If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?

If I’m being completely honest, the obvious answer would probably be photography.

I love photography.

It’s gone from being something I did with my phone, wandering around taking pictures of anything that caught my eye, to something I genuinely want to get better at.

Nature.

Birds.

Beaches.

People.

Events.

The occasional photograph that makes me stop and think, bloody hell, I actually took that.

I’ve even started doing photography work at events, and there’s something rather lovely about being able to turn something you enjoy into something people are willing to pay you for.

So yes.

If I was being sensible…

A photography business.

Easy.

Except…

I think I’d love to own a comic book shop.

Yep.

A comic book shop.

Because apparently being a bloke in his fifties who already has far too many hobbies, books and bits of geekery apparently isn’t enough.

I need premises.

And stock.

And shelves.

Lots and lots of shelves.

I’ve loved comics and graphic novels for years.

I’ve rambled before about how Watchmen was my first graphic novel and how that started a lifelong love affair with comic books.

And the more I think about it, the more I realise that owning a comic shop wouldn’t really be about selling comics.

Not entirely.

It would be about creating somewhere people actually want to go.

A proper little geeky Aladdin’s cave.

Comics.

Graphic novels.

Maybe some collectables.

Games.

A few bits of nostalgia.

Somewhere you could walk in looking for the latest issue of something and end up having a forty-minute conversation about Batman.

Or Transformers.

Or why the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were considerably better than they had any right to be.

Somewhere you could discover comics for the first time.

Somewhere adults could rediscover the things they loved when they were younger.

And somewhere people could simply geek out without having to explain themselves.

I think I’d like that.

There’s something quite appealing about having a little shop that feels like your place.

Not some huge corporate business.

Just a little independent shop, run by a bloke who probably knows far too much about fictional characters and not nearly enough about accounting.

So maybe photography is the sensible answer.

It’s something I’m passionate about.

Something I’m already doing.

Something I’m increasingly taking seriously.

But the comic shop?

That’s the one that makes me smile when I think about it.

And perhaps that tells me something.

Because sometimes the business you could build isn’t necessarily the business you’d love to build.

And if I ever do open one…

You’ll probably find me behind the counter with a camera around my neck, a comic in my hand, and absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Which, if we’re being honest, is pretty much how I approach most things.

Stay safe,

BC