ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
There's a comic books and records shop in Jackson, Mississippi, called Offbeat. It's one of very few Black-owned comic book shops in the U.S. - fewer than 1%, according to shop owners. But Offbeat's owner, Phillip Rollins, and another shop owner recently had an idea. What if they joined forces with other Black comic book stores to help their shops succeed and to promote comics and storylines about Black superheroes and other characters? He and other store owners made it happen. It's called the Ink Alliance, and Phillip Rollins joins us now from his shop in Jackson. Welcome.
PHILLIP ROLLINS: Hey, thanks for having me.
FLORIDO: Why did you decide to team up with other Black comic book shop owners?
ROLLINS: Well, I went to this conference in February, and I linked up with another Black store owner, Michael Davis and Marcell, and they have a shop called Blerds Underground, and we were talking - we've been talking about it for about a year now. I feel like it was a need for us to do this in order to get our visibility up some more. And as Black comic shop owners, we lack a lot of the resources that other shop owners get. And so we're trying to spread awareness, trying to, you know, gather our resources, give each other tips. And I feel like that's important in our community.
FLORIDO: How many Black-owned comic book shops are there in the U.S.?
ROLLINS: I can say, for the Ink Alliance, we have 10 founding stores. But since our announcement, more have popped up that we didn't even know about, we couldn't find. And so now it was looking like it may be up to 18 or 20.
FLORIDO: That is not - that's not very many.
ROLLINS: Yeah, it's still not a lot. We make up, like, less than 1% out of the 15 to 2,000 comic shops in the entire United States.
FLORIDO: Wow.
ROLLINS: So yeah.
FLORIDO: So how did you connect? How did you find each other?
ROLLINS: Word of mouth, social media, other store owners like, hey, do you know about this store over here? Hey, this store's down the street from me. So word of mouth, and it's getting us out there now.
FLORIDO: Well, I'm looking at this very cool comic book cover that you and the other shop owners in your alliance commissioned from a well-known Black artist, Sanford Greene, for your shops. And it features Static, one of DC Comics' Black superheroes. Can you tell me how you got this done?
ROLLINS: Yeah, so Sanford Greene actually reached out to Michael Davis and was like, hey, man, I need to talk to you. I got this cover. It's for the culture. I really want y'all to have this. You know, we talked to Sanford. He's like, OK, cool. This is for y'all. DC reached out to us and was like, yeah, y'all approved. And so we told him, like, hey, we have this coalition. We didn't have a name yet.
And we had got the name, the logo and everything done in under a month. And so we're like, hey, it's going to be under this banner. We're not going to have a bunch of logos on it. It's going to be under this one umbrella organization. And it came about very, very quickly. Like, we had to, like, hurry up because we had to meet the deadline to meet the print.
FLORIDO: Is it selling?
ROLLINS: It's sold out.
FLORIDO: Sold out - you just released it last week.
ROLLINS: Yeah, it sold out. So how we released it - we did it differently. There's been other retailer exclusives throughout, and I've been kind of watching how people do things. So I proposed - I was like, hey, let's get people in our stores. This is in-store only. And then if we have anything left, we'll put it online. And so that's how it kind of went.
FLORIDO: And so you just got a rush. People wanted to get their hands on it, and you sold out.
ROLLINS: Yeah. Yeah. And so it was an initiative to, like, really, you know, get people to be like, oh, man, I didn't know you were here. Now that I know that you're here, I'll start a, you know, subscription pool list and get my comics from here. It's about building trust, building - letting people see, like, what these spaces look like, how these spaces are curated, how welcoming they are and everything as well, too. And, you know, a part of, you know, having a really cool, exclusive cover that's rare and going for - I think it's getting resold on eBay right now for, like, upwards to $300.
FLORIDO: You're describing, like, a recent evolution in the comic book industry, which has evolved somewhat, it seems, to include more Black characters and to bring in more Black creators. What all has that meant for Black shop owners like you? And does it feel like it's been enough to really help you sort of, like, propel your businesses?
ROLLINS: I would say it's not really enough. I mean, the thing about it is, we're trying to just highlight, you know, push these voices out more as, you know, comic book shop owners and, you know, people that help, you know, want to push these creators out 'cause there's Black creators like Sanford Greene that are, you know, getting - you know, getting awards and nationally recognized, and they need to get a, you know, another push up to get to that next level. And we're trying to do that as well for independent comic creators, as well, too.
FLORIDO: Where do you see this going? What other sorts of things do you want to get done through this alliance in the next few years?
ROLLINS: Well, where I see it going is just, comics help promote literacy. So we're hoping to do some, you know, programming nationwide as one unit. We can help promote literacy amongst kids. I learned how to read through comics, so that's kind of a big importance for me. It's going to take people, you know, lifting each other up in order for this to grow.
FLORIDO: Well, I've been speaking with Phillip Rollins, the owner of Offbeat, a comic book and records shop in Jackson, Mississippi. He's also a co-founder of the Ink Alliance, a coalition of Black-owned comic shops across the U.S. Phillip Rollins, thanks so much, and good luck.
ROLLINS: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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