“It”™s a little tough,” said Steven K. Oto, nodding at the stacked cartons and rising display cases of comic books, action figures and Pokemon cards at his Alternate Realities shop in a Central Avenue strip mall on the edge of Scarsdale. “Too much merchandise and not enough customers.”
It”™s a complaint common to small business owners in recent years. At Alternate Realities, a 20-year-survivor in a shrinking retail market threatened by the dark forces of monolithic bookstore chains, declining readership and digital comics on iPads, it”™s that kind of comment from the owner that has shop regulars regularly asking: Will he renew the lease?
“Every five years, it”™s the same question,” said Anthony Desiato, a recent Pace Law School graduate enjoying a few hours of truancy from his daily cramming for the state bar exam this month. A 25-year-old Hartsdale resident, Desiato got hooked on comics at 5 on a trip to the Galleria in White Plains ”“ a miniature “Death of Superman” action figure, complete with coffin, ignited the collector”™s passion ”“ and in high school started part-time work in the narrow-aisled, 1,500-square-foot (by the landlord”™s measure; by the tenant”™s, more like 1,400-plus) comics and cards store in Acropolis Plaza in the town of Greenburgh.
“One day I was shopping here” ”“ Desiato mainly collects graphic novels ”“ “and Steve asked, ”˜How”™s your alphabet?”™”
“I don”™t actively go out and hire,” said Oto, whose best hanging-out customers ”“ and brightest, to judge from the master”™s degrees and PhDs among them ”“ have become one- or two-day paid employees. A youth with alphabetizing skills ”“ an essential task in a well-organized comic-book shop ”“ is not easily found, according to Oto. So Desiato was recruited.
“It”™s really been the first and only job I”™ve had,” said Desiato, who mined Alternate Realties and its presiding dispenser of “Otoisms” for highly graded stories as an undergraduate journalism major at Fordham. “In addition to being my place of employment, this has been an endless source of inspiration for me.”
Two summers ago, Desiato was inspired to duck the corporate internship expected of a law student and seek “a creative outlet” in filmmaking on familiar ground. At his own expense and with no prior training, he would make a documentary of his local employer and comic shop, shattering stereotypes of comic-shop habitués and making its shop subculture accessible to a non-comics-reading, movie-ticket-buying public.
Desiato bought a Canon camera and light and sound equipment and produced 45 hours of film. “It was definitely trial by fire,” he said. “It was an incredibly intense summer, but very rewarding.”
The edited 80-minute result, “My Comic Shop DocumentARy,” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. July 16 at Jacob Burns Film Center”™s Media Arts Lab in Pleasantville. A question-and-answer session with the bar-cramming documentarian will follow.
“It”™s very much a story of this store,” said Desiato, who still is trying to find a theatrical distributor after screenings at five film festivals. “It”™s about Steve and his unlikely journey and about the very colorful community and cast of characters that have assembled here over the years.”
Some of those characters Desiato tracked home to the man-caves where their collections hold dominion. “It”™s pretty intense,” he said.
“Even more challenging” than making the film “has been getting the film out there” into distribution. “It”™s extremely competitive. It”™s a lot of waiting for a response. It definitely tests your patience.”
Though his documentary has been shown at festivals from New York City to San Diego and from Buffalo to Phoenix, “Unless it”™s like Sundance or Tribeca, one of the really big festivals, distributors aren”™t there to pick up movies,” he said.
Desiato is not willing to give away his product on YouTube or other free, popular websites. “If I self-distribute, I could still monetize it. Just putting it out there for free would not be my top choice.”
The 56-year-old Oto”™s journey to the shop on Central Avenue took him from a bilingual Japanese-American home in White Plains to political science studies at Yale University ”“ where a 25-cent comic-book purchase had him “hooked again” after years of collecting abstinence ”“ and to law school in Albany.
“I hated law school,” he said behind the shop counter. “I hated all three years, and I tried to discourage him” ”“ with a nod to Desiato ”“ “from doing it.”
Oto for several years was a real estate attorney at a Manhattan firm, often representing Japanese corporations in residential purchases. “I always had a dream of opening a comic book store.”
His opportunity came in 1992, when he teamed with friends in the comic collectors”™ world to start Alternate Realities. Oto was the venture”˜s moneyman, investing about $30,000. “It would cost about $100,000 to start it now,” he said.
“Back in the early ”˜90s, the market was booming. Like me, everyone who was a comics collector thought, wouldn”™t it be cool to open a store.” Many who did open stores lacked business acumen to match their collecting passion and adjust to economic cycles.
“Westchester had about two dozen baseball card-slash-comic book stores in the early ”™90s,” Oto said. “Today, I”™d say there are about half a dozen. Back in the ”™90s, every little town in Westchester had something.”
“There used to be 5,000 stores in the country. Today there are maybe 3,000.”
Of the survivors, Alternate Realities has ranked 105th nationally in volume of product ordered from the industry”™s chief wholesale supplier, Diamond Comic Distributors Inc., putting the Scarsdale shop, as Oto noted, in the top 5 percent of independent retailers.
“There are very few young people reading,” said Oto, whose typical customer is “an adult male from 20 to 60.”
“Comic book sales have dropped significantly ”¦Nowadays a press run of over 100,000 is cause for celebration.”
In May, only the top three of Diamond”™s 100 top-selling comics had more than 100,000 copies sold. The industry”™s largest publishers, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, continue to dominate sales.
Oto sees a near and deadly threat to retail businesses like his in a move of readers to digital comics. “I think iPad is going to affect us detrimentally,” he said. Comic book stores could go the way of record stores.
“Maybe in five to 10 years, there will be a big change in the industry ”“ sort of like CDs are no longer around,” he predicted.
Comic publishers already offer the digital option to readers, while assuring independent retailers of their close, continuing partnership, said Oto, speaking of an industry conference he attended. “They”™re getting ready to cut us at the knees and we”™re like lambs going to slaughter.”
“One thing you can”™t get online is the sense of camaraderie you get here,” Desiato said.
“This is almost like a family hangout,” Oto said. “You get to know them so well. You go out to dinner with them” ”“ on Saturdays, at Mickey Spillane”™s ”“ “you go to their weddings.”
About 10 years ago, Oto hedged on his alternative career and returned to law practice doing insurance litigation on Wall Street. He worked at the comics shop on weekends.
“I was involved with a woman who said I didn”™t make enough here for us to have a future.” So the owner took a better-paying job with a law firm.
“But she dumped me a week before I started with the firm,” said Oto. He practiced insurance law for a year before returning to Alternate Realities.
So, despite the gloomy business prognosis, will he renew his lease at Acropolis Plaza? That”™s the open question with which “My Comic Shop DocumentARy” ends.
His five-year deal expired June 30, but the tenant apparently worries more than his landlord about not having a current lease. “He said, ”˜You can stay here the rest of your life,”™” Oto said.
Oto in the interim paid his rent for July. After 20 years, he did not sound eager to sign over his business to a new owner.
“I”™m afraid someone else would run it into the ground in a year,” he said.Â
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