Desert Island at their current Brooklyn location. All photos courtesy of Gabe Fowler.Someone looking at Brooklyn’s Desert Island Comics from the outside could be forgiven for squinting skeptically. The Williamsburg-based shop has, since its founding in 2008, seemed to have sprung from the cultural ethos of the place in which it’s located. Founder Gabe Fowler came from a dual background as a regular at punk rock shows and an art gallery employee – a rich brew for the sort of upscale hipster iconoclasm that has become synonymous with the north Brooklyn neighborhood. Even the store’s exterior, which deliberately underplays its existence as a comic book store beneath vintage bakery signage, manages to be cool, low-key, and self-consciously ostentatious all at once.
Fowler, however, was quick to prove that he was sincere in his principles. The store has always placed its greatest emphasis on independently-published cartoonists, and with them Desert Island operates on a consignment model unusual for comics retail. This has gone hand in hand with Fowler’s close connections to the local New York comics scene. For seven years between 2013 and 2019, Desert Island (meaning, by extension, Fowler, who operates the store as a one-man operation) organized and sponsored Comics Arts Brooklyn, the beloved and lamented independent comic festival that filled something of the DIY void left by an increasingly glitzy MoCCA Fest. By 2018, when the store was profiled in the New York Times as a “‘Punk Rock’ Comic Book Shop,” it seemed the store had managed to prove its bona-fides.
So it came as no surprise that when Fowler announced on his Instagram on Oct. 3 that the shop’s lease had become “untenable” after another business had offered double the rent to their landlord, a wave of public distress erupted at the prospect of another lost, beloved comic store. Equally small surprise that, five days later, a GoFundMe launched to raise the necessary capital and surpassed its goal, averting presumptive disaster. On Oct. 20, Fowler confirmed a lease for a new location at 490 Metropolitan Ave., which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
Between the launch of the fundraising effort and its successful conclusion, we spoke with Fowler about the history and future of the shop, and what kept him striving to operate an independent outlet for comics in the outer boroughs of New York. What ensued was a surprisingly nuanced and ambivalent discussion about comics, commerce, art, and the looming menace of Brooklyn real estate.
ZACH RABIROFF: So you say that you're coming off a bunch of interviews today. It sounds like this has been generating some attention for you. So what's been going on since you made this first announcement about ostensibly being about to close?
GABE FOWLER: Oh, geez. You know, they say when a celebrity dies, it's their second biggest PR moment. Everyone has a word to say about them. People that have never heard of them suddenly learn about them for the first time. Well, I'm having that. It's weird. I'm feeling the love, I'm feeling a lot of support and interest for my store after posting that [I] potentially have to close. And that's a beautiful thing. But I have emotional whiplash because the initial thing is very negative. I've had a hard time this week and I don't know, I don't mean to get ahead of myself, but my landlord basically said they're kicking me out.
Right. Let's go back to that. You said in your post that you had heard from your landlord that they were doubling the rent. Is that right?
That's not exactly right. My landlord said that somebody approached them and offered double the rent.
Okay. So what did they tell you as a result of that? Were you out for sure or did you have a chance to match it?
They didn't say I had to match it. They said that they would entertain a counter offer. They said that these people offered X amount and they gave me no proof of that. I don't have an extremely antagonistic relationship with my landlord, but I'm taking their word for it that they even got this offer. It's a little bit strange. The landlord approached me and said, "Hey, these people, their building was sold. They have to close their liquor store. They approached us and offered this much money." So that's the only proof I have, which is no proof at all. The liquor store is closed though, so that is really happening.
Can you talk about what they were charging you before and what they're saying the this new group is offering?
I don't really feel like sharing the numbers. I'll say that people think I have a better rent deal than I actually do. I already pay a significant amount of rent here. And so the fact that they would offer this, it's like 180% of what I pay. It's not quite double.
Would it be fair to say that rent in Williamsburg in general is on the higher side compared to other neighborhoods in New York?
Sure. I don't know where you're based, but there's lots of stuff in New York.
I'm based south of you in Brooklyn. I'm in Park Slope.
