Sad one from the industry: Elena Salcedo of Top Cow, who worked her way up from volunteer to VP of Operations, passed away on Thursday.

www.comicsbeat.com/top-cows-elena-salcedo-has-passed-away/

I see that my old boss Len Riggio, CEO of Barnes and Noble passed away. It was a great company to work for, in the 90s and still pretty good, in the early 2000s; but the joy was eroding. Once we got into electronic wars and pressure from shareholders to sell, it got nasty. A lot changed when his brother Steve, who was the president, stepped down to deal with his daughter's health issues. She ultimately passed away and he left the company, in an active role. It seemed to take the heart and soul out of things.

Len was a hard nosed, foul-mouthed tough businessman, but with a passion for books. He started out selling textbooks and remaindered books, at discounted prices and was noted for his loyalty to his employees, who returned that loyalty. From there, he bought the flagship Barnes & Noble store, in New York City, as well as the B Dalton chain. Then, a regional bookseller, Bookstop and Bookstar, who built superstores. They used that model to expand nationally, using the Barnes & Noble name.

Riggio wasn't afraid of a little controversy and he also didn't back down from individuals and groups who tried to intimidate stores into removing books they didn't like. He believed in the First Amendment right of the individual to decide for themselves and he lived it in the stores. At one point, religious conservative radio host Dr James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, started attacking the work of a couple of photographers and told listeners and devotees to go to Barnes & Noble and force them to remove the books, practically inciting violent methods (though never explicitly using that language. We had one of the books, but had never sold it, nor ordered the author's work. Suddenly, people are coming into the store all stirred up about them. We stood our ground. I had one person ask me if I was a parent, to which I replied that had no bearing on the First Amendment. They tried to protest and get media coverage, but the tv stations all knew we were not selling "child pornography." It blew over within a couple of months, when they found another, more pliable dragon. One year, they sent us signs to put up in our window, for Gay Pride Month. B&N always had a large community of openly gay employees and our Gay & Lesbian section was the only such thing in town. The sign said "Barnes & Noble Supports Gay Pride." They were up for about 3 weeks and were due to come down at the end of the fourth, when someone finally voiced offense. I listened to someone say they would never shop in the store again, unless we removed the signs and the books. I heard them speak their piece and responded, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way; but we believe in the First Amendment right of all citizens to decide for themselves what books they want to purchase and read. We support people's right to have pride in who they are and provide books that entertain and enlighten. We will miss you, but we will not remove the books. Have a nice day." The fact that we wouldn't back down led to a member of the community starting a gay & lesbian-oriented weekly newspaper and we had far more compliments from people for being willing to take a stand in support of people,

In the 2004 election, we had conservative groups trying to bait us and other bookstores, claiming liberal bias and that we were refusing to sell the Swift Boat propaganda book, from the ultra-conservative Regnery Press, which was part of Karl Rove's strategy to re-elect George W Bush. Riggio took out a full page ad in the New York Times, stating we were happy to sell the books, whenever the publisher fulfilled the orders we had placed and included samples of the purchase orders. Regnery had been withholding the books, to give first priority to conservative fundraising groups and create a false claim that bookstores weren't selling it. Suddenly, our shipments arrived. Regnery was noted for its questionable marketing tactics, placing books on the best seller lists by having conservative groups place bulk orders, that they used as gifts at fundraisig events and then report those as bookstore sales, to place them on bestseller lists (a tactic that Donald Trump used with his first book, The Art of the Deal), then use that as a marketing tool to try to sell them to a wider audience.

We had people return books from the Goosebumps series because they didn't want their children to read "satanic material." That seemed to include any fantasy work that used "magic." Harry Potter goy some ire, though it was pretty immune from any attempts to try to ban it or protest.

Nook was kind of the tipping point, though it was a battle after Amazon went public. We held our own, for a long time, by providing the books in a physical store, where they could be examined, and good service. Nook, though, cost a lot and forced some management changes that hurt. Shareholders were pressuring to sell ad it got extremely difficult to do your job under that kind of pressure. They started looking at offers and shoring up the books, even though the company was profitable, with bookstore sales offsetting losses with Nook. Suddenly, anyone who was paid better than entry wages was under a microscope, and everything was being questioned. Loyal, tenured employees were suddenly getting criticism. Full time positions were eliminated and annual raises were frozen, for some individuals, who had been with the company for more than 10 years. I was suddenly getting heat from my district manager and having to defend minor decisions. Suddenly, my annual review read differently than the tone of my conversations with the store manager. It was clear what was going on. I had 20 years there and no ambition to run a store and little opportunity to do so, if I had wanted, as people weren't leaving those positions. Loyalty became a deficit. They were administratively stacking the deck to fire tenured employees. I had enough and resigned. They ultimately sold the company.

Riggio was the boss through all of that, so I can't completely fault him for the way it ended, as he fought some of those forces, for a long time. I have my suspicions that he wasn't as involved anymore, in the latter stages, as one of the signals that it was time to leave was the announcement that he was selling a third of his stock, for "estate planning purposes." To me, that said he was looking to retire and sell off and the likely buyers were corporate entities that would further destroy what had been, in favor of a fast buck, piecemealing away the company. I never met Len, but I respected him and he was a better boss than most that I have had, in the corporate world. I have a signed copy of a Terry Pratchett book, thanks to mechanisms he put in place, to energize his managers for the holiday seasons. I got to meet several authors, even in our out of the way part of the country (and state, as Chicago got all the celebrity signings), take part in a signing for a former President of the United States (Bill Clinton), talk about the brand new Nook e-reader, to actor Richard Dreyfuss (a surreal moment), meet Robert Guillame, of Soap and Benson and The Lion King, witness a book signing with the Hell's Angels (Sonny Barger's book), tell a representative from Bridge Publications (the publishing wing of Scientology) to stop badgering my booksellers, give media interviews about the new Harry Potter book, and watch a child's eyes light up when you showed them a book. That was all possible because of Len Riggio's vision.

RIP to NHL player Jonny Gaudreu of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who passed at age 31. He and his brother Mark were killed while bicycling by a drunk driver this week. He and his brother were in NJ to be groomsmen in their sister's wedding Friday (today) and were struck by the intoxicated driver (who was drinking from an open container while driving) of an SUV who tried to pass the vehicle in front of him on the right when that vehicle moved left to avoid the bicyclists.

-M

Just a terrible tragedy for so many people. I can't imagine what the family is going through

For very old-school CBR types Mark Baronner, who posted as SteelTownr, has passed away. He posted a lot in sports threads supporting his Pittsburgh teams and was a Hulk fan.

R.I.P. SteelTownr.

R.I.P. Canadian cartoonist Bernie Mireault.  His death by suicide has been confirmed by his sisters.  I wasn't super familiar with is work, his best known creator-owned work probably being The Jam.  I did absolutely love his art on the Gaiman penned Riddler story that appeared in Secret Origins Special #1.  I think that may be the best Riddler story ever.