Comics Culture: A Collective Effort  

Please introduce yourself with your name, pronouns, where home is for you, what you do and one good thing you like or love about yourself.

Yello!! My name is Katt, she/her, I've been in SF for 14 years. I work at Comix Experience. I like how curious I am.

How did you decide to move from Nola to The Bay Area?

My parents decided to leave New Orleans when I was starting high school- I was heartbroken and angsty about it, but the experience provided me with invaluable perspective and gratitude for getting to grow up in such a special place that values kindness and culture.

Did you go to SF State? (Breena also went there.) What were you studying?

I got a degree in Behavioral Sciences from CCSF, and Studio Art from SFSU (because sequential art/comic art was not an academic thang yet! boo hoo). I love 2 learn and took as many classes as I could on things I was obsessed with, in hindsight totally wish I had not done any of that! So that I could have a Job™ with Benefits. 

But I couldn't help myself!

How long have you worked at Comix Experience and what exactly do you do there?

Did you ever work at the Comix Outpost too? If so, is it the same job you have now?

In 2020 I had sold all my records, left my job, and was packing up to move to London for a grad program in illustration. Dreamy! Then COVID happened, so that fall, instead of choosing to do grad school from home, I started helping out at Comix Experience. It's my 5th year here, wowza!

On top of daily operations and begging Brian to make his emails shorter, I manage our instagram (RIP to the wasteland FKA social media), coordinate creative projects, generally crank the intention up to 120% with communication and shelf layout. I think it’s super important to enable discovery in-store, having the shop talk to customers. 

Our teeny tiny team works together so that everyone can lean in to their strengths, explore what they are interested in, etc. For instance, Katie is an incredible multi-media artist, and has made some crazy innovative window displays over the years. Katie picking up the box cutter was like King Arthur pulling Excalibur out of the stone. Zoe (was) our Resident Manga Expert is extremely tapped into manga and new translations, and single-handedly curated our entire manga selection. Also an excellent listener and knower of people, they handed me so much manga and helped me find all the stories that felt like they were made for me!! Brian does one million things, but I am most glad he handles the order form because distribution is a nightmare. 

What was the process of getting the job like? How did you find out they were hiring?

Hiring process-wise, Tony mentioned they were hiring one day when I was picking up comics, and I said I could help out with "art stuff" (classic moi). The process of getting the job was casual, I had an "interview" with Zoe but it was more of a self-lead presentation on me and a hang. After that I went in to chat with Brian, who I had met before selling my comics on consignment, but he forsure did not remember me, lol. We talked about what comics I liked, and the rest is history. I brought donuts on my first day. I thought, “what a fun temporary months-long gig this will be”. It turned into a grad program of its own. I've learned more than I anticipated about comics, publishing, politics, myself! 

Why work at a comic shop? We know you also make comics, but why work at a comic shop?

Working at a comic shop or any place that serves art to the public is a huge privilege. We get to share ideas and voices and stories that shape our world, or resist it. Boiling it down, I am a certified lover girl of storytelling via the combo of words and pictures. Art can be an act of rejoicing in what it means to be alive, so it feels inherently optimistic, even when the subject matter is sad? Art helps us understand ourselves and each other. Working at a comic shop is getting to swim around in the big ocean of allathat. All day!

I think third spaces are magical places that are so very important to the, not to be dramatic- preservation of humanity. I’m honored to help maintain one, and be able to make it a space that everyone feels comfy popping into. People need a space to exchange ideas, take refuge, to stumble upon something or someone, to find belonging. In Meat World, In Real Life! At risk of sounding 1,000 years old, the digital age gave us more access to information but weaker community ties. While there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, a small biz can be essential to its neighborhood, which we saw proven to the extreme during the height of COVID, not just at the shop but with our neighbors at Sightglass Coffee, Gamescape, and JP Kempt. These businesses became more than just retail spaces, the friendly faces working at and maintaining them became a lifeline. People came in for connection and comfort. The word “community” is thrown around a lot, I think part of it is knowing people’s names and stories. 

What is your favorite part about working at a comics shop? Do you get free comics?

The most rewarding part of working at a comic shop to me is helping people find the stories they are looking for. Hearing how handing someone the right book helped them through a feeling, an existential quest- that’s amore! I have always been a chronic list maker, mixtape burner, curator of rec's for my pals. Is it a passion, or an ailment? I’m not a doctor…It rocks to get paid for a thing you love to do. 

We don't get free comics, but we get an employee discount ;)

We also borrow graphic novels and manga from the San Francisco Public Library!

Is there anything you wish people knew about working at a comics shop, that we ignore, overlook or are just not privy to?

Sooooo cliché, but I wish people knew we do not sit around reading comics all day. There is so much back end work that goes into any small biz, especially one with so many SKUs! Since this is for Labor Month, I'll mention some physical aspects of the gig, which I explain as helping a friend with a small apartment move a couple times a week every week all year. This includes receiving boxes, unpacking, checking in, filing away- also packing any mail orders, on top of the Graphic Novel Club which is 100s of packages going out a month. If you are a cartoonist with already crumbling bones and tendons, the repetitive motions require a lot of mindfulness to not worsen any injuries. Especially with no health insurance :)

You’re in the East Bay? So that means you commute to San Francisco for work, right? How is that on you? 