Oh, right on. Well, people who read this might not know this, but if you walk out the door of a retail space and can see a subway stop, that costs a lot more.
Yes.
So I've been in a pretty good location here, which is part of the reason why my store exists at all. I've been here for almost 17 years and I probably wouldn't be here if I didn't have a sweet spot. So I am thankful to my landlord for entertaining me in the first place. There was a guy that wanted to open a frozen yogurt store in here in 2007, and they said no, because I had a business plan and I wanted to do an art project.
When did you hear about the situation with the rent?
They first mentioned it to me in late September. The 28th or something like that.
And your lease is up when?
I have no lease.
Oh.
I had a 10-year lease and I paid on time for 10 years, and I was never a problem. And the lease expired and they didn't gimme another one. I've been on a handshake agreement ever since. So, almost seven years of no lease. I knew that they could do whatever they want. The law says that a commercial space with no lease, you have to give them 30 days. So they're being a little bit kind to me, even in this fucked up circumstance, because they said that I had three months to get outta here.
So you have three months to vacate. When did you have to give them an answer about what you were going to do?
They gave me a chance to make a counter offer. I did make a counter offer. I bumped my rent up about $400, which, honestly, I was like, "How am I gonna come up with this $400?" because it's been pretty tight. It's the best year at the store I ever had. But the rent has gone up every year for 17 years. The squeeze is on already. So I'm like, "Huh, I gotta raise my own rent now. Geez." My ability to sell things to the public has just been ... I don't know. There's all kinds of factors. People buy on the internet, modern retail reality versus increasing rent. Anyway, I don't mean to go on about that.
No, that's actually an important point. How has your business been before this happened, let's say since COVID?
It's been tight.
How so?
Well, pre-COVID, I had four employees and I was open [longer] hours. I was open every day, nine hours a day. Some days I was open 10 hours. COVID changed my schedule in certain ways. 'cause I have different life stuff going on. I'm not physically able to be in my store all the time. Two of my employees were a couple and they moved away. That was a shakeup. But I never really got back to full steam with my ability to be open. So I've had limited hours and I've had one employee post COVID.
What effect has the general impact of the pandemic had on foot traffic?
It's so unquantifiable that I can't even answer that. This COVID thing has been years and years of different unknowns. When I immediately reopened post-COVID, that's a certain reality. And then, a year or two later is a different reality. The here and now is maybe back to normal, but I don't even really know, it feels like we're in this kind of post-apocalyptic moment. New Yorkers are going about their business and acting normal and there's tourists and stuff. So it feels like pre-COVID reality pretty much. Except I still have stuff that limits my ability to physically be open.
Obviously up to this point you have still been open. Should I take that to mean that you've been making enough money to at least turn a profit on what you're doing?
The store breaks even. And the other stuff that I do for money helps me live my life. So the store is a joy that pays for itself. I mean, I'm making a little money off the store, but it honestly mostly goes to the landlord and for replenishing inventory. I need my store. I'm obsessed with it. I need to kick ass. I need to have all the good stuff. So I'm constantly spending all of my money on inventory. It's fine. I want the store. It's a service. The store is fun for me, and it serves the public and it's a resource that gives people access to this elusive material. That's what I want.
What was it that prompted you to open up Desert Island in the first place back in 2008?
All that. Everything I just said. It was a place I wanted to go to as a customer that did not quite exist. There's plenty of comic stores in New York, not as many as there used to be, but they didn't quite serve this particular niche interest of the very elusive self-publishing culture that I love the most. The big two Marvel, DC stuff, there's stores all over New York that have it, all that stuff. I was aimed at the underrepresented material and trying to apply the flag to that. And you know, it has a slight activist aspect where I want to help those people live a life through art or give a context of that art. I try to just be a yes man to artists and help them do their thing as much as I can and pay 'em on time and show up for them.
Had you been closely connected to the kind of DIY indie comic scene in New York before opening the store?
