Black Friday Lessons from Third Eye

No secret, I really love Third Eye Comics in Annapolis. I’ve known about them for years but it is a pretty good hike for me to get down there, so I hadn’t gone. Well, this year I made the voyage and was shocked at the level of awesome in each store. This isn’t meant to be a fan boy post about the store, but it’s going to come off like that. I love the DIY punk scene and I think this store is the personification of that vibe. I hope my art & stories are true to that as well.

For those who don’t know, Third Eye is three stores: a game store (not video games or sports - but pretty much every other kind of game), a comic book store, and a record/book/movie store. Each is really large and you could spend hours just wandering around the stores.

The first time I went was around Christmas 2024. I remember that because of all the punk covered Christmas songs playing. My son loved it. We were rocking hard, keeping it going as we drove home too. Throughout the year we’ve journied out on occassion, but this was our first Black Friday event. The store opened at Midnight and we thought it would be a blast to join in on the fun (my daughter was the main pusher on going at Midnight - I suggested we go at 9am when they opened on Saturday). Yes, it was a ton of fun but, as a business person, I was shocked at the efficiency and delightful experience the team created. I’m going to write about that here and share how its manifesting in my writing business going forward.

Community is the key

Picture this, the store is packed. People are trying to get what they need. Supplies are limited. And some kid is blocking the hallway for you to get what you need. What happens at Walmart? Scoffing. Barking. General angst. I know because that’s exactly what happened at Walmart a few years ago when the same situation occurred.

But that’s not what happened at Third Eye which was like 10x the packed of Walmart. Literally, people were streaming in with a constant flow. I couldn’t believe the number of people coming into the comic book store but it was nothing compared to how awesome and kind the people IN the store were. People were patient as my son stimmed from all the excitement. They said stuff like “Excuse me” and “Yeah man! I’m excited too!” They were excited about how excited he was. My daughter was searching for some graphic novels and people were helping her find them. When we were all in line, we were talking about a special edition graphic novel coming out and the people with me were totally nerding out about the process in which the graphic novel was produced.

It was awesome.

And it happened because community is key. The people at Third Eye love comics/games/books-movies-records. They love people who love these things. Nerds tend to like nerds (I’m a nerd through and through). But I loved how the people supported each other, encouraged the kids, helped people find what they were looking for - and again, I’m talking about customers, not the staff (more on them in a minute). Community is so powerful, helps us connect (a theme often appearing in my stories), and is key to growing the next generation of fans.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m building community among my readers. There’s more to share on this in 2026, but I want to have you all experience connection with each other. To share excitement about the stories, the characters, the settings, I’m really excited to build more community in my readers. In 2026 I have a bunch of in-person and online events I’m planning to spread my stories. One I’m really excited about is a talk I’m giving at the Gettysburg branch of the Adams County Library on February 26th, 2026 (Yes, the day before Authorcon :) ).

What does “I’m being successful” look like? I think it looks like people engaging with each other at events or through posts/comments. I want people to enjoy my stories/art but also enjoy each other with my work being the connective tissue holding them together (to start - then you all meet and build your relationships).

So, more community! I want people to feel how I felt on Black Friday being surrounded by people like me, nerding out, supporting the next gen of fans, and discovering awesome new fandoms.

Team Work makes the Dream Work

I can’t help it. When I’m in a business, my inner consultant comes out and my mind is looking at the business. While my focus is on the operations and technology side of the house normally, I love seeing efficient operations. The Third Eye team did a great job organizing everyone outside in lines based on which store they were going to all while engaging the lines to help route people accordingly (again, that community aspect). Once inside, and out of the cold - it wasn’t terrible, the team members in the stores were checking in to help route people where they were looking to get.

The lines got long fast, but again, the community kept everything in line (pun intended) and working together. We had a “End of Line” sign we kept passing back to help people find the line. People also parted intentionally and gladly at traffic points where people needed to cross. And when I got to the checkout (which was quick) - I saw something that was really awesome. I’m assuming they were managers, kept coming up and checking in on the register staff to see if they needed anything. The check in was efficient, caring, and engaging for both the customer service team and for me to see it.

This made me think, how am I doing this with my team at work? And in my writing, who’s my check-in-er? How am I helping people queue and help each other find their way (yep, back to community)? I’m not much on social media. I’ve tried to use it to grow community, but my heart isn’t there and bluntly I don’t want to feed the algorithms for free anymore. I know this cuts down on my discoverability - but I don’t care. I’d rather slowly grow an engaged community than placate the algorithms. Right now, my energy is going into my newsletter but I’ve been working on growing my blog with content like this. My goal is to be discoverable through search engines and answer engines (that’s what AI systems are being called now-a-days).

So, I’m working on building my newsletter and blogs as tools to help people queue into my world. The comments and surveys are tools to help people communicate with me or (as is the case in blogs) with each other. Seeing the execution of this at Third Eye made me really reflect on how well I’m managing the onboarding sequence and engagement of you all.

How is it navigating my author/artist world? Do you know where to start? Where to find what you’re looking for? Is it easy to get around my world and keep up with what’s going on?

Special Editions based on time and place not just format

Coming into Black Friday, I had something I was looking for - but I didn’t know it existed 2-days before Black Friday. Third Eye sent an email about a special edition called LET THEM EAT that was a Third Eye exclusive. I tried to find it at the store, but turns out it was online pre-order only (I didn’t read the email closely enough :( ). But this got me thinking.

I was already working on a special edition for BLOTS 5th Anniversary, but I hadn’t considered doing a special edition only available at a specific place - like is done at ComicCons. Also, another lesson from the comic world are the variant covers. Often I have a few covers for my books that I kick around and have trouble deciding on which to go forward with. I never really considered just having variant covers like comic books. With my Shopify store, I can do that easily - just need to figure out how to properly manage that with ISBNs.

So I started experimenting on building special editions for THE HUNGER as a test run. Who knows, with GOOD TEENS DIE BAD (which takes place just outside of Annapolis in Eldermarsh, Maryland) - I might see if Third Eye is interested in a signing event where I bring Third Eye special editions. That could be a lot of fun and create some collectable pieces for the fans. I know when I hear of a special piece at a comiccon I always try to get it when it is from artists/writers I like.

Who knows, maybe this will be the start of a special edition craze for me :) Don’t worry fans, I’ll probably always have overstock that you’ll be able to get. Just make sure to keep tied into my newsletter to find out how. https://timkulp.com/newsletter-signup/

Wrapping up this Black Friday Post

I wanted to share how my experience at Third Eye raised questions for myself about my own practices. One final thought before I share my photo dump, next year I’ll probably target getting there between 1:30am and 2am. The lines inside will be longer but they will also be heated :) And ultimately, I’m never really a door-buster type person. I’m good with waiting in line in the store, meeting other nerds, and connecting as we share what we love.

Great job to the Third Eye team. I really appreciated the experience you built for me and my family at midnight on Black Friday. We had a blast and it really helped me think about how I’m approaching my own creative career.

Thanks for hanging out with me on this post! I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit behind the scenes of how my brain works.

Now some photos!