I live in San Francisco, I stayed in Oakland for a lil’ because I Fooled Around and Fell In Love, but as a humble pedestrian and city pigeon I need to be where the buses are. I love cities that are designed for people, not cars.

My commute is easy and fun, I bike or take one of many muni bus route options. Long live muni

Do you work the entire time the shop is open? When we come in to shop, most of the time you are there and we notice it’s rare that you are all there together. Does it get lonely? How do you make it through the days?

Weekends are our busiest days, so that's when we have two people on, otherwise weekdays are one solo person. It's a long day but makes the most sense for our small team, schedule and budget-wise. I loooooove days I get to work with Katie because it is a riff-athon of ideas and new projects, good for the shop and our souls.

I am never bored or lonely, there is always something to do, and we have loads of lovely regulars and neighbors that pop in. Our block of Divisadero is full of sweetie pies. I make it through the day by visiting our buds at Sightglass, and would be lost without them and the daily dose of goofing. Friends of the shop drop off treats for us. Everyone tries their best to take care of eachother. Solo shift is only difficult if you forget to bring lunch... I hate closing the shop to pop out for an emergency sandwich, what if someone was trying to pick up a book that may have changed the course of their life forever! Eeek!

Is there any change in how you buy, read and make comics because you work at a comic shop? Do you ever get burnt out from seeing comics all day?

I think about this a lot! In college one of my million jobs was working at a pizza place, where I could take a slice out of the plastic case anytime and eat it. People asked if I got sick of pizza. Unfortunately, this opportunity only made my love for pizza more deep, more complex, eternal!! Same rings true for comics.

Knowing more about how the sausage is made- the creaky structure of the industry, and the systemic barriers shaping what stories are told, definitely impacts my reading habits. 

I believe we vote with our dollar, so I keep that in mind when deciding to buy or borrow a book.

Talking with customers introduces me to titles that I might have missed, or need to give a second chance. Another testament to the value of being in-person with real live humans.

My burnout isn’t comic related- reading and curating are infinite for me. My burnout stems from wanting to give people my 100% attention and energy, to hold space for everyone that needs some. After working through COVID, my battery is like my laptop that I’m typing on right now that only works if its plugged into the wall because the battery died four years ago- that my friend Amelia calls “a desktop” lol. Different flavor of burnout. 

How is your relationship with your boss? You all seem pretty close. Or at the very least have a really good work relationship. 

Brian Hibbs has been running Comix Experience for 36 years, he cares a ton about the medium of comics, and keeping comics alive- distribution crises be damned. He trusts and listens to us when we tell him “we gotta have this book, man!”, even if it isn't his jam. I think this ability to ride the waves of change with integrity of the shelves intact is a small part of the shop surviving so long. 

Since COVID, we've had an extremely teeny tiny scrappy team. We’ve gotten by sharing a mutual understanding of how much we all care about comics and folks' experience in the shop, and keeping in mind our collective levels of extreme burnout. It's a delicate lil' ecosystem. 

What does the future look like for you? Only share stuff you are comfortable with. 

Oh boy! I am hoping my near future holds a day job that provides me with enough stability and cash money to live a balanced life and continue to make comics, read comics, and bugging people about this new comic they will love- forever and ever amen.

When you think of comic culture what are the things you appreciate that exist and what do you want to see change or see more of? If anything.

My favorite aspect of comic culture is how endless the possibilities are, the accessibility, the DIY nature of it all. I wasted so much time trying to draw "how you're supposed to" and o my gawd yall the only "right way" to make comics is the way that feels good for you and I have to remind myself of that weekly, daily, hourly sometimes! Do it yourself. Draw in a bic pen and print it on your office printer and copy it at your local library branch and bring that baby to us to put on a shelf so people can read it!

What I’d like to see change about comic culture… I’ll say comics that are made with the intent of getting picked up into a movie bum me the eff out. Comics that are wringing out some poor intellectual property also bum me ooout. If you’re not in it for the love of the medium, yuck?? There’s gotta be a better way to make a buck. 

Mostly, what I’d like to see change is the unbearable imbalance in the system we exist in that allows for some folks to make art easier than others. Derek Ballard is making a lot of great comics about income disparity and how it shows up in publishing. At Comicspro this year I was very lucky to talk to the fabulous Peggy Burns of Drawn & Quarterly, and learned a bit more about the Arts Council in Canada that provides grants…for art! Like comics! Can you imagine??? That is something I would like to see more of on planet earth.

Any last remarks?

While some deluded ding dongs have suggested oThErWiSe, the Bay Area comic scene is alive! *airhooooorn* Cartoonists are out here against all automated vehicle Blade Runner-ass odds, making comics and creating opportunities to create together. 

These cartoonists and comic heads are making shit happen on top of day jobs, night jobs, side gigs, studies, the many lives we need to simultaneously live to merely exist in the Bay Area. My last remark is if you don't see the stuff you want in the world, go ahead and make it baby.

Thanks for the thoughtful Q's! Hope I shed some light on the other side of the counter @ CE.