Eh, not so much. I'm more of a music guy, as far as like my social life and my personal interests. I was going to music shows like three, four times a week Comic events, not quite as much. Before I had the store, like in 2005, I would go to the MOCCA Festival. I was a fan. But I wasn't obsessed and I didn't have money. I couldn't buy that much stuff. I had my own very significant, important, meaningful collection. But I wasn't like a guy that had longboxes in my apartment. I had a little bit.
What were your models for the store? When you envisioned the kind of shop that you wanted to open up, were you looking at other comic shops that already already existed or other independent bookshops that already existed?
I was looking at them and I was disappointed by them.
In terms of their focus on the Marvel/DC superhero stuff?
I'm not a hater of Marvel and DC at all, that has been misconstrued in the past. But it is very commonly available and known. It's a known quantity and it's an entertainment industry production. I don't know. I still struggle with this topic in a way because mainstream comics feel like entertainment. They're one step away from what I would call art. They don't really feel like art. They don't, the humanity is sucked out of them. They feel like a product.
It's commerce and not art.
I don't know. None of these things are hard lined facts, but there is a feeling there that still feels true to me. And I don't want to be perceived as dissing that material, like historical, mainstream comic material is meaningful to me. And those artists are real artists, but the artists were treated as cogs in a wheel in an industry that was in the business of entertainment. And there's a big difference there.
The people that I work with on a daily basis at Desert Island are artists. There's no editorial intervention between their thoughts and their ability and the product that they're producing. They're producing small artworks in the form of comic books. And that is a less known thing in the world. People don't necessarily understand that. So that's why my store has a little bit of an activist edge to it, because I want people to know [that] this material exists, [that] these are made with love by people that are pursuing a unique path. And this is a thing that happens in the lesser recognized aspect of the culture.
Who are some of the artists that turned you on to wanting to do this store and who are making you want to keep it in business now?
Oh, there's millions of them. There's just so many of them. You're asking about before the store?
Well, I'm, I'm asking about then and now because you've been pretty closely connected to the indie comics community here in New York since the store opened.
A guy that I met before I had my store, who still is in my life, is John Mejias, a guy that made unbelievably beautiful handcrafted zines right here in New York, who would do tables at shows. And we really connected 'cause he has a DIY ethos and he's played in punk bands. He's like me. We're the same kind of guy, but you don't really have to talk about it too much. When you find your people it just hits. I met Mejias and it just hit me like, this is my guy. And he feels the same way. We're kindred spirits, you know? And it's beautiful to witness him blossoming and getting a book that's more widely available and conquering the world with his art. It's amazing. He's the most deserving guy I've ever known.
Right. Because the Puerto Rican War just got a major publisher release not too long ago.
Yeah, it's awesome. And it happened naturally. It happened because it has merit. It happened because John Mejias has been kicking and working his fingers to the bone for 25 years. There's not a fake bone in the guy's body. I love those people. I love the commitment people, really, I love them all. But the people I love the most are not doing it for glory. They're not even doing it for money. They're doing it because they're on fire to communicate and they're on fire to make a contribution to the culture. And that's John through and through. That's the first guy I thought of when you asked me the question. But there's more, there's a lot of people that have this level of commitment and it's beautiful.
For quite a while up until the pandemic hit, you were also involved with organizing Comics Arts Brooklyn. Tell me about how that happened.
Yeah, well, that has its own rocky history, but basically in 2009 I was doing a lot of events in my store. I was working with small publishers, hosting artists, doing signings, the same sort of stuff that comic stores usually like to do. And I kept having this feeling that I was the only person who was always in the room. I would have all these parties and events and stuff like that, and the people would change. There was no recurring audience, but every artist had its own small fan group. Comic conventions have existed for eons now. But it gave me this light bulb moment where like, "These people need to meet each other." All of these different tiny little fan pockets need to comingle, be in the same space, share the feeling, share the work with each other. I was like, "Oh yeah, that's a convention obviously." Another thing that was happening [was] I was going to more conventions at that point in time, and they're freaking expensive to walk in the door as a fan. New York Comic-Con was like, I don't know, $60 or something like that.
Well, sure, but New York Comic-Con doesn't exactly represent that kind of comic artist.
What's the diff? I don't think there's any difference.
