{"id":293,"date":"2017-08-09T14:46:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T14:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=293"},"modified":"2017-08-29T17:59:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T17:59:38","slug":"come-for-the-comics-stay-for-the-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Come for the Comics, Stay for the Company"},"content":{"rendered":"E<\/span>very Friday night in a small comic store nestled in the heart of Etobicoke, three friends eat teriyaki together. And on this particular Friday evening one of them is complaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cUgh I should have stayed with the chicken, this beef one tastes like mystery meat,\u201d says Robert Chin with a laugh. Luckily he and The other two men, Chris and Vick the Teriyaki isn\u2019t the main course, the comics are.<\/p>\n

Chin is the often grinning owner of Excalibur comics, a shop that is, against many odds, celebrating its 30th anniversary in a couple weeks. He opened Excalibur comics back in 1987, while the comic industry was enjoying a major boom in sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the late 80\u2019s, anyone who opened a comic book store, did pretty well because it was the heyday of the comic industry,\u201d says Chin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe death of Superman in \u201892 was huge. DC (Comics) did a great job of advertising the event and we ordered 500 copies of the issue and we sold out in less than two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

However in 1996 the comics industry crashed, due to a number of reasons including over saturation of the market, and a jump in personal debt among Canadians. Comic series like Superman which a couple years before sold millions were now lucky to break two-hundred thousand.<\/p>\n

Carlo Pleggi, a longtime customer and friend of Chin\u2019s for over 25 years, opened a comic store a year before the markets crashed in 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dream come true, but it was tough because after the market crashed there was no more Canadian distributors, so we were at the beck and call to the American ones and there was only one or two so they had a monopoly and the U.S exchange killed our profit margin to like nothing. And I had to close down three years in,\u201d says Pleggi.<\/p>\n

By 2009, the industry still hadn\u2019t recovered from the crash and Chin had his worst year in his then 23 years of business. As a result, in early 2010 he decided to close down Excalibur Comics once and for all, but had a change of heart due to his customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was closing down in 2010, and some of these [collectors] I\u2019ve known for years decided that they\u2019d give it up, so I felt bad and said okay, if you prepay two months ahead on your order, I\u2019ll stay open and unfortunately they called my bluff and paid me so I stayed open,\u201dsays Chin laughing.<\/p>\n

Chris Mackenzie has been a friend of Chin\u2019s since Excalibur opened in 1987. He says that with the emergence of Amazon and eBay, shops like Chin\u2019s are hard to find.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically the last decent comics shop in the city (\u2026) And I just get a good vibe off of people and I get a great vibe off of this lovable lug right here,\u201d says Mackenzie.<\/p>\n

Now, almost thirty years later, Excalibur isn\u2019t about making money anymore, but instead a reason for him to \u201cget out\u201d of his \u201cwife\u2019s hair\u201d and to see some of his best friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryday\u2019s a great day, we have such great customers. Just dealing with them and talking with them it\u2019s\u2026my favourite thing in life and my favourite people,\u201d says Chin with hearty laugh.<\/p>\n

Chin will celebrate Excalibur\u2019s 30th anniversary on April 16, and while it may not be a Friday night, there still promises to be lots of food, fun and laughs. And if there\u2019s one thing he\u2019s sure about, it\u2019s that beef teriyaki will not be on his plate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A look at the life and times of Robert Chin. A comic store owner who’s still smiling after 30 years in the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[132,48],"tags":[133,134,135],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}