2928 A Matter Of Fifteen Thousand Dollars.

by

Patreon
Subscribestar
Comic Vote
Reddit
Wiki
Presents List
Shirts & such.
Ko-Fi.

This page started a discussion in the editor’s chat about the cost to start a business. My original number for Alex’s loan was 10K, which I thought would be enough to cover nearly all the major purchases and whatnot, based on my experiences with starting businesses. My family was regularly starting businesses with no money. Apparently, in some places, it costs upwards of 70K just to get the ball rolling. At the time the comic takes place that was something like 30K. So I was trying to figure out how the hell people were starting with nothing out in Kansas in the early 2000nds. My mother is the only person still alive to ask and she’s busy right now, so I’ll have to get back to you on that. My answer to the issue was to set Alex’s contribution to 15K and hand wave the rest away with undisclosed contributions from other sources. In my experience at least people find ways to get things done. From a story perspective it really only matters that Alex is willing to go all in for her friends to take a shot at their dreams. I’m still left with a lot of questions about how my family may secretly be really good at business and I just never realized it.

Anyway, I hope you all had a nice start to 2026. I took down my Wonder Woman calendar and put up the new Bob Ross one. I did try to find another WW one to replace the 2025 one with but alas, none were to be had. I don’t think I’ve ever really spoken about it but Wonder Woman is one of my favorite comic characters. In recent years she hasn’t been much fun since the writers have tended to make her brutal and savage rather than heroic, but the version from my youth, and the DC animated universe versions live on in my heart. Generally I don’t pay much attention to wall calendars, but mom places them all over the house, and most years I get one for Xmas. This year she forgot since they have kind of fallen out of favor in the world generally. I only attempted to find a specific replacement for the previous one because the 2025 calendar used very good art compared to what usually ends up in a calendar. I chose the Bob Ross one at the store because the other comic choices were just miserable. 30 days is a long time to look at uninspiring art. Bob Ross paintings aren’t very innovative but they also aren’t offensive. I don’t mean to downplay his skill or the attractiveness of his art. I just mean that you know what you’re going to get with a Bob Ross painting pretty much every time. I did try to look up all the various franchises that I enjoy to see what else was on offer but, like most things right now, the space is awash in AI garbage which I don’t want to actually pay for, and the actual art on offer from the true sources appeared to have been chosen by poorly trained chimps. In any case, for the next 365 days I’ll be spending some glances with ol’ Bob.

Anyway, I’m feeling tired so I’ll leave you with that until Monday, when I return with more adventures of made up people. Until then, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

26 Comments

You should give Absolute Wonder Woman a shot, sounds like the version of the character you’re looking for in the comics

Really? From the outside it looks like absolute shite.

Trust me, it’s better than you’d think. Aside from a cosmetic and origin change, she’s basically the same character from yesteryears.

As I haven’t read it I’ll have to take your word for it for now.

Can confirm, she’s raised in hell by Circe (hence the aesthetic) on an alienate universe rolled by Darkseid, but she’s a heroic character ready to throw hands with something she knows will probably kill her, for humans that don’t appreciate her

Huh. I thought commercial property rent would be way higher than it apparently is. Considering how high residential rents are. (I did a little listing research…)

The question I’d raise about that 15k, in terms of the stated story significance, is…is that really going all in for Alex? Because while that might be a crazy amount of money to most of the cast, it’s actually not so much so to well-off people. I’m not sure how much Alex’s personal financial position has been laid out, but I would have guessed that number wouldn’t be a huge problem for her.

In many areas there’s an artificially short supply of residential properties, hence the high rent. Many small businesses only last a year or two, and quite a few businesses that closed during the pandemic never came back. Combined with some over-building, especially in the early 2000’s, that means a glut of commercial properties. Owners cut rents on the theory that something is better than nothing. Even if they’re losing money it’s better to lose it slower while waiting for the next upturn.

My Mom has some friends who were stock brokers.
Their businesses were near New York City.

She recalls a discussion with them, about one person who invests in stocks, earning $1 million in one year.

Her friends said, in essence:
“Someone using $1 million in the stock market? That’s NOT a lot of money.”

I guess the importance of $1 million can differ- from person to person, and in different businesses.

(My Mom’s friends said this, around 2000, by the way.)

To a brokerage or advisor with with billions under management, I’d imagine a measly million is pretty much pocket change.

You bet.
For some that I’ve seen, investing + spending money, is like that.

