Check Out Edward Greenberg’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Edward Greenberg.

Hi Edward, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Collector’s Paradise came to be in September of 1994, when Edward Greenberg and Joseph Zelich bought an existing comic book store, at the time called Little Angel’s Comics. Little Angel’s business was in shambles, but pogs were keeping it afloat. Its prominent location, on a major intersection, across from two schools and a busy traffic street, was what attracted the new owners to the store. For the next few years, the two tried to refocus the business model of the store and focus more on comic books, the emerging graphic novel category, and customer service. A few years later, the store moved two doors down to a much bigger location and was able to finally become the type of store the owners have always had in mind.

The store changed again dramatically in 2009, when a full-time gallery was opened with an awesome Grand Opening Party, which featured famous comic book and culture artist Jim Mahfood producing a wall-size mural in front of huge crowd. Since then the Winnetka location has hosted Art Gallery Exhibits and sold a wide variety of Original Art and Limited Edition Prints from a wide range of Artists.

In April of 2010, Collector’s Paradise opened its second location in Old Town Pasadena, and the team has been working hard to recreate the signature Collector’s Paradise experience for a whole new comic book audience.

In August of 2019, right before the COVID pandemic started, Collector’s Paradise opened its third location in the heart of the historic NoHo art district. With the studios around it and a large population moving to the area, we are very excited about the future of that location.

This year, founding partner Joseph Zelich retired after 31 years, and one of our long time employees, Nicholas Ignacio, became the newest Collector’s Paradise business partner.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
31 years can not be smooth. We have had many obstacles on the road, from industry struggles in the first year we opened, when many publishers and distributors went out of business, and we survived by selling sports cards and collectible card games like Magic The Gathering and Pokemon. The 2008 financial crisis was very difficult on our industry, which sells very “unnecessary” items that people love but do not need. Covid pandemic really tested us and helped to push us to do better, with more Online business strategies that have been paying off ever since.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Collector’s Paradise has been around for 31 years now, not too many businesses in our industry can say that. We have also been able to successfully copy our business model at three locations. We are the only company in California in our industry to do that. California has a challenging business climate with high rents and high wages, so succeeding three times in a row is not always possible.

We have managed to build a really good community around our stores, with creators, publishers, fans and ourselves coming together time after time with amazing events, charity drives, comic book, toy and food collections for the kids and those in need around the holidays. We have close relationships with many in the creative community around LA, and do a lot to bring those creators to meet their fans at our amazing signings.

We have also managed to create a unique and fantastic corner for ourselves online, with the help of the LA creative community. We have a product on our website that is exceptionally popular with fans all over the world, called Collector’s Paradise Signature Series. (https://comicsandcards.net) that allows fans to pre-order comics from their favorite creators, and have those books signed at zero additional costs, by those creators, and certified by us. That’s unheard in our industry, and we are super proud of being trusted by creators to provide such a service.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
We are in a collectibles industry, it’s all about risk. We order products often months in advance, with our order committing us to that product, often with no recourse if things change in the zeitgeist of collectors. With superhero movies being all the rage and their frequency ever increasing, the consumers move on very quickly from one to the next, and ordering products to match those quickly changing tastes is always risky. As a book store, we also carry very large inventory of all kinds of collectibles, which has inherent risks of natural disasters that can wipe us out as our products is mostly made of paper. We are also in a state that has very little in business protections against predatory practices by those who own the buildings where our stores are located. WE have not had any issues so far, but we always worry about suddenly raised rents and other costs that can drive us out of business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://comicsandcards.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collectorsparadise_pas/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collectors.paradise.stores
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cparadize
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfFF8WvkYhjolE_Pl_pcmUw
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/collectors-paradise-los-angeles?osq=Collector%27s+Paradise
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@collectorsparadise1

Image Credits
All images were taken by us, Collector’s Paradise.