ABOUT KENNY'S COMICS

A WORD ABOUT ME - KEN
I remember reading my first comic book at a barber shop my dad took me and my brothers to.  It was a Hulk comic - I'm not sure which one.  He was fighting the army (as he did many times) and I thought he was amazing!  I was familiar with super-heroes, having seen them in television cartoons, and quickly learned about many DC and Marvel characters and their various supporting villains and characters.

A few years later my friend who lived across the street lent to me his copy of Amazing Spider-Man.  It was issue #121 - the Death of Gwen Stacy!  They killed Spider-Man's girlfriend?  That can't happen!!  How could they do that?!?  What's going on here?!!?

With that, I was hooked.

So, as a lifelong collector and enthusiast I've visited many comic book and collectibles stores and always thought it would be fun to one day own one.  After many years spent in advertising, sales & marketing, office management, and bookkeeping, I decided to finally open my first Retail Store… a brick and mortar shop called Adventurer’s Realm!

KENNY’S COMICS BEGAN WITH… ADVENTURER’S REALM

Adventurer's Realm is a business begun in 2003 as a small, comic book and gaming store in Bethlehem, PA.  It served the local community by providing hobbyists with a source for all of their favorite collectible items including the major comic book publishers like Marvel & DC with Batman and Spider-Man, as well as collectible card games like Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! and tabletop games like Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons among others.

WHAT FUN WE HAD
Our regular customer base grew quickly, and our comic book reserve system brought regulars into the store every week. We had Friday Night Magic: the Gathering draft tournaments with as many as 40 players at a time.  Each player in these tournaments had their scores reported online in the official national tournament system.  Regular Warhammer gaming events were held in our Game Room where customers could meet each other and play (think chess x1000).  The business, albeit in its infancy and still small, was doing gangbusters and growing rapidly until...

Hurricane Ivan dumped four feet of mud and creek water into the store. Imagine what was left of all of those paper products…

BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE

While I was still struggling to clean up and reopen, a group of local guys decided to open a store exactly like mine not even a half mile down the road in a building one of their uncles owned. While I was down they proceeded to lure my customers away from me.  It was four guys and their combined resources against me and my struggling store.

When I was finally able to reopen, the resulting damage. loss of inventory, financial hardship, and competition eventually forced me to close the store shortly after.

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FLASH FORWARD TO 2012
Adventurer's Realm was reborn online (because you can't drown the internet)!  Since 2012 I slowly began learning about eCommerce and the opportunities that exist for selling online.  I started first with an eBay store and eventually expanded to Facebook and a stand-alone eCommerce website of my own. Social Media expanded growth opportunities.  Eventually the eCommerce site was moved to a community selling site and I started joining Facebook interest groups to hold auctions.

THE AGE OF KENNY’S COMICS BEGINS
Most recently my wife and I have faced the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic has forced everyone in the world to confront.  While I was registering for my second vaccination I discovered that someone had entered my email address incorrectly and I couldn’t sign into the system. After years of spelling “Adventurer’s Realm” to countless numbers of people, I finally decided to rebrand as something more simple … KENNY’S COMICS!

I set to work designing a new website and direction. Having learned many lessons from the past, I put together a plan to make my new venture better than ever…

AND NOW, HERE YOU ARE SEEING THE RESULTS!

While there is still a lot to do and much more to come I hope you like what you see!

If you don’t mind I would love to hear from you! What do you think of Kenny’s Comics?

Please send me an email at Ken@KennysComics.com and let me know!

Thank you for visiting and enjoy your time at KENNY'S COMICS!