BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO
In his column on The Examiner, Jordan Gonzales wrote a scandalizing piece, claiming that fans could no longer relate to comic store chain, Mile High Comics. Gonzales alleged that when the comic book store, owned and operated by Chuck Rozanski since 1969, became a chain, it lost touch with the comics reading public.






Gonzales wrote:



Gonzales claims this is the reason some Mile High stores have closed. The article also slammed Mile High's internet store and ordering system as being "outdated."

After reading this piece, THE PULSE contacted Rozanski for his thoughts on this article. Rozanski was surprised and shocked to read this article. "I have no idea of its origin or the motivation of the writer," he told THE PULSE. "He did not contact me, nor have I ever heard that he had any kind of problem with us. The store pictured is our Lakewood, Colorado store, which makes the comments in the article seem particularly odd. I have received nothing but rave comments about the manager of this story, David Saindon, as he is the most knowledgeable comics fan working in any of our locations. He also loves working with the public, to the extent that I receive more positive comments about David than anyone else in the company."

"He is so talented, in fact, that I just promoted him to oversight of all three of our stores," Rozanski continued. "Over the past two months, he has done wonders to improve our Thornton store, which we are still in the process of rebuilding after the devastating flood of last summer. It may be, however, that the assistants who have been minding his store for him while he has been improving the other two have somehow managed to convey the wrong impression. I will certainly talk with David about this later this morning, and see what he thinks."

Rozanski added, "While David's assistants may have (perhaps) not been as congenial as David, they are definitely avid comics fans. Our #1 source of new staff members are the customers who frequent the stores. As with all fans, however, they have differing interests and tastes. It could just be that Mr. Gonzales tried to strike up a conversation with them on a topic with which they were not familiar. That's always a difficult situation for a retail comics store clerk, as an encyclopedic knowledge is supposed to be part and parcel of the job description. That is the only possible motivation that I could understand as to why someone working in one of our stores would not engage a fan in conversation. In point of fact, we usually have the opposite problem, as our retail clerks sometimes become so engaged in conversations about comics that they forget to leave enough time to finish their daily chores ...."

The veteran comic shop proprietor also couldn't understand why Gonzales commented on the aesthetics of the store's lighting. Rozanski said, "I am particularly curious about the writer's statement that our stores lack lighting. I am, in point of fact, a lighting fanatic. When we moved the Lakewood store into its new location three years ago, we actually paid to double the number of four foot florescent fixtures in the ceiling. It had been a shoe store prior to our arrival, and I guess that they were satisfied with fewer lights than I prefer. I also added extra lighting into our Thornton and Glendale stores, so I just don't get what he is talking about."

"In addition to the dozens of ceiling fixtures (each of which contain four bulbs), each of our stores also has about a dozen six foot high glass showcases with individual lighting," he continued. "How in the world can stores so well lit be described as dark and gloomy? I have to tell you in all honesty that I am sometimes just dumbfounded when the perceptions of others are so radically different from my own."

Rozanski did note that sometimes the website might be a little difficult to maneuver, especially since there is over sixty years of materials in and around the world of comic books available throughout it. "Our home page is certainly easy to navigate, as it takes you right into our search programs," he said. "Within 'search' any keyword entered will bring up all titles containing that keyword, ranked by search preferences from previous searches by other fans. The speed of our site is very fast (we have a five Meg outbound pipe), even though we recently had to switch to a back-up data server when our #1 server (out of five) went down. We also have the largest number of comics cover scans of any website, and are continuing to expand upon that number by about 1,000 more scans per week. The inventory on our site is also quite impressive, with not only a total inventory of eight million comics, etc. in stock, but also the total number of different items that we offer having doubled over the past three years. Even with those items that we do not have available, we offer a free e-mail notification service via our 'Want List' program. All-in-all, I think that we're doing a good job of pleasing the 100,000+ comics fans who shop with us. The fact that we now sell over one million back issue comics a year via our website does seem clear evidence that a great many comics fans find it easy to use."

"While our search program mostly operates just fine, there are a select set of circumstances where it can be really frustrating," he admitted. "When you are searching for a Batman Keychain, for example, simply asking for 'Batman' will bring up hundreds of titles, broken up into screens of 50 items each. It can take forever and a day to find the darn keychain within such an immense listing of titles. The same problem arises if you type in 'keychain,' as there have been a lot of them, too. Typing in 'Batman Keychain' doesn't always work, either, as our search program is based upon exact specifics. If the actual title of the item is Batman (1940) Keychain (the 1940 date referencing which Batman series the keychain links to) then the search program would say 'No Matches,' as it requires all words in a search string to exactly match. This flaw in our search system is one that I have been seeking to remedy for quite some time, as I think that it shouldn't be that hard to find a search program that can match two or more keywords, as does Google. With luck, I'm planning that we implement this improvement to our search program within the next 90 days."

Rozanski added, "Aside from the above reference search flaw (which really only affects searches for items where there are a large number of possibilities), the rest of our website seems to function just fine. Hardly a day goes by when I don't get a compliment from one of our customers telling me how easy it is to use. On the flip side, however, I also get more than a few offers each year from folks (mostly seeking work) who want to completely redesign our entire system. Frankly, I don't know of any website that pleases everyone, so I'm going to stick with what works for us. Why fix it, if it isn't broke? That having been said, we are presently involved in making some cosmetic changes to the 'look and feel' of the site, in order to give it a modern look. Aside from making the search program much easier to use, however, not much else about the basic functioning of our website will change."

