If you’ve been following Artimorean for any amount of time, you're probably aware that we used to be a coloring book company. We were doing pretty well for ourselves too, with a handful of employees and a growing catalog of classic coloring books. Business was on the upswing, coloring books were growing in popularity, and we were able to source and restore vintage books from the 1920s and 30s that were once thought lost entirely.
Then, everything changed. When Eric, our fearless leader and owner of Artimorean, found a scroll in the park while walking his dog, he was amazed and bewildered. The scroll had been written by a local transient wizard and immortal magician named J.R. Fleming who lived in that very park. Eric read the scroll with excitement before rushing back to the office to show all of us.
That day, Eric began to correspond with J.R. using birds that had begun to appear at our office each morning. Soon, we were receiving a daily scroll filled with ramblings and suppositions about an upcoming war between demons, aliens, and humanity.
Eric quickly became a devotee of J.R. Fleming's new religion called The Guiding Golden Way, and even converted a few of the employees. Within a month, Eric and his small cohort had become completely obsessed. They began to dress in robes, stopped cutting their hair, and adorned themselves with golden amulets and crystals. Eric's office was transformed from a tidy respectable workspace into something that looked like the break room of a headshop run by psychics. Orbs, crystals, and golden implements of all sorts filled the room. The door was removed in lieu of a bead curtain, and overhead lighting was replaced with lava lamps. Eric no longer took calls or emails, choosing instead to meditate in his office.
Shortly after this, Eric was able to convince J.R. Fleming to sign a fifteen book deal. According to J.R. The books had already been written but would need to be translated from the Ancient Language into English.
That's when we hired world-famous translator Angela Noseweasel and got to work. The birds began to arrive every day with new scribblings on bits of paper that J.R. had found in the park.
Eric immediately scrapped the legacy coloring book business model and the entire catalog of books was swiftly removed from our website.
Our inventory of thousands of coloring books simply sat in the warehouse for months while employees pleaded with Eric not to go down this particular route, but it was no use. Artimorean pivoted to focus primarily on the books written by J.R. Fleming, on psychic phenomena, interdimensional cosmic warfare, and high-level Bigfoot research.
Soon, though, we found ourselves staring straight down the barrel of corporate bankruptcy. We had published only four of J.R. Fleming's books - The Guiding Golden Way, Top Secret CIA Documents Reveal Evidence of Demonic Intervention in U.S. Elections, Bigfoot Lives! And He Is An Immortal Magician Living Deep Below the Earth's Surface, and Psychic Sex Aliens Exist, and we had barely made any sales.
Despite Eric's enthusiasm for this new business model, our customers didn't bite. We had spent years cultivating repeat customers who eagerly spent their money with us every time we restored and published a new book. Switching gears and focusing only on esoteric books about a strange new religion made our customers feel alienated and betrayed. We got many angry letters and emails expressing disapproval. Undeterred, Eric insisted on staying the course.
Eventually, costs began to add up, and our warehouse had essentially become a dusty pile of unsold inventory. Warehouse workers had so little work to do, they began to play games and ride bicycles or rollerblade in the warehouse to pass the time. Artimorean was days away from liquidation with a plan to shred our remaining inventory to sell as rabbit bedding. But then, the warehouse fires started.
At first it was an isolated incident. The restroom spontaneously burst into flame. We reprimanded the warehouse employees for playing around too much, but once more fires continued to pop up around the warehouse and office, we began to suspect something more nefarious.
Round after round of insurance claims started to build up to the point that we were accused of starting the fires ourselves!
Then, one day we got a notification. Turns out, the fine folks at 1-900 Hot Dog dedicated an episode to Bigfoot Lives!
"Pretty neat!" we thought, then went about our business of liquidating the company. But then, the next day we got another notification. Then another. Then another. They were sales notifications. Bigfoot Lives! was flying off the shelves. We sold over 200 copies the first day, and by the end of the first week, we had sold out of our inventory completely. Robert Brockway had somehow summoned a wave of customers and new fans, rescuing us from financial ruin.
We cried out to the heavens with joy. Our small company had been saved! We called the warehouse workers back, finished filing all our fire insurance claims, and got to work translating the remaining books.
You can listen to the full episode here: Podcasting Day: Bigfoot Lives with Drew Toothpaste and Natalie Dee.
Give the episode a listen while you meditate on bringing the Interdimensional Cosmic War to an end.