Riding Fandom: Richard’s Comics and Collectibles

Granite Staters are harnessing the power of their comic book fandom and creative hobbies to start small businesses and side hustles.

Between Free Comic Book Day (Aug. 14) and Granite State Comic Con (Sept. 18-19), Manchester Ink Link will be showcasing these entrepreneurial nerds, who have opened comic and toy shops, started selling aftermarket comic books and collectibles or offering professional photography that specializes in cosplay, to name a few.

HUDSON, NH – In late June, Richard An of Windham opened a comic book shop at 222 Central Street in Hudson, called Richard’s Comics and Collectibles. But An has been in the comic dealing business behind the scenes for close to 15 years now.

For the past two years, he’s been enjoying a windfall from a surge in comic book speculation investment and a renewed hunger for story content that was exacerbated by pandemic-driven quarantines, comic store closures and lockdowns.

He said the comic market has “flipped the script” in ways people in the industry haven’t seen before. Books that were considered not that valuable just a few short years ago are now being speculated on as investments and sold for magnitudes more than what would have been expected.

“Last year, COVID year, I bought four of the biggest collections of my life,” An said.

He said one collection was worth $250,000. And the market hasn’t cooled off.

“It’s still like that,” he said.

Over the past few years, An has focused on buying up old collections in bulk, actively advertising and seeking them out wherever they may be hiding, and finding the diamonds in the rough he can turn around for thousands of dollars in profit.

He said he first realized (and proved to his wife) that he could do this as a business about eight years back after he discovered a large collection of roughly 150 comics from the 1940s, all in excellent condition despite being found in a black garbage bag. Back then, he didn’t know what a treasure trove he found.

He bought about half the collection for $500 and posted it on Craigslist. He immediately got a lot of interest and an initial offer of $5,000 from one buyer. He ended up selling them to that buyer for $8,000, though he now realizes it was worth closer to $100,000 or more.

Before Facebook Marketplace launched, An found a lot of hidden treasures like that through Craigslist. His unique strategy was to hound sellers who were selling something comics-adjacent like toys, games and other pop culture collectibles, to ask if they had any old comics. He said he would send out messages to up to 60 people a day across New England, and get about 10 to 12 hits on average.

“Some of the greatest things I ever found were through that,” An said.

Now, he’s got more established connections who help to source his books, such as folks who clean out old houses and storage units and pick through flea markets and yard sales. And he advertises regularly in the Spectrum monthly direct-mail flyer.

He says he spends anywhere between $200 and $375 for monthly ads and it has already paid for itself for the next 20 years or so.

Opening a store was a decision he reached in January after comparing the cost of renting storage (about $200 per month) to the rent of his Hudson strip mall location (about $600 per month). He doesn’t expect the store to be a large driver of his revenue. If anything, it’s another way to advertise his dealing business and a place to store and showcase his inventory.

He also sells a lot of vintage toys and video games.

Before An was a businessman, he was a fan. But even then, he had an eye toward collectible value.

When An was 10 years old, in 1988, he remembers being an avid baseball card collector. His mom didn’t see much value in it, but he said he just enjoyed it. Still, the voice of his mother lingered, encouraging him to focus on collecting something that might prove profitable someday.

When he was a little older, he bought his first comic book, arguing it would be worth something someday, though his mom took a little convincing. The book was Amazing Spider-Man #300, and it was the first introduction of the character Venom.

Today that book is worth thousands of dollars in good condition. But sadly, An sold it with a box of his comics for $20 at a yard sale when he was in his 20s.

After a brief detour as an Olympic hopeful in competitive Taekwondo in 2000, he returned home and helped run his father’s martial arts school. Then, after meeting his wife and the birth of his son, he rediscovered the joys of collecting comics.

And An said he is still a fan. He said he’s often in awe, just holding a rare book in his hand, like the first appearance of Green Lantern, or the first printing of Batman’s origin story, and he’ll hang onto them just to have them for a while before selling them.

If you have an old comic book collection, you can reach Richard An at (603) 591-0591.