idea to promote the online shop too.

All in all, it was a very good tour to go on to learn the process. It’s nice to know that there is a local roastery in Denver that is well-established. I’m going to do a little bit more research and see if there are other coffee wholesalers available to get a deeper understanding of the coffee aspect of this business. One thing that I will need to figure out is, do I want to be a barista? Does my wife want to be a barista? Will we be able to hire a barista? These are all things to think about and they both make me nervous but really excited for the future.

We got to pick a bag of coffee of our choosing at the end of the tour, can’t wait to try it!

When's The Shop Launch?

Since I’ve had numerous people on Threads ask as well as friends and family, “When is the shop going to launch?”

I figured i’d write this post. The answer is soon, I hope at least. I was trying to find a CPA/Business Advisor who could help me with registering the Coffee and Comics business here in Colorado, but I was unsuccessful. Instead I went with the same team my business partner and I use for Resin Refinery/Chronicle, our web agency and start-up, who is based out of Texas. I just got that filing sent out and am waiting to hear back.

Why am I going through all of this and registering the business? Well I don’t want to just start selling things online without any regards to what I need to do for taxes and then come tax time, get royally screwed by the IRS. So to eliminate the chances of that happening, I’m taking the time to handle all of that from the very beginning. Plus if I want to open a brick and mortar shop down the line, I’ll already have the proper paperwork setup.

There are two main “goals” I have with operating as an online shop right now; spread brand awareness and raise funds for an actual shop. If I execute a well thought out plan, I can go to a bank and use that data to show there is an interest and an extra channel of revenue besides coffee and comics. Should I be successful with that, I would hope that I can get a loan to start this shop for real. The online shop is only the beginning and there is so much more to go.

While launching and then operating as an online shop, I plan to learn as much as possible for this business. There is a workshop in September that will help me with writing a business plan, hopefully by then I can have a few months of data from the online shop. So in the meantime I will need to find a coffee wholesaler to partner with, a comic shop to partner with or just start building my own inventory of comics and maybe even start looking for a site location.

Finally, the shop. I don’t want to get stuck with boxes and boxes of apparel should I not be successful and can’t sell anything. Instead of doing that, I want to do limited drops in which I’ll only put up a few items at a time. My hope is to build excitement for each drop and entice people to purchase and rep the brand. I’ll be posting on social media about the limited drops but I’ll be using my newsletter as early bird access. So as a way to build an email list for when the brick and mortar shop finally launches, I’ll announce that subscribers to my newsletter will get alerted of the limited drops first and then social media the next day. The limited drops will help me with not having to front so much money at the start of this project. You know the saying, you need to spend money to make money, well I'm kinda running low at the moment so I have to be very careful with how I spend my money right now.

Here is a look at how a Limited Drop post on social media would look like.

Besides apparel, what else will be in the shop? Right now I’m working on custom comic bookmarks and stickers. The bookmarks have become quite fun and therapeutic to create and have been well received on Threads. There will be a few on there at the time of launch, I will continue making them depending on how they sell. There is a second design I have worked on that I included on the print screen I got. The design is of the saying “Just One More”, as in “Just one more comic” or “Just one more cup of coffee”.

Stickers + limited drops of hoodies and shirts will be available on the shop.

That design will be available on shirts as well as the canvas tote bags I’ve been creating. In Colorado, they have been going after the use of plastic bags at stores, making you pay for them each time. With a reusable bag you can go about your shopping business without having to worry about paying for plastic bags. I also want to make these bags or cheaper versions of them for comic shops to purchase on a wholesale basis to sell in their own shops. I’d even be open to shops paying for their own screen and I’ll print their logo on one side and the coffee & comics brand on the other. All of this will develop as time goes, I'm not sure if it’ll lead anywhere, but here’s to manifesting it into existence. 

These bags had the designs drawn on, but the bags will be screen printed from now on.

Thanks for following along on this journey and be ready to subscribe to the newsletter when it’s ready! Don’t worry, you won’t be spammed. I plan to only do 1-2 emails a month; to give an update on where I'm at with the business and announce the limited drops. 

