jigsaw jones

comics, reportage, Ben/John Jones

March, 2006. I actually plan to pitch this somewhere. I know, I know, I'm such an idealistic young kid...
edit: this will appear in the July issue of the Comics Journal (as if by magic). really, I'm not lying.

John Jones plugs in the light under the hand painted sign outside his store so passersby can read: “jigsaw. affordable art, shoestring media, zines and comics, obscure bands.” Then he starts to get ready for his last party. It’s cold this weekend, and the radiator is wheezing and rattling as he straightens the books on the shelves, re-stocks the bar, takes out the trash. He sighs when he starts and finishes each task, as he resigns himself to the idea, then is relieved when it’s finished. Jones, 31, is a little goofy and childlike, with a baby face and dimples, and a mess of wavy brown hair that he yanks straight up in a fist when he’s concentrating. You might expect a comics store owner to be kind of greasy, with long hair and a dirty T-shirt, but Jones dresses up for work: thick-rimmed glasses, button-up shirts, nice slacks and wingtips – even though work is just upstairs. He sleeps in the shop’s basement, just below the retail space. It’s the only way he could afford to have his dream store in New York City. “It was always kind of a weird thing that I wanted to do,” he says. “I had all of these different interests, and I thought, why don’t I just try to combine them all? Hence the name.”
Jigsaw is an expression of his personal vision, the piecing together of different parts of his life in a unique way. It’s part small-press comics store, indie novel and magazine shop, art gallery, concert venue, open bar and sometimes living room. Or rather, it was. Now the metal gate below the hand painted sign at 526 East 11th Street is down and locked. The lukewarm response to the store and the high cost of living in New York have forced John Jones and Jigsaw to move to Durham, North Carolina at the beginning of April.
“I thought, why not just go somewhere and get a cheaper, bigger place in a city that is perhaps in need of a little more blue in their red?” He pauses. “Where I could make it more purple at least.” He wanted to find a place without a comics store, where he could make a difference in the local culture without having to teach people what a comic is – and where he could afford the space for a broader inventory and his own apartment. He found a prime location in the Durham “Anti-Mall,” a converted warehouse that already houses a vintage clothing and furniture store, a coffee shop and a concert venue. He didn’t even have to ask the owners: as soon as he mentioned he ran a comics shop in New York, they pointed to an empty stall and suggested he move to Durham. He needed only the afternoon to decide – yes. “It was fate saying, yeaah, okay,” he says, gesturing with his hands and smiling. “Go.”
His last weekend in New York, February 24 and 25, is a relatively tame ending to Jigsaw’s geek chic history of late nights fueled by liquor, art and indie rock. The store’s closing coincides with the first New York Comic-Con, which means two back to back book releases and industry types filling Jigsaw on its last Friday and Saturday nights. A few fans are still convinced the move is some elaborate April Fool’s joke, that come the first, John Jones will roll up the metal gate on Jigsaw around noon as usual. Others are just sad, annoyed, both. There’s nothing like this in New York, they say: it’s not a pristine Soho gallery, or nerdy comics shop, or dingy indie rock venue, or East Village watering hole in the wall. It’s not really anything they’ve seen before. And he was just gaining momentum. “I don’t see this as ‘the end’ like they do,” he says. “One of the reasons I did the shop in the first place was to show people it could be done.” With only a little research into business structure, a short-term lease, and some start-up capital, Jones thinks, anyone could open their own shop. “It just takes being stupid enough to actually do it.”
But instead he seems to have proven that it can’t be done, that it’s virtually impossible for even the most driven and visionary impresario to pull off a project like this in New York City.

