Hits and Misses will feature comic retailers sharing what’s working in their shop as well as the roadblocks they’ve been running into.
Bat City Comic Professionals has cultivated a passionate customer base in Bradenton, Florida with a product lineup that’s limited to new comics, back issues, graded keys, graphic novels, manga, kids’ books, and prose novels. According to Shannon Live, who owns Bat City with her husband Matt, readers have always responded to that focused approach, but it’s especially been true of late, as 2025’s sales were up 30% on 2024.
While hurricanes in the area limited sales in 2024, Live says that growth was largely fueled by an influx of new customers, with the store sometimes adding as many as eight to 10 subscribers in a single week. They’ve driven the shop to new heights, even if it’s always found success since it originally opened in Austin, Texas back in December 2019.
Bat City is unique in that it’s both a comic shop and a 501(C)(3) educational nonprofit, one that teaches reading, writing, and imagination skills to kids, teens, and adults. While the storefront itself is 2,000 square feet, that doesn’t include its classroom that’s used for programs like their kids book club Story Spelunkers, and those efforts endear the store to its hometown while creating new customers in the process.
Throughout its run, Bat City has thrived thanks to its community outreach and focused approach. But that doesn’t mean it’s been perfect, as Live admits there have been plenty of hits and misses along the way.
Hit: Making the Move
Bat City was in Austin from 2019 to 2022, and while they did well, they struggled to carve out a space in a city loaded with great comic shops and comparable nonprofits. So, when they fell in love with Bradenton during a trip to the area just as they learned that they’d need to find a new location for the store, Live and her husband/co-owner Matt had a wild idea.
What if they moved Bat City to Bradenton instead of somewhere else in Austin?
There were plenty of advantages in Live’s mind, but the biggest was the lack of competition.
“There weren’t a lot of other shops in that direct area in Florida,” Live said. “The closest store to us is about a 25-minute drive.”
They analyzed the market and realized it offered significant opportunities for Bat City, both as a comic shop and as a nonprofit.
“When we got here, we built the store we’ve always wanted,” Live said. “One we knew would benefit everybody that’s looking for something like this.”
The excitement was there from day one, as Bat City had over 400 people visit during its grand opening. That enthusiasm never waned, and the decision to move from a super-served market to an underserved one continues to pay dividends.
“The most life-changing thing for our store was moving it to Florida and growing it into what it should be,” Live said. “Our community keeps growing.”
Their community isn’t just increasing in size but geographic footprint, as Bat City’s regulars include residents of Bradenton and the larger Manatee County (part of the Sarasota metro area) it’s part of. And because the store is less than 30 minutes away from the headquarters of CGC, a comics grading service that only allows dealers like Bat City to drop submissions off at its offices, they’ve reached people well beyond Florida.
“We get customers from other states and countries who want to get their books or cards graded at CGC,” Live said. “It’s really cool because we get to meet so many people from around the world who love comics.”
Miss: Not Making the POS Move (Immediately)
Bat City used ComicSuite, Diamond Comic Distributors’ point-of-sale system, as its database for subscribers, and did so happily until August 2024. That’s when it refused to update, which was only the beginning of their troubles.
“It locked me out of the system,” Live said. “We got it fixed, but I had to process comics that week without my subscriber database.”
Live did so successfully, but it was hardly ideal. Then, Bat City saw an uptick in subscribers when a nearby comic shop closed in December 2024, which was a good thing…until two weeks later, when ComicSuite erased their entire subscriber database.
“I knew what long-time customers wanted, but I had to stand there for hours and go, ‘We just got a new person. What did they get?'” Live said. “My usual three-to-four-hour process turned into an entire day of tears and stress.”
She worried that these customers’ first impressions would be comics omitted from their pull lists, but incredibly, Live only missed three comics while Diamond remedied the issue. Even though they were concerned this could happen again, they decided to stick with ComicSuite because of the effort it would take to find the right replacement.
They did adjust their process in case other troubles arose, which is why Live saved her subscriber list before a trip in May 2025. The shop had added months of new subscribers, and she knew remembering all those pull lists would be impossible.
“I’m so glad I did because when I came back, I couldn’t open it,” she said.
That’s when they decided to move from ComicSuite to Comic Shop Assistant, but Live knows sticking around could have cost Bat City.
“I’m glad we finally moved,” Live said. “But I should have made that decision faster.”
Hit: Being Kid Forward
They always wanted kids to have their own space, which is why one of Bat City’s earliest projects was giving them just that.
“We tore down a wall of the building and built a cave, so kids have a section that is theirs,” Live said.
Complete with a “Kids’ Cave” sign, stalactites hanging from its ceiling, and area-specific flooring, it’s a comic shop within a comic shop, one with age-appropriate back issue bins, graphic novels organized by age group and interest, a wall for Scholastic Book Fair titles, and even guides for readers who already love some of the more notable names.
“We have a Dog Man section, and underneath it are shelves for, ‘Where do you go after Dog Man?'” Live said.