Tous Les Jours - A Denver Coffee Adventure

Coffee Date and Research?…

You might be wondering why coffee and comics? Other than enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the morning with a comic book, opening a coffee and comic shop is something I’d like to do in the near future. It’s always a great time going to a comic shop and browsing all the comics, figurines and more; but a lot of the time after I make my purchase I want to sit down and read them. However all comic shops are cramped spaces that are packed to the ceilings with products. Even the Mile High Comics in Denver that is an entire warehouse is packed to the brim and doesn’t offer any seating. With three comic shops being 15-25 minutes away from me, I end up going home to read them instead of going to another establishment to sit and read. Now a coffee and comic shop takes care of that problem by not only providing a space to sit and relax but also providing food and beverages to pair with your comic purchase.

Starbucks plus many other national and global brands have some cities and towns in the palm of their hand by having so many locations and beating out local competition. For instance I live about 20 mins outside of Denver and there are maybe one or two “mom and pop” coffee shops as opposed to multiple Starbucks, Dutch Bros, Caribou Coffee and Ziggy’s Coffee, all national chains. In the 5 years I’ve been living in Colorado I’ve been to Dutch Bros once and Starbucks a few times. I’ve never been to Caribou Coffee or Ziggy’s, but anytime I’ve gone to Starbucks, or driven by the other coffee shops, they’re either empty or just have a drive-thru going.

My wife and I’s order today at Tous Les Jours.

That brings me to the next part of this which is going on coffee adventures with my wife. Before getting into the coffee shop business, we want to do our due diligence and research what makes coffee shops successful in the Denver area and surrounding suburbs. Last week we went to a coffee shop called Sweet Bloom that was really nice but we felt out of place. It seemed like everyone sitting there was on a laptop and there were only a few tables that offered seating for more than two people.

I had to try this, it was so light and fluffy and the cream was rich and tasted super fresh with bits of blueberry in it.

What we did like was the pastries so today I wanted to see what was near us that offered breakfast pastries and I came across Tous Les Jours. This bakery and cafe is located less than 10 mins from our house, in fact once we got there we were thinking it’d be a nice bike ride someday. It is however part of a national chain but we wanted to give it a chance.

A very aesthetically pleasing bakery with a wide variety of pastry options. Savory and sweet, I hit the jackpot. There were so many different items to choose from I had to walk around and look at everything twice before choosing. Everything looked exceptional, freshly baked, fresh and vibrant fruit, it just looked perfect. My wife opted for a latte and almond croissant, I got a hot mocha, a blueberry cream cheese pastry and later went and got an apple filled pastry too.

This apple filled pastry was delicious, I could of eaten at least 4 more.

The hot mocha was delicious and didn’t seem as heavy or thick as opposed to Starbucks. I devoured my first pastry, the bread was so soft and fluffy, the cream filling had bits of blueberry, I finished it in under two minutes. Still hungry, I got an apple filled pastry that was also baked to perfection with a flaky crust and rich apple filling. They had quite a few food options and certainly a place we will be visiting again, especially to try out one of their smoothies. Highly recommend checking this place out if you’re ever in the Denver suburb area.

My hot mocha was very good, not scalding hot and features this little message on the up. Coffee time, refined.

Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day! It’s officially been two years since I first started my comic collection, launched a comic website with a blog. I now have roughly 140 or so comics in my collection and it’s climbing, slowly but surely. This time I managed to scoop up a few comics for myself and my two boys got some comics for kids. I missed out on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle issue but I did manage to get the three I was going for which were Image Comics Energon Universe, DC’s Absolute Power and Marvel’s Blood Hunt. The most recent stack episode from the Comic Book Club podcast talked about Energon Universe and how G.I. Joe, Transformers and Void Rivals are all in one universe. I was definitely intrigued because if you recall, at the very end of the last Transformers movie, Rise of the Beasts, they alluded to a partnership between the Transformers and G.I. Joe sector. So I had to pick that one up being a Transformers fan, though I am not sure what Void Rivals is.

