A small Support the Troops story (with comic books)

I run a small internet based company which offers short run printing for comic books. Indie and small press comic artists often have a hard time scraping together the cash to afford even the minimum print run from traditional printers, so two years ago I started a company that caters to these creators. In addition to printing their books for them, we also offer them the option of making their comics available in the store on our website. While we're not cranking out the volume of the big comic book companies, we feel like we are giving back to the creative community and helping these alternative folks get their work out there.

Months ago, we filled a store order for 5 or 6 comics going to a reader who (as it turns out) was a soldier stationed in Georgia. The books shipped to his base here in the states - but in the meantime, he shipped off to Iraq. Well, apparently this began a race across the dessert sands, with this poor guy's cache of comic books trying to find him in Iraq - a journey which ended back at our offices in NJ yesterday with the package of comic books finally giving up and returning to us.

We emailed him to let him know we got the books back, and the email exchange between the soldier and our office follows:

Us: "If you let me know where to send them I would be happy to get fresh new copies into the mail for you. (No reason to send these travel-weary copies back out into the world ;)"

and his answer was really sweet. He gave me the new delivery address and said:

Soldier: "Now keep in mind that those comics you have are war veterans. They have been to Iraq and made it back unharmed. Treat them with respect and thanks for keeping me up to date."

It made a lot of us here in the office tear up.

We thanked him for his patience, and went on to offer him additional store credit to thank him for the job he was doing. As our Customer Service Manager put it in her email back to him, "You know, you've been so great about this and we really want to thank you for the job you guys do - (we gave him his credit here). No matter where people stand on the war, we all support you guys and the least we can do is send you some great reads!"

his response: "WOW! That's awesome and it's people like you that make it a little bit more bearable to be gone from home defending the ideals that make my country so great. I'm headed over to the site now ... (etc etc)."

- - - - -

This is just a small story but it really hit home to me. No matter what anyone thinks of this damned war, I'll never let anyone paint liberals as being anti-troops. Especially when this guy is so far from home, and just wants to read some comic books.

...you should post a link to your site, if the moderators are OK with it.

I purposely didn't include even the name of the company in my post, because I really just wanted to tell the story about a soldier and his comics - and how a very liberal company has nothing but love for our soldiers and the incredibly difficult job they're doing over there. (Regardless of how much we hate the war itself).

The name of our company is ComiXpress, and if you like you can check out the site at www.comixpress.com ... but if anyone feels me mentioning this here is inappropriate, or if any Moderator wants to remove the company name and link, please do so. I honestly wasn't posting this story to drum up traffic for a website - I just wanted to share what I felt was a very cool story about one of our soldiers. :)

I'm with a group that has been getting magazines and books to send to Iraqi veterans in VA hospitals. It's amazing how many copies of Al Franken, Bill Mahrer and the Jon Stewart book we get...and also for copies of the Nation...anything other than the standard stuff the military "approves". For many, it's a way to escape the hours of treatment and rehab and to have something of their own to hold onto in an environment where privacy is at a premium.

Be assured that the Repugnicans will not only do little to help these veterans (look at how they've already cut funding and support), but they'll be the first to ignore these people as a reminder of their own disasterous war (and wanna bet many of these asshats will never admit their sins) using these poor fractured souls as their scapegoats. It's not only a "great opportunity", but our obligation to help these people in whatever way we can to make their lives a little bit better.

Thanks for sharing this letter and please keep us posted on how your project moves along...maybe this is the thing that a lot of DU'ers can get behind and will show in a very special way there are Americans who appreciate and care.

Cheers...

Tell you what... you want a story that will make the papers?

Hang on to those comics. When the guys finally gets home, redeliver those travel weary comics to him in a small display case, so that those "war veterans" of yours can finally complete their mission. Sending them on that last mission, and into the care of another veteran is probably the best respect you can give them.

Oh by the way... as it so happens I am an artist in the market of a good printing service (good= read; cheap) could you please send me some info about your company. Location, rates, max resolution , size etc.