MacGuffin Graphic Novel Bookshop

If you’re ever in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area of Virginia, do yourself a favor and visit MacGuffin, The Graphic Novel Bookshop. I’d been in nearby Norfolk, visiting my Mom for Christmas, but ventured out to Newport News on Christmas Eve to seek out this shop that’d I’d seen mentioned on ComicsReporter (or Journalista, I can’t remember). The place wound up being about a thirty minute drive from Norfolk, but it was well worth it. Although they say it’s better to “give than receive,” I covered both bases by giving the store owner my debit card and receiving in return Linda Medley’s beautiful hardbound Castle Waiting collection, Jason’s The Iron Wagon and volume two of Isaac the Pirate.

As I wandered through the store, I couldn’t help but wish that this store were actually in Winston-Salem instead of five hours away. On the other hand, though, it’s probably for the best that it’s not nearby for financial reasons–I could easily have spent a thousand dollars during this one visit.

I wish this place the utmost success, not just because this particular store is so nice, but because I’d really like to see places like this be sussessful and thereby demonstrate that this sort of shop is a viable business model–and not just in big cities like New York.

Perhaps the best way to describe MacGuffin is to point out what you won’t find there:

• Anything made out of chain mail
• The “Highlander” Part 12 DVD playing at excruciating volume
• Surly, stinky employees
• Magic: The Gathering cards
• Boxes of old superhero comics in those little plastic bags
• Statues of semi-naked women with swords

What you will find there, though, is a huge selection of graphic novels from pretty much every major publisher you can think of. Especially nice is the way the books are all shelved by genre: fiction, crime & mystery, action/adventure, non-fiction/biography, etc., allowing you to browse by area of interest. I’m always amazed to see graphic novel sections in comic book stores arranged alphabetically by title, an arrangement that presupposes that you already know what your looking for by name. Not only is this a terrible idea from a sales perspective, since the customer thereby browses through other books that are unrelated content-wise to the book he/she is seeking, but also because someone not already interested in comics has no real “jumping on” point.

Also nice is that when you first walk in the door, there’s a display table of new, attractive items right up front. When I was there, the new Popeye volume was front and center. Also near the door is a rack of top sellers and notable items which included things like Pride of Baghdad and Fun Home. Fun Home sported a card noting it was “Time Magazine‘s 2006 Book of the Year.” Something like this is pretty much par for the course in any normal book store, but for some reason you never see comics retailers doing this kind of stuff.

The rear of the store had some racks of regular “pamphlet” comics (including both issues of Midnight Sun!) and their stock seemed to be a good mix of mainstream and indy stuff, but definitely heavier on the indy stuff than a regular “Andriod’s Dungeon”-style shop. The monthly books were a bit dissheveled and occasionally dog-eared; despite the unusually heavy showing of indy stuff, you can tell that pamphlet books are not this store’s focus–it’s called the “Graphic Novel Bookshop” after all…

If there was a weak spot to the store it was its somewhat sparse manga selection. I was hoping to find volumes four and five of Monster, since my local Borders inexplicably stocks volumes one through three and then skips to six. Likewise, I’ve been looking to purchase any and all volumes of Sexy Voice and Robo, but have yet to see them for sale anywhere. I did notice, though, on the MacGuffin blog that they’re apparently making an effort to beef up their Manga section.  Props to that.  They’ll likely not woo a huge chunk of teenagers off the floors of the local Borders (and I mean “floors” literally) without a substantial investment in money and space, but I’d think a good selection of the “artier” manga stuff might sell well, and compliment the existing selection.

On the way out I spoke breifly with someone who I assume to be Sam Hobart, the shop’s owner.  He was very nice and seemed to have a genuine knowledge about, and passion for, what he was selling–particularly welcome qualities, since even some indy-friendly mainstream stores often aren’t particularly well versed in some of the books they stock, beyond knowing enough to safely guess whether the books will sell or sit on the shelves.

In short, I’m anxiously awaiting the Starbucks-like expansion of MacGuffins throughout the country.