Mike Boze has never speculated. He has always checked and rechecked himself in his business. As he sits on a stool behind the glass counter full of Magic: The Gathering cards at HawgHead Comics, wearing a well-worn Harley Davidson sweatshirt and an easy smile, the owner of the longest lived comic shop in Fort Smith, Arkansas opens up about the trials, tribulations, and long, metered road of his success. His many years of surviving in a town where comic shops come and go can be attributed to a keen business sense, an expansive knowledge of his niche, and an uncanny ability to shrug problems and disappointments off with a smile. His medium sized shop with it’s very specific selection of best-selling comics on the racks and a multi-table gaming area speak to his ability to foresee trends in his client base, and focus in on those. The smiling faces of customer and proprietor alike are clues as to why this business has had such a long life.
Mike smiles as he arranges some new additions to the shop’s Magic: The Gathering card game stock.
This little shop located 1600 Greenwood Avenue in Fort Smith, Arkansas has been a home to nerds, geeks, and whoever else might wander into its doors since May of 1995.
The medium sized store front with the bright open sign and constantly rotating array of colorful posters.
Mike had originally opened up shop in a much smaller location on Grand Avenue in the summer of 1993, but he jumped at the chance to acquire this larger building and the adjoining real estate to foster the growth of his blossoming business. In asking Mike how he got into this business, he says it has much to do with family, namely his son Patrick.
“Patrick had a lot to do with it. He had gotten interested in comics sometime, like, in ninety-two, and it rekindled my interest,” He said, “Patrick and I, really more I, decided, you know, that he and I would collect Amazing Spiderman and Captain America, because those were my two favorites. I thought we could go to conventions, it would be something he and I could do together… and it just kind of escalated.”
After doing some thinking and research, he thought it might be lucrative to turn this hobby into a business.
“I was looking through a price guide I’d picked up at, I don’t know, Books-A-Million or Hastings, and was looking through thinking, ‘I had that one. That one, and… Woah! Four thousand dollars?’ I thought, “Man alive! If I still had these , I could pay my house off!”
The interest quickly became a hobby that was finely honed by not only interest, but what was popular and profitable at the time.
“Instead of just collecting Spiderman and Captain America, I was reading the magazines that were out… in the early ninieties and saying, well, look here, they’re saying you need to be buying this, you need to be buying that. I was taking any spare cash that would come up, any bonus I would get from Whirlpool, any cash that was unexpected, and I would be investing it in the stuff that they were saying and it just gradually grew.”
So after doing some research and buying a few issues the guides anticipated would sell big, he took his collection on the road.
“I was toying with the idea of opening a store, but Paperbacks Plus was already here, and I wasn’t sure how many stores Fort Smith could handle, so I wasn’t too serious about it. There was going to be a convention in Muskogee, so I contacted them and got the table… little six foot table, a couple of short boxes…I think I did seven hundred dollars that day, and I thought, ‘If I can do this from one day at a convention just from what I have been learning on my own, I should be able to open up a store.”
So he rented a small storefront on Grand Avenue in Fort Smith, and opened the first iteration of HawgHead, just in time, it seems.
“Dan [Owner of the now defunct Comics -n- Stuff] was still in Van Buren at the time… by the time he announced he was moving to Phoenix Village Mall [in Fort Smith], I think I had already rented the little shop on Grand… so the shop, if I hadn’t opened it when I did, probably never would have happened.” He said with a chuckle.
In May of 1995, he moved into a larger storefront at 1600 Greenwood Avenue and there the shop has stood since.
A sign that has survived a move and twenty-two years.
During what is often called the “Dark Age” of comics, in the late nineties, many shops in Fort Smith closed down or hit hard times, just to find themselves bought out by HawgHead and assimilated into its location. Mike attributes his longevity and ability to last through hard times to his business model.
“I think it’s the fact that I have never speculated on anything. I didn’t take chances on, the only thing I ever took a chance on, before I opened, was the Black Bag. [Superman] 75… I only order what I know I’m going to need. I never liked back issues… It was a series of fortunate events. The owner of Alpha Books approached me to buy him out… he gave me a pretty good deal in which I could pay him out… I approached Earl [of now defunct Crazy Earl’s novelties and Mystic Domain] and we decided that, instead of competing, we would split. He wanted the comics, the Warhammer, and the D&D. I wanted the comics and the Magic: The Gathering. He said that was fine… I bought out his Magic stock… and he bought my Warhammer. When Dan [of Comics -n- Stuff] heard that he contacted me… I told him, ‘Look, I’d rather work with you.” I even said, ‘The enemy I know is better than the enemy I don’t know,’ ” Mike laughed, “but, no, he just wanted me to buy him out.”
The shop’s small, targeted, well thought out inventory of racked comics.
That was the nail in the coffin of his final competitor from the early days. Mike’s cyclic ordering of only what he needed and his ability to work hand-in-hand with competitors has left him in a position to be the only Fort Smith survivor of the “Dark Age of Comics”…
A small, well maintained, and thought out inventory of gaming accessories.
Over the years other shops have come and gone, but, if they looked down their nose at the chance to work with Mike and HawgHead, they have went away as soon as they showed up. Mike has always extended a hand of friendship to these people, and even has a symbiotic relationship with most other local gaming and specialty shops in the region.
An equally tightly managed collection of graphic novels and statues.
Mike and HawgHead are staples of Fort Smith culture. Mike knows regular customers by name, is happy to open a comic pull file for anyone, hosts many gaming events, and is always quick with a witticism and a smile to make any comic book nerd feel at ease and at home in his shop.
Mike and customers converse and joke.
Through good planning, hard work, and lots of good will, HawgHead Comics has stood the test of time as Fort Smith’s longest operating comic book and gaming retailer. With succinct business practices and an eye for what the customer wants, Mike looks to have many more years of good times at his store.
“If you need to ask me anything else, you know where to find me.” He said as he waved goodbye.
Geektrospective 