Well, I think the difference is what you were saying about the distinction between art and commerce.
Yeah.
John Mejias doesn't have action figures being made out of his comics, I suppose would be the takeaway.
To me, it's all art and either succeeds or fails. And if art is made for cynical reasons, it fails. If you're making art to try to squeeze an audience into being a customer, that's a failed artwork. You might have succeeded at commerce, but what the hell does that have to do with me? I do not care about commerce. I do not care about your business goals. It's bullshit to me. Does it succeed as an artwork? Is it gonna have lasting power in this world? What does it do for humanity? This is what matters. This actually is what matters to me. So this economic bullshit that they do at New York Comic-Con, it's garbage. Whatever, it's annoying. It feels like artists are in a role of servitude to these big companies, I just object to all of that. I want artists to win on their own terms, and I want them to be communicating to an interested audience. Whether the audience is a committed fan or a looky-loo new person. It's all good.
The convention went on indefinite hiatus when COVID hit, and it hasn't come back since. I mean, why not bring it back if, if all of those motivations still exist?
Real estate.
Ah.
Too much bullshit. I wanted to do a show that was free to the public. That was job one. That was the first aspect that needed to be part of it. At that point in time in 2009, I was not aware of comics conventions that were free to the public. There were some scrappier ones. There were some zine fests that were free to the public. I have almost too much to say about this topic, but like, they didn't do the thing. They didn't do what I wanted. They never had A-list guests, for example. The zine fairs that were free to the public circa 2009 when I started mine. I would go to them and it was cool. And it was like real scrappy and people were hung over, lonely, sitting behind their table with their zines that they made. There was no spark, there was no influx of a new audience. There was no excitement. It felt a little bit dead. I don't know. I can't have that. I needed to kick. I wanted [it] to feel like a music festival. I want it to feel like, "Oh my God, this is the best day I ever had." That's what I'm aiming for.
Right.
So, I don't know. It's hard to accomplish that. It honestly exhausted me. I did it for 11 years. So that's a factor in why I'm not doing it currently. But the real factor is that I lost my venue. The Pratt Institute that was hosting our festival for the bulk of its existence during COVID stopped allowing outside entities. People who do not work for the Pratt Institute, such as myself, could not do events at the Pratt Institute anymore. They stopped it 'cause of covid – obviously no one was doing events during COVID. But they never allowed it again. The Pratt Institute never allowed these outside events ever again to this day. That's their decision to make. I asked them a bunch of times and I basically got a no,
And you couldn't find any other venue that could match the rate that they were giving you.
I never thought they were giving me a good rate. They charged me $10,000 for one day, which I was like, what if you guys gave it to me for free? Like, I'm bringing thousands of people to your campus. What the hell, you know? And it's free to the public. So artists had to pay table fees to pay for all that. And artists started beefing about that. So I got a little bit beat up from this economic shift, getting it from both sides. You know, people didn't seem to understand what was going on. I'm like, "I'm trying to help you people." (laughs) I was doing everything in my power to help.
We started talking about the economics of real estate in Williamsburg, and now we're talking about the economics of renting convention space in Manhattan. And I guess it opens up the question of do the economics of New York City in general allow an independent comic scene to thrive in the way that you and I would like it to thrive?
Hey, you know, the world has to want it. That's ultimately all that really matters. The world has to want it, it needs to be possible. If we have a New York, that's only for – you know, in my neighborhood here in Williamsburg, there's a freaking Hermes store. You know what that is?
Yeah, I do.
But Harris was recently criticized for wearing a knockoff Hermes belt, which if it was real, would've cost $700,000.
Right.
But people are spending $700,000 on a belt. Okay. Like, those priorities are just so fucked to me that I can't even really perceive it. Like, are you kidding me? I could pay the rent for the entire existence of my store with that money. Like, that's just the priorities of the world around me. I cannot relate. So, I sort of accept that in advance of my own effort. The reason that I do my store and the reason that I do these festivals and stuff is because I know that it's too good for this world. I wanna do the thing that is barely possible, 'cause that's beautiful to me. That's the thing that is needed. But you're on the precipice of disaster the whole time. And I like it like that. That's the work that needs to get done.
