Weekly interest and loan rates | Home values Northwest stock contest 2004 | Consumer affairs

Silicon Valley view
Life can be funny: Layoff victim becomes comic-book entrepreneur

By Mike Cassidy
Knight Ridder Newspapers

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

OK, for him. OK, maybe.

Like many over the past few years, Mortensen has ridden his career elevator to the ground floor. Worked for a company that merged and merged and then failed. Landed a graphics-design job with Apple Computer. Was laid off in October 2001 after a few months there. Became a contractor, but found work hard to come by and was told more than once that he'd been dramatically outbid by contractors based in India.

Times were tough in those days, but hey, he had a wife who loved him and a beautiful baby girl. Oh, and he had a closet full of comic books from a previous life as a collector.

The baby, it turns out, needed some space. So it was time to clear out the clutter.

"I had about 8,000 comics in my collection," he says. "I started selling off my own personal collection and I did pretty well with it."

Surprisingly well, actually.

Dawn Mortensen, 30, was happy to see the comics go. Sure, Steve, 32, had the collection when they met in college, but she saw the hobby as something from his childhood. And the boxes that lived with them? Well, marriage is all about compromise.

"I was eager for him to get rid of these things," she says. "But still, I never thought it would become a business."

Few people start out wanting to be a comic-book mogul. But Mortensen is attacking the market with Trumpian zeal.

"I'm trying to build my business more on the high end," he says.
 
Oh, and there is a high end. Mortensen mentions an industry newsletter that reports an old Spider-Man No. 1 comic selling for $107,655. Yes, this is serious business.

Step into the world headquarters of Mortensen's Colossus Comics. The Internet-dependent business, www.colossuscomics.com, is housed in a converted cottage in Santa Clara, Calif., packed with thousands of comics. (Mortensen has 88,000 in all, but not all in the cottage.) He was running 1,000 auctions a week on eBay soon after he started the business full-time in September. He says that was too much, too soon.

"I basically decided that I wanted to take it down a notch," he says.

So he concentrated on subscriptions, which provide more stable revenue. His idea? For $33 a month, send serious collectors packs of two brand-new comics of the same title. One is in all-but-perfect condition (as rated by a company that is universally accepted as the authority on comics) and sealed in hard plastic. The second is unsealed and meant to be read by the subscriber.

Sure, he still buys old collections and combs Craig's List for worthwhile comics for sale. And he knows what to look for. Mortensen pulls a comic from a stack and starts talking like a wine collector at a tasting.

"Nice spine. No folds. Good color." Of another: "Little fold. It's not as fresh as something brand new."

Colossus — which represents a $100,000 investment that the Mortensens funded with credit cards, a credit line, home equity and, of course, comic books — isn't making money, yet. The Mortensens think it can, even if they have to move to a lower-cost area to make the business work. But Steve's passion for comics is back. More important, his passion for work is back, too.

"Steve works all the time," says Dawn, who handles Colossus marketing during 2-year-old Phoebe's sleep and nap times. "But he is relaxed and having so much fun."

The career elevator? Going up.

Mike Cassidy is a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company