Last year I had the pleasure of meeting with Jim Mortensen, owner and manager of Comix Revolution and see his beautifully designed store.  It really worked for me.  Not only does the place look good, but he has a discerning eye for great books.  Thanks to him I now have a deep lusting for all the Art Of books from the Studio Ghibli Library… I had not seen them before this…

He also found that our books broadened his customer base to include graphic designers and digital art connoisseurs.  This is great to hear!

In the shot below, it was great to see Ballistic front and center when people first walk in, and if you look closely towards the end of the room, there is a doorway leading to a second room where there was a fantastic collection of art books, where the rest of our list lives.  The whole shop just works so well!

Front table display featuring Exotique 1 & 2 and Jim!

And here is an action shot of the store and its fans, settling in for some serious browsing in front of that groovy new release wall…

"One down, 400 to go..."

And of course there is Jim!

Boffins is this gorgeous, sleek, art and design/technical  bookstore  which I wish was one of my local haunts.  Not only do they love our books, but they do stunning window displays featuring us.  A little while ago they sent some photos of the shop, and I really like how they were having some fun with it all!  Thanks for sending these along, Marjorie!

I also get a very strong sense that the Boffins team really love their store, and it really shows!  Next time you are in town make sure you stop in to say hi…  I hope I can get over there later this year myself once the next round of books hit the scene…

"I wonder if she enjoyed Elemental 3 as much as I did?"

"Now those are some cool lookin' books..."

Forbidden Planet NYC was cool when I lived in NYC in the early 90’s and it is even cooler now.  I used to spend far too much time here in my early collector days, mainly looking for The Tick and TMNT comics, as well as obscure science fiction novels.  Sadly all those gems have been reabsorbed back into the cosmos, but when I first got back into their Broadway store, it was like stepping back into my 20’s.  I was there for a sales call during my first trip to the US in almost 15 years, and it was very hard to actually focus on the job at hand.  Every isle called, loudly I might add, for my immediate attention. How do you walk away from a whole wall of Cerebus collections?

I was meeting Jeff Ayers, buyer and manager, and I was completely blown away by his enthusiasm and delight for our books!  Ballistic had found its home in NYC!

Two years down the track, massive window displays and hundreds of books sold, FPNYC is my champion. I really can’t thank them enough for their fantastic support!

Jeff diggin' Character Modeling 2

I came across this at Oscars Art Books website and feel compelled to plonk this in here! Very funny but soberingly true…

The second entry in our acclaimed Ballistic Publishing movie series, Expose 7. Come see why we love these books so much!

I am delighted to present the first video presentation for Ballistic Publishing. Here I give an overview of the fantastic books Ballistic has created. And of course, the glory goes to Paul Ryan our film director!

Hennessey & Ingalls Hollywood

Here is the striking latest edition of the Hennessey and Ingalls bookstore empire, right in downtown Hollywood.

I love these stores. They are smart, stylish (as you would expect from the country’s leading art and architecture book specialist), and I automatically feel groovier just walking into the place.

H&I Santa Monica has been around for years, under the watchful eye of Brett Hennessey, a man with a keen sense of the book trade.  In November last year, Brett went against the doom and gloom gripping the country and opened up a second store in Hollywood.  It was a masterstroke and formally stamped his authority 0n the LA book scene.

And another reason I am excited about this new location is that it is now one of the leading Ballistic resellers in the world!

So, next time  you happen to be in LA, I highly recommend this as a must-see destination.  I could easily have spent my whole trip there, gleefully bankrupting myself in the animation art section…

Here are some more interior shots:

H&I Hollywood Interior 3

H&I Hollywood Interior 2

I am really enjoying Twitter. I am meeting some amazing stores out there that after all this time I have not come across before, even when I do google searches for bookstores.

But I have also found quite a few of our existing resellers completely embracing this brave new world, and I must say I really like tweeting out about them.

Stores like Kinokuniya in Sydney, Powells, Forbidden Planet NYC, Midtown Comics, Infinitas Bookshop, Vromans, Third Place Books, Ellison Hawker, and I am waiting to find more!

If you are not already on Twitter, give it a run! It is surprisingly easy and I bet there are countless little announcements you can make about what’s going on at your store… just beware…it is highly addictive!

I have my own Twitter account, @alanhalsted, which I spend too much time in meeting the artistic community, and Ballistic have also entered the fray with a dedicated company entity, @ballisticmedia.  Come and follow us and we will definitely follow you back, as well as introduce you to our artistic community and fans.

Ahhh!  The very first Ballistic reseller blog, from which all the light and energy of this amazing publishing company shines upon the world…

It all starts with a movie, well two really, and a vision to link and enlighten our resellers.

Stay tuned for more…