Right.
If it was easy, everyone would do it. I don't give a [shit] about that. It's fine. I like to do the work. I want to do the impossible thing. It's a beautiful dream, you know? And dreams end. You gotta wake up sometime. You gotta face the facts. You gotta deal with these people with their $700,000 belts. I don't know. I wish I could send 'em to the moon, but they live here and they're paying rent in my neighborhood.
Well, but against that upper echelon of the real estate developers or the people buying $700,000 belts, I would presume that you did get some kind of support from the community because you've been staying in business from 2008 to now.
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, none of this is really about me. I'm just kind of the bystander of all these circumstances. Like, the service part needs to be true. If I'm actually providing a service that you can't easily get in a different store or on the internet, then that puts asses in the seats. People show up. People went to the convention because I paid for plane tickets for Dan Clowes to come to the show. You know what I mean? You gotta do some stuff. You gotta spend your own money. You gotta make it worthwhile. You gotta do a lot of that. So I'm obsessed with doing that stuff. Figuring out, you know, thinking of myself as a fan. What would get me juiced as a fan? And then try to do those things. It's fun. That's why this is fun for me to take that thought [and] try to do it.
So where does that leave you now? The last news I heard was yesterday when you were saying that you were putting together a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money that the landlords were asking for.
I'm having kind of emotional whiplash this week. 'cause I've got some bad news and good news and it's all coming at once and it's just kind of insane. I have too many opinions about crowdfunders [that] I don't even know if I want to get into, but it's just –
I'd be interested to hear them.
All this stuff that I'm yammering about needs to be viable in the world that we live in. If you need to go begging for cash to do the beautiful thing, maybe it's not that beautiful of a thing. Maybe the world can't have it. That's my opinion of crowdfunding. It needs to be natural. That's what I actually want. But I got some bad news recently and I want to tell my people, 'cause I'm going through some shit. And it's not just about me. It's about whatever little world I've built over here that affects people's lives. So I'm like, "Hey people, here's the deal. Here's what's going on." I tried to do a fact-based thing. I did not announce that the store was closing, by the way. I announced, "Here's a problem and there's probably gonna be a change." That's what I announced. Other entities announced Desert Island was closing. Bad news gets attention on the internet. That troubles me. That alone troubles me. Why do people respond so much to bad news? I've had good news time and time again. And, you know, no one gives a shit. They like, almost hate you for it. If you have good news [it's] "How come the good news didn't happen to me?"
Well, I think that's always been the human condition. The news is always dominated by the bad.
Guess that's true.
Have, have you decided at this point whether you're gonna go forward with the crowdfunding?
Oh, people practically demanded it. I've had a crazy couple days in my store. It was beautiful. People came into the store, they had a tear in their eye. They're like, "Oh my God, what is happening?" They showed me some support. They love this place. They love me. Like, goddamn, I was really feeling it. It's amazing, man. It blew my mind. I'm still kind of high on it.
So on some level, the bad news did its job.
I mean, I would rather have neither, frankly. Well, I would rather have business as usual because this emotional whiplash thing is real. Being super depressed and not knowing what the future holds. And then having everybody tell me the best thing I ever heard. Whiplash.
So where do things stand now?
The beautiful customers coming in were like, "How can we support? You gotta do this." Some of 'em were saying, "Do it this way." They had detailed input about what I should do. I was struggling with this begging for money on the internet thing because it's not sustainable. Like, maybe I have a committed audience that wants this thing to exist and they'll show up for me and help. But the only winner is the landlord. It doesn't really feel like winning for me. It just feels like shoveling money into the landlord's mouth. And I don't want to.
Well, isn't that always gonna be true as long as you're renting a location? We're all just shoveling money into a landlord's mouth.
I guess so, but why?
I mean, I'm shoveling money into a landlord's mouth just by living where I live.
