On this week’s episode of Off Panel, David welcomes Patrick Brower, co-owner of the Eisner winning comic shop Challengers Comics + Conversation in Chicago. Patrick joins the show to talk about all things retail. That includes how he and business partner W. Dal Bush started the shop, the plusses and minuses of being a retailer, how his team approaches sales, how the diversity of his customer base is changing, the power of Raina Telgemeier, and much more. This is a fitting pair with our retailer survey piece, and if you’re a creator or someone interested in the comic industry, there’s a lot to dig into here.

Patrick is the co-owner of Challengers Comics + Conversation in Chicago. You can find Challengers on the web and you can follow them on Twitter or like them on Facebook.

Have a question for Off Panel? You can reach David by email and Twitter.

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Cover art from “Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.” by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen and “Hellboy” by Mike Mignola. Intro music is Yo La Tengo’s “Periodically Double or Triple”, used with their permission (if they remember…I swear it’s true YLT!).