Chapter 51: Obscurely Popular
The month of May came around and the world moved on as it always has.
The niche comic book industry finally settled with the powerful debut Creed Comics but they were still dealing with the aftereffects.
Aside from the Big Two seeing more potential in themselves, comic book stores and retailers were expecting a rise in their minuscule numbers brought about by the raise of their worth.
Comic book stores became a popular spot to go to for teens and parents in recent months after all.
No matter how people try to rationalize such victory as their own, they knew that Creed Comics has something to do with it.
A lot has now been studying the three comic titles under the Creed banner to know the reason and try to replicate it.
The ones who have made their conclusions could only salute the new comic company for a job well done.
High-quality paper, quality printing, quality storytelling, and appealing art was the obvious reasons for the success.
The competition could easily follow suit with those factors but there was another obvious factor that they can't have... and that was Alexander Creed.
The mysterious creator was the only factor of the Creed success formula that they can't replicate.
Whatever this realization gave people, it didn't stop the fact that comic book specialty stores may be booming after all these events.
New store emergence was showing signs and every comic book publisher was looking forward to it.
Comic book stores were clearly becoming a viable store option with each Creed Comics issues steadily being sold out.
When 'Son Goku' issues were finally out of stock, everyone went rushing for the other limited issues of other Creed Comic titles that are still in stock.
When one commodity became unavailable, other commodities with the same value and quality became the target.
150,000 or so people were constantly shuffling back and forth from the stores and the store owners just welcomed them with glee.
Even the 3rd Thundercats issue that only came out due to its monthly release was still extremely sought after.
Maybe it won't be long before it would have no issue left for display.
This is even after Alexander made the executive decision to bump up the number of every printed into 200,000 since the last ThunderCats issue.
This phenomenon seems to have also caught on with the overseas market, so it won't be long before the number of limited prints would be increased again.
From Alexander's memory, 150,000 copies were the perfect number to accommodate the comic book buying market but it would seem that his popular titles have effectively raised the niche into not-so-niche.
This achievement elicited a rare triumphant smile from him which seems to freak out those who were already used to his indifferently handsome expression.
Even Sullivan gossipped with the employees about how he might be grooming a cunning little villain that the world is not ready for.
Alexander's cunningly triumphant smile was too rare and sought after but now that they finally saw it, they were fearful of its hidden implications.
It had to be known that even with all of Creed Comics' many successes for the past few months, their little boss seemed unfazed by it all and just drew so many comic issues that they felt overwhelmingly pressured.
What could their introverted little boss now be smiling about at this late of a time? This was a mystery for the employees and old Sullivan.
Alexander didn't care for their overreaction to his smile as he was looking forward to another goal that he had never considered before.
"What if I elevate the comic book industry to make it the same cultural importance that mangas have on past-future Japan?" Alexander mused but shook his head after a while. It is but a futile dream to make a fraction of the population become comic book enthusiasts.
Just because he made 200,000 a staple peak of comic book costumers doesn't mean he could lull the entirety of the world into accepting comic books further.
He ultimately set that aside and just worked on what he could now.
If he could achieve it, then he could haunt his grandfather and employees with his victorious grin. If not, then he could just continue to plunder so that he could earn money and influence as well.
The Creed brand and the name Alexander Creed by now has become recognizable and grounded in the minds of the comic industry.
As for what benefits such a status entails, that would be set aside until it was needed.
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In school, the name Alexander Creed was just another student's name.
No one has yet to connect it with the comic books that the kids were showing off or what the teachers had confiscated.
Grade schoolers didn't care for who made what though. It was even highly doubtful that they even knew that they had a schoolmate that goes by that name.
Alexander's classmates only knew that he drew stuff but had not much interest to try and snoop on what their class pariah was working on.
Possessed Creed had slowly become a taboo in their class after all. He might infect them with the ghost of his dead mother that compelled him to always draw.
Even the 'Ee' bully trio was afraid of the possession being passed on to them despite the fact that they were the ones who came up with the mother-possessed story in the first place.
Perhaps Miss Hansen has made some connections but had no proper motivation to prove it yet as there were too many student papers to be checked and grades to be tabulated with school nearly being over.
As for the teachers, they had a lot of papers to check so how could they get to the bottom of the nerd community's recent unanswered mystery.
'Created by Alexander Creed' was a staple of the popular Creed Comics. That creator name was ever-present but still a mysterious enigma that the fans were hoping to be revealed.
Was he the next big comic book legend? How nerdy and creative was he to make three extremely popular comic titles? How had he come up with his inspirations? How many years has he been drawing to be able to surpass the artist of the present?
It was not within their consideration at all that the popularly mysterious creator could still be a 9-year-old kid who pocketed their money while drawing at his desk and listening to grade-level classes.
His re-life has now changed his obscure name into something obscurely popular and Alexander didn't know how to deal with it yet.
For someone who wanted to be a reclusive store hermit of CREED, the new status just needed some adjusting to get used to.
Whatever the case or however sought after his name is, Alexander was just looking forward for the upcoming summer break.
It wasn't like he was going for a vacation at all but he was looking forward to the relatively greater freedom that he would be having.