Stories Comics Helping Those In Need
To show we care for our fans and their friends and loved ones, we have initiated a program to put together free packages of (50) comics or (20) paperbacks for readers that are very ill or in the hospital. If packages can be picked up at any of our 3 store locations they can be larger. Eligibility will be handled on a case by case basis, and packages can be personalized according to interest and shipped free of charge to the recipient.
If you have someone in need that might benefit reach out to Stories through either Facebook or email: storiescomics@yahoo.com. I was very impressed at a local, fairly small business that is helping those in need. I wanted to learn more so I asked some questions of Barry Pryor owner of Stories. The interview follows.
Can you give some background on the Stories Comics Outreach program, ie. why did you start it up?
We started this a few months ago by posting it at first on our website. It was an idea I had for awhile but I wasn’t sure how to promote the idea in an efficient way. Eventually I came up with the idea to start a facebook page to keep it in a more visible location for people to see it. I keep posting it on our regular facebook page but that is quickly overwhelmed by all the other postings. There is no way to continually keep the posting there without constantly renewing it and that would annoy our facebook followers.
How long has it been going on?
On Facebook around 3 months, On the website around 5 months.
Why comic books and books?
People who are in the hospital have a great deal of time with little to do in a pretty depressing atmosphere. Our customers are all readers and we have so many books and comics in our storage areas that we can more than afford to be charitable. We had in the past delivered comics to certain customers that had fallen on bad times but never in an organized way. This is basically an extension of that. Since we mail out 100′s of packages every week we are uniquely set up for shipping packages as well as delivering.
Do you know of any other comic or book stores that are doing this?
There is a store in Missouri called Hurley’s Heroes Comics And Games who were distributing comics to shelters for Tornado victims. We sent them a large box of comics as well as many other stores did. There was a tweet from Neil Gaiman that made people aware of this and Elizabeth Bissette contacted us to make us aware of it.
How many folks have you helped out so far and can give us some detail on one that you feel is significant? Related is there an individual that you helped out that sticks with you.
We’ve have sent out 2 so far in the few months since this started. It’s been very difficult to get the word out in a consistent way where it would always be apparent we have this program . So far we’ve sent books to Missouri and to a man who lost his entire collection in a house fire. In the past we’ve sent books to a customer who had broken his neck in a car accident, another who was handicapped and another who was having trouble with Diabetes. We have also donated toys to a children’s hospital and numerous books for charities. I hesitate to mention these because it sounds like we are tooting our own horn. There is always a fine line between a public service and self promotion. It’s important to promote the idea but it also invariably promotes the store which is an uncomfortable feeling because that is not the point. The Outreach Program is exciting because of the potential to do more in an organized methodical way.
Has there been any trend in requests?
We’ve had more than a few people mention they wished this program was available when they had people they cared about in the hospital. I feel guilty that I hadn’t come up with this idea earlier but little more than a year or so ago we weren’t even on facebook. Without facebook very few people would ever have become aware of it.
Any feedback from patients, family, doctors?
The man who was a friend of one of our facebook friends was very happy that not only did we replace some X-Men issues he had, we actually gave him books that he had been looking for previously. The woman who contacted us was a real hero because she went way out of her way to try to help her friend. She put her time and energy into making this happen for him. What we did was trivial compared to that.
More demand for comics or books?
Always comics so far since this started. Mostly books are given to church auctions and charities. We used to have a woman come by every week or so and she’d deliver grocery bags of books to a local hospital. Now we mostly deliver literally carloads of books to Good Will since we are always getting 1000′s in trade every week.
How can someone help with the program, are you accepting donations?
We have so much we can give that we are not set up for donations. What we do is buy all the comics that are brought into our stores and we sift through to back stock what we have in abundance. We have as many as 300 issues of certain books in stock. We are sitting on around 2 million + comics and over 50,000 books not to mention magazines and toys.
If you were in need of this program (assuming you weren’t associated with Stories) what would you request?
I would request books that I wouldn’t be getting from this program since my taste can fall on the rather eclectic side. If I was a big X-Men, Superman or Spider-Man reader I would be in heaven. The more popular the book was in the recent past, the more likely we have overstock. It’s frightening how many copies of X-Men or X-Force #1 we have. X-Men #1 sold over 2 million copies and I think we have 1 million of them in back stock. lol
Bonus fun geek questions:
Best movie based on a comic book character or series? Hellboy or Ghost World
Worst movie based on a comic book character or series? The Spirit
Walking Dead, good adaptation or are they taking too many liberties? Excellent television adaption and film and comics rarely translate in a synergetic way.
DC Reboot good idea or bad? They are hoping it’s a getting on point for new readers but I fear it’s a getting off point for older readers. I’m always skeptical when they throw out over 50 books at one time without perfecting a few good books and building on a solid foundation of quality over quantity.
Thanks to Barry for the interview and thanks to Stories for the program.
Nice program and nice interview Richard.