It’s made Bat City a destination for younger readers, but their kid-forward approach extends outside the cave. They offer a variety of educational programs, including a kids book club, art classes, and comic creation workshops, and they also host theme days for graphic novels like Dog Man and Investigators which highlight those books and the store itself. Efforts like these generate excitement about comics amongst the thousands of children who go through those programs, and their parents as well.
“It’s been cool to give them that space and to see how much that impacts the parents,” Live said. “The parents want to bring their kids to the comic store where they are both welcome.”
Live said the energy from kids often rubs off on their parents, as many end up discovering comics and becoming customers themselves. While it’s a kid forward approach, it’s one that benefits Bat City across multiple generations.
Hit: Partnering with their Community
“We decided before we opened our doors that we wanted to be a 501(C)(3) nonprofit in addition to a store,” Live said. “We wanted the store to fund the nonprofit goals so it could not only provide a community space, but so we could go out into the community.”
So far, so good as Bat City has become a key part of the region thanks to those collaborations. Some are obvious fits as they’ve partnered with groups that match their objectives, including school districts and libraries that are as far as two hours away.
“That’s really helped us develop the idea that comics are educational, entertaining, and for everyone,” Live said.
Those relationships extend far beyond the obvious, as Bat City has also partnered with the Pittsburgh Pirates and its minor league team, the Bradenton Marauders, for a kids’ club program, the Boys and Girls Club, the Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, the city itself, and more, with these connections proving crucial to their identity.
“Developing community partnerships and events has been quintessential to who we are as an organization,” Live said.
It helps the store, as well. Whether it’s engaging with the 12,000+ people that visited a mini comic con they hosted during Bradenton’s arts and music festival or partnerships with groups like Kiwanis, these relationships raise awareness and send people to the shop. Because they’ve invested in their community, residents have done the same with Bat City.
“People want to support people they know,” Live said. “People want to support people that support the community.”
Miss: Overscheduling
That’s a lot for one shop to take on, especially because they also have a store to run, which is why overscheduling has been a challenge in Live’s mind.
“We are constantly on the go,” Live said. “It’s not that we don’t make it to things, but a lot of times it’s 6 am, we’re just going to sleep, and we have to open the store in four or five hours.”
Live loves these events and partnerships, as they help the store and fuel her passion for the job, which is why they’re always looking for more. But she admits they’d likely be successful even if they dialed it back a bit, and they’d be more rested if they did. She just hates to pass on opportunities, which has been a difficult habit to break.
“Learning to not say yes to everything was a big thing,” Live said.
She was immediately faced with this during Bat City’s grand opening when a woman asked when their first workshop would be. Not wanting to disappoint, Live said it’d be in two weeks, even though their classroom wasn’t set up at all, as it instead acted as storage for everything that hadn’t been sorted through by the time they opened.
“I could have said we’re starting at the beginning of the year or next month, but that overzealous excitement gets me every time,” Live said.
They’re getting better at not overscheduling, and they also hired their first employee in September 2025, which makes things easier to handle. But when months like April hit, one that finds the store often participating in three to four events a day, it can still be too much. Live is trying to change, but it’s a process.
“You have to remember that events are fun and they’re good for your store, but if you don’t take that time for yourself, you’re going to physically drain your battery,” she said.
Hit: Being Indie-Focused
Live has always preferred indie comics because that’s where she believes the best titles are, which was an easy sell in the shop’s first home of Austin, a city that loves indie music, indie comics, and indie everything you can imagine. The concern they had was whether that would translate to Bradenton, and if it didn’t, could they convince readers of the value of indie comics?
“We really pushed that mentality,” Live said. “When we first opened, our new comic wall had about 250 current comics faced out, and on any given day, 175 of those are non-Marvel, non-DC. They all had a shelf talker in front of them that describes the book.”
They quickly discovered that locals had been waiting for this kind of thing, as shoppers at their grand opening were shocked to see the breadth of material they carried.
“They were walking around and picking stuff up, saying things like, ‘I’ve never seen this in a store before,'” Live said. “I was like, ‘We can do this. It’s going to happen.’”
Bat City’s emphasis of indies has resulted in a top publishers list that goes DC, Marvel, Image, and then Mad Cave and Ahoy, and they’ve managed to get buy-in from every subscriber, as customers have fallen in love with the titles they push.
“There’s not a single subscriber that doesn’t have at least four indie comics on their subscription,” Live said. “It’s become a huge thing.”
Customers will ask Live for recommendations, but she ensures readers can learn about the comics they might have missed by hosting an online show called “Wine Down Your Weekend.”
“I drink a glass of wine on the show, and while I’m drinking, I tell you about the wine and then go through every indie and small press release that week,” Live said. “There are weeks where that’s 120 books, and there are weeks where it’s 12. But I read them all and I’m like, ‘This book is so good. You have to read it for this reason.’”
The goal was to expand everyone’s horizons, because they believed it would create more passionate readers at Bat City, and it’s worked beyond their wildest expectations.
Click Gallery below for full-size images of Bat City Comic Professionals!
Source: ICv2
