The greatest Comic Book Store in the West (of Yorkshire)

A few days ago I spoke of an awful customer experience I had with the video-game shop “GAME”. It was an example of a bad choice of how to cater for a niche market; to have low understanding of their needs and to focus solely on Sales.

In the city of Leeds, we have an example of the polar opposite. A store that has a niche market , but looks after them superbly. That store is called “OK Comics”. Today, I’d like to talk through what they do, and why I believe they are a shining example of creating first-class customer experience.

OK Comics is a two-floor sales unit situated in a passageway between two of the main streets in the heart of Leeds. They have won awards for customer service and independent retail. They sell, as the name suggests, Comic Books and graphic novels. Unlike some other similar stores, they do not sell huge amounts of auxiliary paraphernalia. When you go into OK Comics, you really do get the sense that it is all about the comic books.

The First Bad-ass in Space

Space travel today is generally a much safer endeavour than it was in the sixties. Some people feel that Space agencies such as NASA are too cautious; that Space should be an explorative, risk-taking endeavour. Each mission is strictly controlled and monitored, and must have a tangible, practical objective, like delivering goods to the space station, or repairing satellites.

But it hasn’t always been this way. Once upon a time Astronauts would go up to space and pull some frankly outrageous, cowboy-esque stunts. I’d like to tell you a story about what I think is the craziest thing an Astronaut has ever done.

Kirk, Sulu and Lieutenant Laser-Fodder

Remember that scene in the Star Trek 2009 movie, where Krik, Sulu, and Red-shirt do a ‘space-jump’ from a shuttle and freefall to the planet, parachuting to safety? Well one brave Astronaut pretty much did that over 40 years ago! I’d like to tell you his story.

E3 2011 Predictions - What's going down in LA?

June 7^th, 2011 seems like a long way away right now. But once you’ve finished your Boxing Day turkey leftovers, and New Year hits, it will be on you before you can say “Hideo Kojima” three times quickly.

You certainly will!

With that in mind, I wanted to put out my e3 2011 predictions nice and early. And, with a view to keeping things interesting, I’ll split it into four things I think we will see, and a couple of things we probably won’t see.

How to tell Sci-Fact From Sci-Fi

Since October 2000, our species has achieved something quite special. We have had a constant presence in space. Granted, it’s on a space station just 200 miles away from our planet, but it’s still a great achievement.

Most people do not have a great deal of awareness of what is going on in Space right now. That is understandable, as the various space agencies around the world just do not have the time or money to raise awareness with the public. But also, I suspect there is another reason for this: Sci-Fi.

Think Gamestop is bad? You clearly haven’t been to GAME in England

Today I’m going to take a quick break from talking about space (don’t worry, the following article will be a tribute to the International Space Station) and instead I’ll talk about Gamestop.

I listen to several gaming podcasts, a number of which are American, and something I’ve heard mentioned a number of times is how irritating gamers find shopping at Gamestop. I went to a gamestop during my time in Chicago, and honestly, I didn't mind it. Why not? The UK equivalent is a store called “GAME” which you will find in any given town or City in England.

GAME - the horrible British version of Gamestop

Let me tell you, if you think that Gamestop is bad, you’ve clearly never been to GAME. It was reported that in the Fiscal Year 2009-2010, GAME had a rough time. I’m not surprised, given their frankly awful customer service.  Let me talk you through my usual customer journey every time I make the mistake of setting foot in a GAME store.

Now before I continue, let me add this disclaimer: I am what I would call a “proper gamer”. In other words, not a casual gamer. But, if anyone from GAME is reading this, don’t use that as an excuse; funnily enough, it is logical to assume that a good chunk of GAME’s customers  are “proper gamers”, so you’d damn sure better think about how you treat them.

Here to warp speed – how will we get there?

Currently, on Earth, there are three space-faring nations. Those are The USA, Russia, and China. That means that if a human being wants to go into space they will have to go to one of those nations. Other countries may have satellite launch capabilities, but there is a huge gulf between launching a satellite and launching people aboard an actual spaceship.

Russian Soyuz spaceship

As of next year, that number will shrink to two, as the USA will retire the shuttle fleet and have no replacement. That leaves the Russian Soyuz and the Chinese Shenzhou as humankinds only option for reaching space.

So what will the USA do? The answer is, we do not know. You see, the difficulty with building a new spaceship (for humans) is that it costs money and takes time. And the time it takes is longer than any single presidential term. That means that even if a President green-lights some amazing new spaceship, it could not be completed until probably two more presidents have been and gone.

Chinese Shenzhou spaceship

So you see the problem; each president is reluctant to throw money at NASA during his term because he will probably not see the benefits during his term. In fact, over the 30 or so years that the Shuttles have been running, there have been numerous plans for some, well, really cool spaceships.

Let’s have a look at some of those spacecraft that have been proposed, worked on, and then cancelled.

Why you should be sad that constellation program has been cancelled.

This week we had news that the next Space Shuttle launch, STS 133, has been delayed. I’m not going to lie, that is barely newsworthy. But something that is very newsworthy is that, according to current plans, it is the anti-penultimate (third-to-last) launch that humanity will ever witness. That means that there are only three shuttle flights left and then – finito. And what’s scary is that the US has no replacement, and no immediate plans to construct one. The constellation program (next-gen shuttle system) is cancelled.