Eggs Milk Butter is East London’s first comic book shop and cafe, specialising in brownies, coke floats and other such delicious Americana, as well as stocking a small but well-selected collection of comic books, graphic novels and small press. We sat down with Jessica and Milo, the excellent ladies behind the project, to find out what it takes to start, run and maintain London’s most exciting new comic book shop.
SIMON How does Eggs Milk Butter fit in to the already quite healthy London comic book shop scene? Why does Eggs Milk Butter exist?
JESS Well, because we wanted to sell coffee at the same time? I guess we wanted it to be a more friendly and welcoming space that people could come and sit and relax in, because I always feel like if I’m in a shop I should be shopping.
TOM So you want people to interact with the comics?
JESS Exactly, and, as has happened a few times actually, sit and discuss the comics with the people that are in here.
TOM How long had you been planning Eggs Milk Butter?
MILO I’d been looking to open a shop and cafe. I wasn’t too sure what we’d sell [Jess laughs] but I thought nice books and things, and then I found this place and, I’d been friends with Jess for a long time, but someone told me that Jess was like, “Oh, I specifically want to open a comic book shop cafe,” and I thought, “Oh good, I have this here.” [laughter]
SIMON How did that turn in to the shop actually coming together? How difficult was it to find the funding you needed?
JESS We had to wait ages and ages for the building to be done on this place, because when Milo bought it it was completely ramshackle. That was about two years ago. Then I tried to get money off a bank, but the bank said no.
TOM Global recession, innit.
JESS Had a little cry. Had a panicked phone call with my parents, “Maybe I could go in to advertising?”
TOM You disgust me. [laughter]
JESS I know, right! I actually had been offered a job as a project manager for an advertising company. Then I went to Hackney Business Ventures who’d been helping me write my business plan all along. You had to go and do this Dragon’s Den panel thing where you have to stand up in front of them, and because they didn’t understand that me and Milo wanted to be in business together but all the debt would be mine and all the shop would be Milo’s, that didn’t make any sense to them, so I had to go on my own and be like, “So, comics.”
They went on about how it was for kids, “You’re basically wanting to open up a kid’s shop then aren’t you, like Airfix models or something. Do you think Airfix models are going to be popular again?” [laughter] and I thought, “What are you talking about? I’m talking about selling comics here, man.” They thought it was ridiculous, but after me sweating profusely in this very nervous situation, they eventually said yes and gave us the loan to open this place.
SIMON What’s your background with comics? Have you been reading them for a long time?
JESS Well, I did make and self-publish a couple of comics [including the excellent Steak Night]. Who hasn’t, hey? I guess I was always really in to Love and Rockets and Adrian Tomine, and obviously The Beano, but does The Beano really count?
SIMON Of course.
JESS Someone got into this discussion with me the other day. When you say “I was in to comics when I was younger,” do you immediately assume that means The Beano or does The Beano count as a separate entity? These are the wild conversations that happen in Eggs Milk Butter every day. [laughter]
SIMON What about you, Milo?
MILO I used to read loads of manga and stuff when I was a kid growing up in Japan. Embarassing stuff like Dragonball.
SIMON Nothing embarrassing about Dragonball.
MILO Kid’s manga when I was really young was just everywhere, all the time, all the Shonen Jump kind of things. Then we moved over here and me and my little brother went to comic book shops and read proper teenager kid comics like all the Batman, all the Marvel things like that, and we liked Deadpool and the really awful goth comics like all the Jhonen Vasquez things. Classic teenage stuff.
I kind of stopped when I ran out of time and went to uni, but still read them a bit with my brother and still do like comics, but haven’t been that in to it for a little while.
SIMON How has all of that fed in to what you decided to stock at Eggs Milk Butter? You have a limited amount of space here.
JESS I always wanted it to be as broad a selection as was possible to offer in the space, as well as including a lot of stuff that I knew me and Milo could sell ourselves. As the place has been open it’s become more and more apparent that going with our gut is the right way to go, because it means we can be like, “Yeah, you should buy this!” because so many people come in and just go, “I want to read a comic.”
MILO That’s the thing, I think this shop specifically is like a starter’s comic book shop. We’re not here to give you the special edition of anything. We’re just trying to get people interested in reading interesting things.
SIMON What kind of comics have you been selling to the people of Dalston who come in for coffee, then?