I've been a good tenant. I've never been late on rent. My landlord is an artist. I'm doing a project that supports the arts. They could have just said no to this predatory third party who tried to steal my store from me. You see what I'm saying? But they didn't say no. They said, "Hey art guy, you need to pay what this liquor store's gonna pay." And I think that's bullshit. They have volition. They had a choice. And the choice that they made was ... get outta here. Well, I don't wanna live in that world. It's fucking bullshit.
I suppose the counterpoint to that would be, what else do you expect from landlords in a capitalist system?
Sure. I know. Believe me, I understand. What are you gonna do? Money talks.
So how long is the campaign that you're running now slated to run?
My current landlord gave me until Oct. 15 to figure out if I can meet the full rent. And so the fundraiser, the amount that I'm asking for on the fundraiser, is the amount of the deficit. Meaning if I got all the money that I'm asking for, I still would have to pay what the rent is currently for three years. Which, that's a win, I guess. But I'm struggling with this because the support is overwhelming and meaningful, and I wanna do right by that. However, I'm already a little bit challenged with the normal risk. So I don't really know what to do right now. It seems that the fundraiser is gonna be successful, and that's amazing. And I could just hand all that money to the landlord and essentially continue business as usual for three years. And that basically means I've decided that the store will close in three years because there's no way I'm gonna do it again.
Right. You're just sour on this whole concept of having to go out and beg for cash to stay in business.
I'm not sour, but I don't think that it's respectful to my community. "Dear community, you have to give me money in order to have this exist." I don't think that's right. It's not a sourness. It needs to be natural. It needs to be naturally possible. So, I don't know. I have a lot of questions for myself right now about the best move and the thing that would serve the community the best and would serve my mission the best. I don't have a hard answer for you right now, but maybe the answer would be to use this money to rent a more affordable space where I can get a long-term lease so I can freaking be there.
Would that be a space still in Williamsburg? Or would you be moving to a different neighborhood?
I got a couple of things I'm working on. I'm looking.
Okay. So both, so both options are on the table
There's conversations with some spaces that I think I can afford that are in decent locations. And that is new. I've been looking for a couple weeks. I've seen bad locations. In order for this to properly serve the community, you need to be able to get there. It needs to be accessible, so that that part matters. Anyway, I'm on the trail. That's all I can really say. If I can find a place to move that would have this other aspect of like, more than three years possibility, then I think that would be the move. Believe me, I've got a store full of books. I'm not looking to move this store. It would be a nightmare. But hey, maybe it's worth the effort if I can have a fresh start with a new person, a new landlord. I need this impossible thing, which is a landlord that is like a little bit less money hungry. (laughs)
Right.
Do they exist? I don't know. I've heard that they might exist.
Well, I suppose you can always get lucky. But your intention has been to find some way to stay in business?
Yeah. I mean, who would I be if I didn't do this? At this point in my life, this is the biggest project I've ever done. It's my whole reality. On the one hand, I want it to be about the community. I don't want it to be about me. On the other hand, I exist and this is what I do with my life. (laughs) You know what I mean? If I can continue to get teaching gigs and have a store that pays for itself and get a long lease? Then everybody wins. So that's what I want. And I don't really feel like I can get that if I can fend off my current landlord in this current scenario, because clearly, it'll just happen again. And it might be even worse [next] time, as far as the, the rent and all that.
So has this experience changed your feelings about what you're doing and about your involvement in the comic scene and the comics community?
It hasn't changed any of those things, but it, it's caused me to have a harder look on – I have three audiences I've realized. Audience number one is the people that have shown up for me this week, the committed, hardcore, dedicated super fan, awesome people. The people that give a shit. Those are my people. I love them. That's about a third of it. The second third is the neighborhood that lives around here, who's walking down the street. Could they be interested in this? It's easy to hate on Williamsburg, but those people exist. People that are interested in art, people who read books, they're here. There's more than one location in New York City like that. And there's more than one location on Earth. But I've been fortunate to be in that kind of an environment, neighborhood wise. Category three is tourists. I need people to get off the subway and be like, "There it is. I've been meaning to go there." I need all three.
And that third category means having an accessible location.
