What ever happened to American Entertainment?? from the 80s/90s 0

[fastballspecial]

Just curious when I was back in college I used to order occaisonally from American Entertainment out of Virgnina when I could afford it. Just curious if anyone could tell me what happened to that company are they still in business? I bought alot of Image and 90s *spoon* from them back then, but my order was always right and packed well. I think they also had a sister company too if my memory is correct, but there name escapes me.

[Mr. Zipper]

Good question. I ordered from them a few times and was pleased with the service.

 

I presumed they went under when the speculator craze died. A lot of their offerings were geared toward people buying multiple copies to get the retailer variants, etc.

[HouseofComics.Com]

That's a good question and there are others I wonder about when I see old ads too. Somebody on the boards must know the answer about American Entertainment.

[sckao]

 

Summary:

1986 - 1996 American Entertainment

1996 - 2000 - Another Universe and Fandom

2000+ Marvel Comics - probably out when Jemas was booted

Present: Selling Vacation Rental Software

 

Steve Milo started in the direct response industry early by building a direct response catalog company out of his University of Virginia dorm room that grew to $15 million in annual sales and began an ecommerce site in 1995. Milo made a colossal mistake of selling his company to a venture funded Internet roll-up that did not survive. Milo has worked as President of Interactive Marketing at Marvel Comics, EVP of Consumer Applications at Eyematic Technology and most recently as Director of Ecommerce Marketing and Business Development at the privately held Bradford Group Milo has returned to his entrepreneurial roots as CEO and President of Quickthunder Software – a company specializing in Vacation Rental software.

 

 

 

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=1661

 

Prior to joining Marvel, Mr. Milo spent five years in senior management positions at AnotherUniverse.com and Fandom. As the founder and president of Another Universe.com, a leading Internet e-commerce and content site for toys and collectibles, Mr. Milo built the site into a major destination, generating more than 800,000 unique monthly visitors, producing a 300% increase in year-to-year online sales, and building a database of more than 300,000 customers. Following the acquisition of AnotherUniverse.com by Fandom, Mr. Milo served as the company’s Executive Vice President of Sales. In this capacity, he developed the merchandise and e-commerce strategy for the company, and recruited key members of the senior management team.

 

Earlier in his career, Mr. Milo founded American Entertainment, a direct response catalog he built from scratch while in college. From 1986 ­ 1996, he built the company into an operation that generated more than $17 million in annual sales. In 1992, he was named a runner-up for Inc. Magazine’s "Entrepreneur of the Year." His career path first crossed with Marvel in 1994 while at American Entertainment as his company entered into a joint partnership with Marvel to help them grow their catalog sales. This venture proved successful as from 1994-1996 American Entertainment helped build Marvel’s catalog business from 10,000 buyers to 250,000 buyers.

[SolitaireOne]

Summary:

1986 - 1996 American Entertainment

1996 - 2000 - Another Universe and Fandom

2000+ Marvel Comics - probably out when Jemas was booted

Present: Selling Vacation Rental Software

 

Wow, interesting... I got out as those "Another Universe" stores stated up. As someone already mentioned, my American Entertainment pkgs. were always well packed and in good order too... I loved all those 90's freebies!

 

Hmmm, vacation software you say?

[Darthdiesel]

Back in 2000, I met a guy thru ebay who happened to live in Centreville and claimed to have some affiliation with the (at the time) recently defunct AE/AU.com. I was able to go over and see what stock he had left and he had several longboxes of AU exclusives for Top Cow/Image titles and had some other modern "hot" variants. Very nice guy and I picked up quite a nice stash from him. I saw him set up with some new associates at some local shows, promoting a toy/gaming online catalog company they were trying to get up and running.

[fastballspecial]

Fascinating thanx for the update Sckao

 

At the time I thought they were great and I remember buying back issue stuff from them as well at the time. I was just thrilled at the time to get the stuff I ordered on time and packed well. They were ahead of their time because mail order back then was horrible.

[lou_fine]

I presumed they went under when the speculator craze died. A lot of their offerings were geared toward people buying multiple copies to get the retailer variants, etc.

 

I believe the answer to the question here has already been definitively answered by Zipper's quote above with special emphasis on the bold words.

[awe4one]

I made one order from American and it ended up being the last. Terrible transaction. I had to wait three months to find out the majority of my order was out-of-stock. This was after calling them repeatedly for about a month with no one on the other end being able to tell me the status of the order. Ended up with a refund voucher that I never used...

 

Jim

[drdonaldblake]

i had 2 great transactions and the 3rd went sour

 

the books never made it to me in australia the 3rd time

[alphaprgr]

I found this ad in a copy of Zero Hour. I was thinking of the same thing. I guess they got replaced by online stores like Torpedo Comics & Spider-Man booth.🤔