John Jones refers to the Durham move as “the move back south”: he grew up in nearby Charlottesville, Virginia, where his mother still lives. He’s more comfortable in the South than in New York City, where he moved on a whim in 2003, after a rough divorce. He didn’t quite know what his next step would be. He’d worked at Barnes and Noble, made his own mini comics and paintings, wrote three novels for National Novel Writing Month. There was too much he wanted to do. He finally decided to bring all of his passions together, and in the process, bridge the gap between creators and fans by hosting events where the two could mingle. In June ’04, Jigsaw was born.
The space is tiny – only about 50 people can cram in at a time without suffocating – but Jones somehow makes it aptly comfortable and homey. There’s a black leather couch by the shelves, and the register counter in the back doubles as a bar for parties. He chooses the stock for the store based on his own personal preferences. There’s nothing on the shelves that he hasn’t read at least once – most, several times. “It’s kind of a weird trust exercise to ask someone to spend 12, 15, 20 dollars on something they might not like just because it’s what I’ve handpicked,” he says. For that reason, he avoids the hard sell. At most, if he notices a customer is lingering a while and seems interested in the products, he’ll try to play matchmaker, asking what their favorite books and comics are and trying to find something he thinks they’ll like. “I’ve only had one person bring something back and say they really didn’t care for it.”
But the daytime sales are only a piece of Jigsaw. Jones has hosted pumpkin carvings and film debuts, along with the requisite book release parties and art openings – one complete with a go-go dancer. When the shop first opened, he hosted open mic ‘Jigsawlons.’ There were even small concerts, despite all odds. “We had to tip the couch up on end just to fit them in.” Some of the parties drew up to 300 people, filling Jigsaw for five solid hours as the crowd rotated in and out of the shop. Throughout the past two years, he’s brought nearly every kind of art into the space at one point or another. And the events in turn brought in the bulk of the store’s customers: they were drunk and their inhibitions were down, and Jones didn’t need the hard sell to get them to buy some comics or artwork.
In its first month, Jigsaw turned a profit. But ever since then, sales have been steadily slipping. Businesses across the East Village have taken a hit, and many of the independent stores that sprung up optimistically after 9/11 are cutting back their hours or closing altogether. “The neighborhood got too big for its britches. It tried to become Greenwich Village,” he says. “Now it’s economically impossible to succeed unless you’re a bar.” Jones says it’s gotten even worse in the last six months: most days go by without any customers. The product stopped moving, and the problem became self-perpetuating: when stock is stale, the most loyal patrons don’t come by as often to see what’s new. Even the events aren’t bringing in the sales they once did. Lately there’s been an increase in small donations from people who feel guilty that they can’t afford to buy a piece of art or even a book, but don’t want to just take the free alcohol.
The last two walk-in customers come Friday evening, the second to last day of Jigsaw New York. When Jones sees them, he calls out hello and nonchalantly makes his way to the back of the store behind the register/bar counter. The customers, two hipster guys in head to toe black, flip through the comics for nearly fifteen minutes. One of them reads an entire book. “This is great,” he comments to no one in particular. “I should get it for my sister.” But instead he checks his watch and reminds his friend that they have to meet someone at a nearby bar. As they leave, he calls out “Thank you.” Jones responds, “We’re having some events here later tonight if you’re interested.”
“Events?” The hipster looks confused.
“From 8 to 11, a book release, open bar.”
“Oh, okay,” the hipster says, still puzzled. “Thanks.” They don’t come back.

Jigsaw begins to fill up a few hours later with editors, publishers, creators, and others involved in the comics business. There’s Chris Staros, head of Top Shelf Comics, which publishes indie comic sweethearts Craig Thompson and Jeffrey Brown, and Heidi MacDonald, comics journalist, blogger and gossip queen. A little over 100 people show up over the course of the evening, even though it’s 7 degrees outside and the L train isn’t working, leaving Jigsaw a 15 minute walk from the closest subway station. People’s thick-rimmed glasses steam up when they come inside from the cold.
“Wait, what is this?” one 20-something in a long trench coat asks his friend.
“It’s just kind of … what it is,” the friend offers.
The store is buzzing with compliments for “Crazy Papers,” Jim Dougan and Danielle Corsetto’s debut graphic novel, but people seem to be more interested in Jigsaw and the news that tomorrow is its closing day. Even some of Jones’ good friends are hearing this for the first time. The long trench coat laments that he didn’t discover the shop sooner.
A little after midnight, Jones turns off all the lights. Someone asks him why. “I like disappearing into the shadows like a ninja,” he says. The last people leave around 1. John Jones gets three hours of sleep.
The next evening is a little rougher than expected. The New York Times runs an article on the Comic-Con and mentions John Jones and Jigsaw – and the public party with open bar, beginning at 7 p.m. Even with the L train out of commission and a wind-chill of 9 degrees, there’s a palpable dread about how many people will show up.
In the end, it’s only a few dozen more than the previous evening, but this crowd feels rash and desperate. Brendan Deneen and Szyman Kudranski, creators of the new comic “Scatterbrain,” decide to give their books away for free: it’s too much trouble to sell, and who wants to cart all the extras home? Most of the crowd is employed in the entertainment industry, and every few minutes someone mentions this as “the Weinstein Company party.” People are making last ditch efforts to network and seal deals over cigars in front of the store. No one really talks about the end of Jigsaw – they accept the inevitability, the pointlessness of complaining. Everyone seems more interested in the liquor than the comics. By 2 a.m., patrons who started the evening drinking Stella have moved on to tall cans of Pabst bought at the deli next door. In the end, Jones has to kick everyone out around 4. He stays in bed for the next two days, dreaming of a real kitchen, a living room, “and a bedroom with a door.”