Not to cast aspersions on anyone, but- to some- in the USA’s, economic, upper class- [the phrase, casual, spending money] is different from casual…spending money in- the lower class, + in the middle class.

A friend of mine is from, in my words: a wealthy, oil-industry family.

She was once seen at a party, at a casino, + she was casually pulling a large number of $100 bills from her pocket, + putting them into a [$100 for each bet], jackpot machine.

To her, casually spending $100,…or some hundreds of dollars is the same, to her, as buying you: a can of Coke or Pepsi, or buying you a whopper-junior burger. To her, this is a small thing.

These are small expenses to her.
In my view, that’s her good fortune. She earned the money that she’s spending, so, in my opinion- she can do what she wants with it. That’s her decision, IMO.

The phrase, “small amounts of money”, means different things, to people of different incomes, I guess.
Some people can do that, I guess.

I gave up on comics in the late ’80s when most of them started getting too dark for me.

Same here. There were still individual comics runs that were worth the time later on. Astro City was a treat. If you haven’t read it, seek it out. I’d recommend anything by Astro City’s writer/creator Kurt Buisek [sp]. And anything by Alan Moore. I’d also recommend Kingdom Come, which made commentary on the darkness of comics.

Reggie family is of means but he and Victoria are not, and I sorta like how that shows here. He doesn’t act rich. At that age (xyz years ago) I only used a comparative sum on a used car, so I can understand his reaction.

Yet Alex always seems to know what she’s doing, here on the whole “don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose” sense.

PS Does this remind anyone else of the movie “Hitch”?

They aren’t? I though their family was pretty wealthy, owning some large construction company. That’s why their mom is such a terror about them needing to “be better” because they come from something better. I just figured they weren’t spoiled, since at least a construction company is fairly blue-collar and their dad and granddad both personally worked on projects themselves, instead of just sitting in the head office.

It’s been stated in comic by both Reggie and Vicky that while their family is wealthy, (implied by Garrett their father to be the mother’s side while father’s side are construction company owners); Reggie and Vicky are not; because they have to earn the money and so forth. The parents have the money, but they do not give it to the kids for whatever reasons, so the kids have to prove themselves and earn it. The opposite of many families who have wealth and doesn’t have conditions or terms to give their kids money ; ie the trust fund kids.

I don’t usually have a calendar up, but this year I’m planning on buying two, actually! One for my office and one for the kitchen. Hopefully having notes in plain sight will help the household keep track of who goes where and when. Now I just have to decide on a design… Anyway, I love how much Reggie and Alex contrast each other. Both came from homes with plenty of money, but while Reggie can’t understand giving that money away, Alex did so with no reservations or regrets. I love that Reggie is learning and growing from her, but I hope that there are things Alex learns and grows from by being with Reggie.

In the late 1980’s I started a small used bookshop for about $15000 plus a lot of sweat equity (built my own bookshelves, paneled the store, installed the AC myself, etc.). It helps that my inventory could be purchased cheap at estate sales and garage sales and the like. Today I’d guesstimate I’d need 3-4x that to start again, at the least.

I like both this comic and your blog, because I relate to both. Its hard bordering on impossible to start a business without a lot of cash. Sure people sometimes turn side hustles into full jobs, but those are the exception that prove the rule. And banks (aside from being risk averse) are not big on small loan amounts, especially for businesses. Getting a $15-20k business loan would be much harder than say $200k.

We use wall calendars, or specifically one big wall calendar on the fridge, because its a nice central place to note all our stuff. Appointments, school events, social stuff, it all goes on the calendar and we can see what we are getting into at a glance. It was hard for my wife to convince me, but a few years in and we trying to find cool calendars every December.

For the last several years I’ve been buying an Alchemy Gothic wall calendar. It’s not like I need a calendar, but I like the artwork. (I hang one from a few years ago in my bedroom, purely for decoration.) I also get my annual “365 Stupidest Things Ever Said” page-a-day. Also not very useful, but often amusing.

So this comic still takes place in the 2000s, and you’re not updating the year to whenever new chapters comes out? Unique, I guess.
I knew Alex was rich.

It seems to stick to the 2000s, yes. Before certain kinds of social media. I can easily see Jessie getting started onto what would become Patreon, or something very similar age-wise…before Onlyfans blew up/became a big thing. This is also before Bitcoin, something I could also see one of the characters parents commenting and someone investing and then bam well-off by 2025, married, probably a couple little crotch gremlins running around

Leave a Reply to Kate Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.