The other issue I will be reviewing besides Energon Universe is DC’s Absolute Power, I’ll cover the FCBD Blood Hunt along with the first issue review of Blood hunt. Now as I said, I am only two years into collecting comics, I am fairly new and don’t know much about existing story lines or important events, so I had no idea what to expect. Really I just saw Superman, Batman and another cool looking Batman on the cover and figured this should be good. Besides these few comics, I also bought another copy of X-Men ‘97 so I could use it for a crafts project and a Deadpool & Wolverine themed comic box. Remember gang, don’t just pick up the free comics but also purchase a couple things to help support your local comic shop.

A little different with this review since it’s two books. I’ll be reviewing the cover art, but I’ll just touch on the story instead of a full review:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover - Energon Universe

What I really like about this cover is its creativity. Megatron looks menacing even though we only see his red lit eyes. He’s got a smoking gun that he most likely just shot off and the ground below him is crumbling with electricity. The orange and yellow colors combine to make a very rich and bright background that illuminates Megatron from behind, with a tiny bit of a machinery/Cybertron peeping through at the top. The title is very creative with the stars in the dark black space, but to me this is the only part I wish was done a little differently. I like the idea but with the machine looking graphics behind it, it doesn’t stand out as much. I think that title treatment would stand out a bit more had the yellow and orange background been extended to the top.

Story - Energon Universe

Overall I like this one but I think if I had read some of the Void Rivals line, I’d understand this issue a bit more. They do a good job at the beginning showing the three titles, Transformers, Void Rivals and GI Joe but I wish there was just a snippet of text that explained each one. The book starts off with some AWESOME action sequences of none other than Optimus Prime and Megatron. Colors, action, text treatment, all of it looks epic at the start. 

This opening action spread is beautiful with its choice of colors

Optimus bests Megatron and as he’s holding onto the ship for dear life, Starscream comes by to “help.” Megatron calls out to Starscream and then BOOM! Starscream blasts Megatron off the ship. Next we get brought to a story of some odd looking creatures and an Autobot named Hotrod but honestly it didn’t make sense to me. Finally we get the GI Joe story which is some high powered action sequences just like the beginning. Pretty much we see Duk wanting to recruit someone named Anastasia Cisarovna, but Colonel Hawk is completely against it. In the end this was a fun little issue to just see the action panels, but I don’t think I can see myself picking up a Void Rivals issue, but definitely interested in knowing where the story is headed for Transformers and GI Joe. Overall 4/5

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Cover - Absolute Power

Having touched on this cover a bit already we know that there is Superman and two Batmans on it, but it also features a few more characters. Amanda Wallace, who I only remember from the Suicide Squad movies. Then Wonder Woman and one other character that I have no idea who it is but they look like some sort of android. I’m just now realizing that this cover has the same yellow and orange color background that the Energon Universe cover has, maybe that’s why I was so drawn to it. The treatment of the title, Absolute Power could have used a bit of love since it looks like word art but other than that it’s a pretty dope cover with how the characters are laid out.

Story - Absolute Power

Holy shit this issue. Again, I had no clue going into this and man I am so glad I got it. What I really appreciate from the book is in the back they have profile spreads on some of the characters. For instance the two that I didn’t know on the cover were Failsafe, the cool looking Batman but is really a cybernetic killer and genius-level tactician with near-indestructible frame. Oof. Then the other was in fact, the House of Braniac, a superintelligent alien hive mind, whose primary focus on the collection and storage of data, power and culture. Another big oof. 

Ok, definitely need to read up more on Failsafe cause he looks freakin awesome. Reminds me of Batman Beyond.

Essentially the story starts with Failsafe and Amanda Wallace trying to achieve something with the use of electro-metas but we don’t know what exactly they’re doing or why. They bring in a super named Haywire, or Dylan Moore, to a small observation room with a metal ball figure in the middle and ask him to shoot it with all the electric power he has. Well long story short, they drain him til he ‘pops.’ It’s pretty wild. We’re shown a vision of the future thru another super named Dreamer, but it’s not good; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League look to be in shackles. The final story in the back we see Superman approaching a robbery of some sort. The criminals get scared about going back to prison, so one of them shoots their gun at Superman. I’m expecting the bullets to bounce off and kill them or something, right? Absolutely Wrong is what this issue should be called, because I was so off. Superman gets hit by the bullets, sees blood and the final shot we see is Superman falling to what we can only presume will be his death. Phew. What an issue and it was free! Overall 

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