An Interview with Jimmy Pearson
BUILDING A CULT EMPIRE
An interview with George and Claire Lennox
By Douglas Owen
George and Claire Lennox are living the dream. Three years ago they
opened an online comic book store and stocked new and backlog
comics. Now, after building a successful eBay business, they are
venturing forth and, together with artist James Devlin, are willing
to expose us to their unique brand—Cult Empire.
SP!: TELL OUR READERS A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF.
GL: At a young age, I collected a lot of comics, and I wanted to be
an illustrator back then, growing up. I always had stories and one
night, way back in 1989, watching old movies, I thought it would
be great to see zombies in Vietnam. I started drawing the next day
and wrote a mini script for Vietnam Zombies. Nothing ever came
of VZ, as I went on to do different things, but I still had my original
script. When I was in school I always wanted to work in the comic
book industry, but after a visit to the career counselors, the teachers told me, and I quote, “Stop dreaming, son; you need to do a real
job.” I went on to be a mechanical engineer, working in the defense
industry, but I always felt I would end up doing something else.
Like most people, you get on with life and don’t look back on the
past then I met my wife Claire in 2007 through friends of friends.
We later got married in Italy 2009 and, in 2011 and 2013, we had
our two boys, Thomas and George.
SP!: GEORGE, WHAT MADE YOU STRIKE OUT AND START YOUR
OWN ONLINE COMIC BOOK STORE?
GL: It was when Claire and I got engaged. In 2007, we were saving
hard for our wedding and I thought I would sell my vintage toys
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SELF PUBLISHER MAGAZINE 2014