Rozanski believes it might have been one bad experience that led Gonzales to write "some factually unfounded generalizations." He told THE PULSE, "While I would never presume that we can please everyone, we do genuinely want everyone who visits our stores and our website to feel as though they were treated well. If we failed in that regard with Mr. Gonzales, then his comments can only be a catalyst for me to refocus our efforts, and for us to seek to do an even better job in the future. We really do care about comics fans at our company, and will do everything that we can to prevent any repeat of the negative experience that soured Mr. Gonzales on Mile High Comics. Suffice it to say, if he had he simply contacted me before writing his comments, I would have done anything in my power to make him happy."


Those of you who have shopped with Mile High Comics, what kind of experience have you had with this comic book store?

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PULSE readers can see Gonzales' article in its entirety here: http://www.examiner.com/x-8579-Denver-Comic-Books-Examiner~y2009m4d20-Fans-Cannot-Relate-to-Mile-High-Comics

PULSE readers can visit Mile High Comics at this URL:
http://www.milehighcomics.com

As a fan, I've bought online from Mile High several times and I've got no complaints. The items and shipping are actually less expensive than other services I've tried, and my stuff gets here quickly. I love old comics, specially from the 70's and 80's, so I do see myself buying from them in the future.

However...

They ran an ad at the Comics Journal several years ago, where they invited independent comic book makers to send their comic books to Mile High for them to sell. I thought it was great of them, and I promptly sent an email to the address supplied with regards to my own self published comic book. Strangely, I got no reply. Only when I emailed someone else, through their website, did someone respond, but when I made further inquiries, I got no reply again. I did not pursue it further because it was apparently not in their list of priorities. They're probably just too busy with the retail side of the business, which is I suppose, the more important thing for any retail business.

I remain a customer always willing to order from them online because in that regard, I've had no problems.

Gonzales is going to have to try more than one typo-filled column to make any dent in the success of Mile High Comics. Rozanski is one of the hardest-working retailers in the country, and very responsive to customers. I'm sure some people have complaints, but overall, Mile High is a great company.

I've ordered from Mile High many times. In fact they're one of only two internet comics sellers that I do depend on for reliable service. No complaints here.

This article actually makes me pretty upset. Lets face it people, the stereotype comic book guy is that guy on the simpsons, condescending, thinking they are smarter and better, isolated and unable to have friendly conversations with each other without debating the finer points of green lanern #54. That stereotype exists because, in my personal experiance, that is who you meet running most of the comic shops in this country. When I moved to lakewood colorado, and started going to mile high comics, the very first time I walked in, Dave said hi, recognizing that I was not one of his regulars. think of the implications for that; he recognized on sight enough people to know that he had not met me before and take effort to make me feel welcome. My further experiences there have left me only more and more happy to purchase from them every week; they know most of the regular customers names, they make suggestions on things they think we would like based on what we get from them previously, they talk about story lines and characters and even more importantly, they talk with us about us! when i stop in i might get asked "hows the wife?" or "find a new dog yet?" because these are conversations we have had in the past, and they have made effort to make me more than just my N.I.C.E Member number. If anyone has negative things to say about that location, I would say that they must not have given those guys a chance at all.

Well, I know milehigh only through their website, but it is the only store where it is practicable for me to order backissues form in the US.
The search function can be a bit annoying sometimes, but if you know exactly what you're looking for, you'll find it.
The first two or three parcels, I had some problem with, getting them through customs, but one I asked them to attach some form of custom declaration, no more problems.
Usually (except for one time, where they claimed their answer to me was lost) they have replied fast to any requests or complaints and solved all problems to my satisfaction.

Oh for gods sake even Starbucks has had to close a few stores.

Nothing like taking someone else's misfortune and using it to attack them. Something bad happens to you and your enemies proudly proclaim it was because you deserved it, and it's gods way of punishing you.

Remember when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians" for 911? This guy sounds like he has a personal thing against Mile High.

Or one of its employees.

I remember mail ordering from Mile High when I was kid (back in the dark ages) and I'd always order G or VG grade books, cause that's all I could afford on my allowance, and they'd always show up in NM/M shape.

I don't have any experience with their website, but back in the day before the internet, they were wonderful.

Thanks to Jennifer for going to the source (Mr. Rozanski) and giving more balanced coverage to MHC than the Gonzales blog. It was tempting to "not even dignify with a response" Gonzales's poorly written and inaccurately reported piece because of its uninformed and ranting nature; I realize, however, that perception is sometimes 90% "reality" for too many readers, so the entire piece needs to be addressed and refuted -- well done! It would have been nice if Gonzales had bothered to do his homework on MHC because having shopped in the MHC stores for 17 years his observations didn't seem to me to have grounding in reality; in my experience alone, his descriptions of poor lighting, disinterested personnel, and a culture at MHC that is "simply a business" would have been confounded utterly if he had bothered walking into the Lakewood store run by David Saindon. Moreover, I found it poor journalistic judgment on Gonzales's part -- he purports to be a reviewer -- to make assumptions about the decisions that governed Mr. Rozanski's decisions to close certain sites and, moreover, when criticizing the navigability of the MHC website he did not offer concrete examples of competitors who do it better. On that note, regarding "disconnecting" with the fans, I was surprised that there was no mention of Rozanski's twice- and thrice-weekly newsletters to customers (that provides some transparency to MHC's operations), the regular articles by Rozanski in the Comics Buyer's Guide, and his success in getting artists and comics creators to come to Denver and speak at venues like the University of Colorado at Boulder. Some balanced information on those fronts would have been helpful to provide a balanced report to people looking for a comic book shop in the area and using examiner.com as a reference. Thanks, again, Jennifer, for some needed journalistic counter-balance to what seemed a poison-pen piece on Gonzales's part!