Yep. For this thing to be viable. For me, and for the individuals who make the most independent material that I stock, they need all three also. The hardcore people already know about their work, but the neighborhood people don't. The neighborhood people are like, "What is this stuff?" That's great. We need those people. The tourists, you know, they want it, but they don't know what it is yet. So they're like, how can I bring this back to Europe?
We need them too, to spread the seed, to transmit the info. We need it all. So, you know, I'm the right guy. I know that we need that, and I know how to get them, too. That's the service aspect of what I do. I'm working on that every day. But location sets it all up. I can give them the concierge service that they need when I'm physically here in my store, but I can't change the location. So if I didn't have this location, my store would've been dead a long time ago. It matters.
In some ways, being near a subway stop in Williamsburg is a blessing and a curse because it's what's allowed you to be a viable business in the first place. But it's also led to inevitably having landlords who want to double the rent.
Yep. It's fragile. But like I was saying earlier, that's why it's good, This barely possible shit. That's the best shit there is. "Oh my God. We get to have this." People really have that feeling when they come in here. And I do too. "Oh my God, I get to do, this is my job." Unbelievable. What a joy. That's awesome.
Are you doing anything in the store to try and bring people in?
No, I'm not. They're coming on their own. Saturday was the busiest day I've ever had in the history of the store. It kicked my ass. It was amazing. As far as the activity of being in the store and the cash register, it [was] like a mob scene. It's like a party that lasted for 10 hours.
That's gotta be kind of heartening.
Oh, it's amazing. But you know, I'm kind of spent, I'm trying to keep my energy up. I'm teaching at the university level now, and I have to go teach a four-hour class in a couple hours and I want to go crawl in bed right now. I'm just wrecked. (laughs)
In the years you've been in business since 2008, do you feel like – broadly speaking – you've had the impact on comic shop culture that you wanted to have? Do you feel like the void you saw there is now filled?
You know, entropy is real. I'm getting older. A 20-year-old would have a different answer, but I'm thankful to have done it my way. I feel that this service aspect has actually proven to be true. When I was cautiously taking the first steps to do this, I had a lot of thoughts, like, maybe I'll get to meet some artists. There was a lot of like cautious optimism. And pretty much all of that stuff has happened. Times ten. So when I got the vacate letter, I had a feeling that I did what I came to do already. So that feels good. I feel that I've accomplished something.
If I had to close, it wouldn't be a failure. It would be a win. When I made it to 10 years and my lease ended, I couldn't believe I made it to 10 years. It was like a miracle to me. Now I'm way beyond that. I feel like I'm in a Denis Johnson book called Already Dead. I don't know if this is exactly true, but Johnson said Shogun warriors would have a ritual where they would enact their own death. So that way, when they went into battle, they were invincible. They would go into battle with a mindset that they had already been killed, and so therefore could not be killed. So that's me. (laughs) I'm already dead. I've been dead for seven years, so therefore I'm invincible. It's not an ego thing, it's just a metaphor really. But I think that actually it kind of helps.
I'm not really worried about it. I actually can carry the craziest stuff that has ever been known and not sweat it. I don't care if it sells or not. Because someone's gonna show up who's interested. Confidence comes with lots of road miles. I have those road miles behind me to give me the confidence to do whatever. So I'll weather the storm.
After our initial conversation, once the GoFundMe campaign had come to its rapid and successful conclusion, we spoke again with Fowler to see how he had reacted to the news and the community response. That second conversation follows.
So when we talked last week, you seemed, I would say almost a little ambivalent about the prospect of surviving by way of the GoFundMe. Now that it's been successful, now that you've passed your goal, how are you feeling about it? What's your response?
Well, it's beautiful to feel this support and the love from the community. I'm almost blindsided by that and it's nothing but positivity there, I feel. I won't say that I feel unworthy, but I feel like a sort of a self-imposed duty to live up to that support and moving forward I need to please these people and make them happy and make it worth their time and effort and money. So I am aiming at that now.
Were you surprised at all by the speed of the success of this fundraising?
I can't pretend that I was that surprised because people told me that's what would happen. That didn't really come from within, but my customers were telling me, you got to do this because everybody gives a shit and this is what's going to happen. They were right, I guess.