JESS I’ve sold a lot of copies of My Friend Dahmer. Weirdly sold a lot of Buffy. We sold loads of The Hive and X-ed Out, but that’s because it came out at the same time we opened. Sold a few issues of the monthly Prophet, which I really wasn’t expecting. We’ve got in a few monthlies now and that’s definitely the one that’s selling the best, other than Adventure Time.
TOM What’s surprised you by not selling as well as you’d expected?
MILO No Spider-Man.
JESS One Spider-Man. I thought we’d sell more copies of Jimmy Corrigan but I guess it’s a bit old now.
SIMON Do people come in knowing about comics and wanting to check the place out or do you find that more people are just coming in for a coffee not expecting there to be comics on sale?
MILO I think the number of people who come in to buy comics is on the up because people find out about you slowly. At first it was literally just people walking past who were like, “Oh, so what’s this? Oh, I’ve heard about Maus before.”
SIMON How long have you been open now?
JESS Nearly two months.
SIMON Do you have regulars yet?
JESS We have loads of regulars. What we really like is the kids who come in. They know our names and they’re like “Hi Jess, hi Milo!” There was a kid who came in with his dad, his name’s Felix, he comes in all the time, and Felix was stood there and he looked like he was going to burst. His dad was like, “Go on, tell her,” and I was like, “What is it? What is it?” Felix just couldn’t get it out, and then his dad went, “Felix watched Empire Strikes Back today and he wanted to let you know.” [laughter]
SIMON Was that on your recommendation?
JESS No, we’d just been discussing Star Wars at length.
SIMON Do you get local families bringing their kids in to hang out?
JESS Local families, yeah. There was a very adorable moment as well when Merlin and Simone were sat with their dad.
SIMON Merlin and Simone?
JESS Merlin and Simone, they live two doors down that way. They were sat with their dad and it was Sunday evening and he got them hot chocolates and they had cookies and then he bought a Tintin book and sat and read the Tintin to them. Both of us swooned and thought, “All is right with the world.”
TOM Lucky Merlin.
JESS It’s nice that we’re trusted members of the community now. The parents are happy to send their kids in here without them.
SIMON What events do you have coming up at Eggs Milk Butter?
JESS We want to do a lot of kids events and do evening story-times. I’ve also got a plan where you two read Tintin to them.
SIMON I think we could do that. I do Tintin’s voice and Tom does Haddock, right?
JESS Yes! And in January on Burns Night we want to have a Charles Burns night.
SIMON Nice. In the longer term what more is there to come from Eggs Milk Butter?
MILO We’re going to make soup. [laughter]
JESS We want to do other things with the food. We want to have more and more events because they are a lot of fun.
MILO We’ve still got a few shelves to fill.
JESS We’ve also been thinking about doing, because we’ve got an enormous disabled loo that we had to have for health and safety reasons, we were thinking of using it as a gallery space. As in, getting people to just draw straight on to the walls in there. So that’s something we’re thinking about doing, the gallery loo, because we haven’t got much wall space out here.
TOM Which current comics and cartoonist are you in to right now?
JESS Well, as much as when I originally decided I wanted a comics and coffee shop I thought it would be so awesome, I’d just read comics all day, I haven’t read a single one since we opened because I spend all my time doing spread sheets and making coffee. The last thing I really enjoyed though was The Survivalist by Box Brown, that was awesome, and My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf.
MILO I’m a pretty big fan of reading some Sweet Tooth [by Jeff Lemire].
JESS I’ve always been a big Jeff Lemire fan. Up until about a week ago there was a Jeff Lemire shrine happening where we had everything of his on just one shelf.
SIMON What did you think of his new book, The Underwater Welder?
JESS Still haven’t read it. I told you, I haven’t read anything since we opened. [laughter]
MILO I’m half way through it. Thus far I don’t feel like it’s particularly exciting. Sweet Tooth’s pretty apocalyptic. [The Underwater Welder] kind of feels a bit like, you know loads of comic books are, “Oh this struggling man, he had a dream about his dead father.” That’s all that’s happened so far [laughter]
JESS You should just get Milo to write your reviews for you.
MILO I’m only half way through. Something may change. His father may not be dead at all!
SIMON Well, thanks very much for your time guys. Anything else you want to say about the store?
JESS COME TO EGGS MILK BUTTER, IT’S AWESOME!
Eggs Milk Butter is situated at 192 Southgate Road, London and is open Tuesday to Sunday every week.
Photography by Joe Nigel Coleman and Ruthie Penfold
Simon & Tom