Chapter 122: Pausing Sight
The events leading up to December were finally summed up semi-elaborately and time passed as it always had. Eventually, the first December release day did come.
Whether they are the buying customers or the somewhat readied direct market, the industry would be stirred once again.
Even Alexander was quite swept up on the December anticipations, so he decided to have an on-site investigation on how things were proceeding, how things were being displayed, and how everyone would react to it.
As the perpetrator of what is about to come, he felt it was best to observe everything up close and not just rely on Ms. Marker's steadily improving market research.
The Creed surveys still aren't equipped with toy-related questions, after all, so the pioneering debut to a new industry needed to have a much personal investigation in a subtly direct approach.
As such, borrowing and tweaking the premise of Undercover Boss, Alexander wouldn't be judging his employees but judging how the customers would judge the companies products.
It seems to be a sort of Judge-ception as well.
Fortunately, he didn't even need tedious make-up work and disguise as his grade-schooler looks were enough to fool everybody.
Since Old Sullivan was busy overseeing the entire widespread operation, his running buddy Milla expressed interest to tag along and the arrangements were done and dusted.
Like an episode from Undercover Boss, what better option to do the undercover operations from than something close at home.
Primarily Creed Toys turned to Creed Stores, and past-future's CREED should be the perfect spot.
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Wearing their winter clothes, Alexander and Milla alighted from the car towards what should be a waiting line.
With Miss Galina in tow, they lined up along with the crowd of Creed fans that had their own hypotheses of what was in store.
Fortunately, the December winter in the San Fernando Valley area wasn't too bad so those awaiting for Creed Store to open can be in relative ease.
For apparent Volume Book reasons, it would seem that everyone has prepared themselves for this day.
The waiting line was filled with debating nerds, steadily waiting parents and their excited children, peers of other stereotypical teens just hanging out and talking.
Aside from the stereotype of happy-go-luckys and geeks, it would seem that there were even jocks as well in the waiting line.
Perhaps they weren't part of the same school as the nerds or they are well-grounded jocks that are much more friendly than how they are portrayed in movies. At least, no trouble was brewing from them as they discusses amongst themselves.
Of course, not far from those teen stereotypes are the pretty ladies whose cheerleader figures are hidden by their baggy winter wear.
There are still a lot of high school classifier groups to go through but from what Alexander has seen, Creed Comics seems to hook a lot of high schoolers as well.
It was not so surprising though given that grade-schoolers were amped up every day about comic books. It was in due time that their relatively teen-er counterparts should follow the same route as well.
It would seem that the people of the 80s, or any people in any era for that matter, would always be caught up with what is trendy.
Since comic books are the current entertainment trend, the diversity in the Creed Store's waiting line naturally fell into place.
Whichever the case, this made Alexander assured of his next way to go. Children, parents, and geeky nerds were stable demographics to work with while the entire teenage population itself is the true gold mine.
The film industry's entire summer file is dependent on teens going to the cinema during their summer break after all.
There was no way that Alexander was passing up on that, so he had to maneuver his methods once again when the next year comes around.
The expansion from 50 comic book people should be done by then and steadily building up teen-attracting titles should be the way to go.
Shonen was manga's largest and most popular target type and Creed Comics should cater to the 'young men' of the generation.
Of course, to make use of the 2020s gender equality uprising, shojo or 'young women' should be catered to as well.
Alexander listened in to whatever he could hear as he lined up and was quite looking forward to how they would react when they enter.
"Volume Books" here and "Volume Books" there could be heard all around, so it would be intriguing to see their expectations to technically not be overturned but exceeded.
The warmed-up expectations gradually heated up as the opening time came close and everyone's patience was tested against the cold seasons.
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Finally and to ease everyone's patience, Mr. CounterBoy flipped the store sign to say 'Open' and the crowd rushed in.
The comic book release day seems to happen quite a lot of times for the crowd, so there was no dangerous stampeding that happened.
The usual crowd practiced and adapted themselves that the store 'rush' they were going through was not in any way dangerous or akin to a yak stampede.
Usually, the ones on the front had their own designated places to head towards, which is either on the Creed release section, survey and popularity poster display, shelves for Volume Books, grabbing a copy of the popularity posters, and everyone else does un-Creed-related stuff.
Today's top pick should be the expected mass of new Volume Books. As such, the crowd should be heading to the usual shelves as they crowded along.
However, for some reason, the leaders of the crowd stopped early in place. Everyone whose view was obstructed didn't know what the hold-up was about and assumed that the Volume Books were too shocking that those at the front can't take it in.
They were mostly right about the Volume Books though but they soon got the true reasoning behind things as they took in the pausing sight that beheld everybody.
Slowly but sequentially, a wave of pauses, shock, view-relishing, and so on and so forth happened as the crowd finally saw the new store decorations.
Everyone eventually spread out in dumbfounded eagerness and everyone from the waiting line had their space to settle in.
At this point, everyone was finally clued in on the unexpected pause to their 'rush'. It was because everything inside wasn't the usual comic book store they knew. Creed Store did have a lot of toy apparel and other "stuff" to sell before but this time it was all different.
The shelvings were rearranged quite nicely, however, what was displayed was still Toys, Toys, Toys!
It wasn't about all the Star Wars and Star Trek toys though but dazzling toy designs of the characters and stories that wowed them for the past couple of months now.
From Dragonball to RoboCop, sections of dazzling toy cases were on display and everyone just can't look away. They had seen a lot of toy aisles before but somehow they just can't help but want to imprint this Creed view to their minds.
If Creed Comics was the comic brand to go for, then the Creed Toys in the eye-catching packaging should be the next big thing.
Everyone who took in the new sight was either gulping salivas, in silence or gaped shock.
Fortunately, their collective silence was broken through...
"Oh my... whoever said it was all about Volume Books today should get punched." One of the neutral jocks can't help but let out his violent tendencies with things.
The jock's words were the precursor to things though as the stilled crowd became energized like ants in a hotpot.