I guess one question would be, does this feel like a way that you could perpetually survive if rents are going to go up? If this is the nature of New York Real estate, is crowdfunding a way to stay in business?
Like I said, this incident has had this beautiful sort of showing of the community through their support, but I still feel weird about this original incident. I mean, I don't seek to exploit this community in any way. I want to provide a service, so I'm kind of obsessed with the service aspect of what I do. And if I'm going begging for money all the time, it's not really a service anymore, it's something else. And maybe that's something else. It warrants further consideration. But I don't know. I have a lot of questions and I don't have a lot of answers right now.
Well, one way to look at it would be though that you are providing a service this is just a different way of the community paying for that service. Like public television, you run pledge drives every so often,
But what are they getting?
Well, they're getting you in business if you feel like you're providing a service.
My business model is that I find esoteric books and provide them to people to peruse and buy if they wish. That has been what I've doing. And so there's a different model represented here, which is more like what Heavy Manners Library is doing in Los Angeles where it's a membership-based model. It kind of interests me, that the potential of that. I think what Heavy Manners does is people pay a monthly fee to be members, and once you're a member, you can go there and essentially read their material for free. It's like a hangout place,
I'm not sure if that's totally accurate, but it's something like that, and that's kind of cool. It's an interesting model. It's just different than what I've been doing, which is basically trying to run a good store, and a store is monetized by the sale of goods available in the store, and I'm held in on making my store unique and supporting more esoteric material. That has been my model. It makes sense to me that people show their support through their interest in the material, and then they get to own the material in the Heavy Manners model. I don't think that people walk out of there with books.
Maybe they do, maybe there's an aspect where they are selling stuff, but I've always liked books as affordable and portable form of art where most people can afford to own the book and have it in the privacy of their own home, and it's not the huge dollar amount that original art costs. I like that about books. So I wouldn't want to change providing access to affordable art for books. I mean, that's kind of my thing.
Is that something that you're going to be mulling over? Will you be rethinking how you approach that model over the course of this next lease?
I don't know. I think that people have shown support for what I'm already doing. So to me that means to do it more, not to change it. I don't think anyone's asking me to change what I'm doing. I don't know if that would be wise. I think the thing that would be the best result is to just make it to go further with my already existing effort to try to use the money to support young unknown artists [and] create a community space that's worth visiting. To try to support the commerce community in whatever means I have on a daily basis, like the ongoing day-to-day effort of it, and to try to be an information source when people ask questions and try to be good about that. I already do these things, but just to lean into it, to recommit to it.
So what happens when this lease is up and you're back in this situation again?
Well, that's New York Real Estate. I mean, I can't remember what I've already told you because I've talked to a lot of people in the past week, but right now I am trying to get into a different space, so I'm hoping to move the store and it makes me feel a little weird to talk about it because it's not a done deal yet. But I don't know, I could probably tell more about that after Friday. But it seems like I'm going to be able to move to a space that is literally one block away from my existing space, which is a miracle, and it's a comparable space in that it's old and funky. It's about the same square footage. It actually is slightly bigger, which is nice. And everything else about it is similar. It has the same type of access.
A friend of mine runs a clothing store in there. Currently the clothing store has expanded so much that they have another store and she can't handle having two stores. So she said this would help her and me because she can't afford to keep a vacant store happening. And she's a cool person. She needs someone to sort of buy out her lease. And I met the landlord and he is like, well, if you're a friend of hers, she's been great and this is cool and we'll just give you a new 10-year lease. So that's awesome. My current landlord was only willing to give me a three-year lease at an insane price. This is a 10-year lease at a less than same price. So to me, that's a better use of the community resources because the place could be there for at least 10 years. I mean, that's longer than I honestly expected to be able to do this business. So that's awesome. And if it comes through, I feel like that's the best use of the resources. I have to do some stuff to the space. The space is beat to hell, honestly. So fix it up and make it structurally sound. I have to replace the front door of the place. There's all this stuff. If I can get in there, which seems likely, I have to do some stuff to it. It's nice to have the money, to have the support to be able to do it.
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