Worlds End Books

Context

In early 2021 I started Worlds End Books, an online comic book store built around a simple premise: comics are better when you follow story arcs, not single issues. Most stores organize by publisher and title. I wanted to organize by story.

I’d been doing web work for clients for over a decade. This was the first time I was the client, the developer, the shipping department, and the customer service rep all at once.

The Problem

The early version ran on WooCommerce. It worked. Then it didn’t: not at the scale I needed, not with the inventory complexity I was dealing with, not with the custom arc-bundling product format that was central to how the store sold comics.

WooCommerce wanted me to think about products the way WooCommerce thinks about products. I needed to think about products the way a comic reader thinks about story arcs. Those two things are not compatible at depth.

Worlds End Booksellers · Full-Stack Blueprint

scale · not to scale plate · i of iii mmxxvi

Worlds End Booksellers

full-stack blueprint

live · in trade · 2026

Elevation · East flow ▸ catalog → backend → stage

plate · I I

Catalog

Flask · iPhone

push

plate · II II

Backend

Medusa · Postgres

read

plate · III III

Stage

Next.js · Coolify

full-stack · mobile-first · self-hosted jchick · mmxxvi

At the same time I was learning what it actually means to run a small business: cash flow, supplier relationships, shipping software, returns, customer communication. Every conversation I now have with a client about conversion rates or site reliability lands differently because I’ve been on the wrong end of a shipping error at 11pm on a Friday.

Approach

I rebuilt on Medusa.js, an open-source headless commerce platform, with a custom React frontend and a Python inventory management tool I wrote to handle the arc-bundling logic. No off-the-shelf plugin was going to solve the problem I had, so I stopped looking for one.

plate · ii · the tooling pipeline From a phone in the pocket
to a curated shelf on the web.

The curator types two fields. The system fills in everything else — from a 3.6 GB local sqlite, from live eBay listings, from a Medusa backend on a Hetzner VPS. The data the curator never types is what makes the shop feel curated.

DC · 1989 S

/static/photos/we_8b3a1f.jpg

iphone 15 · 16:42 1.8 mb · 3024×2016

I

capture iPhone camera · /static/photos

Photograph the issue

Five seconds at the back counter. The phone’s already in the pocket; JPEGs land in /static/photos and the filename manifest is stored on the row as a JSON array. Reorderable, two-step delete in the management modal — the photo is the first piece of data, never the last.

flask · /entry 2 fields total

title

sandman 1989

issue #

8

search GCD ↓

II

seed Flask · /entry · localhost:5000

Two fields, that’s it

The only place a human types. Title and issue number. Everything that follows arrives from a real database — the curator stays at the counter, not at a keyboard. Autosuggest on the title field stops you re-typing series you’ve already shelved.

gcd · match gcd_issue#142893

The Sandman (1989) #8

date Aug 1989 · DC Comics variant Cover A · standard

Neil Gaiman · wr M. Dringenberg · art D. McKean · cv

III

enrich 3.6 GB · local sqlite · quarterly refresh

Grand Comics Database

A local copy of the volunteer-maintained GCD. Fuzzy match (progressive word-dropping, creator-name stripping) returns the issue with credits (writer · pencils · inks · cover artist), publisher, exact cover date, and any variant text in brackets. 209 unique creators normalised into a join table — searchable, not just stored.

ebay browse · active oauth2 · last 90d

low $48

avg $74

high $112

32 active · 14 sold (90d) curator picks

IV

price OAuth2 · live snapshot · low / avg / high

eBay Browse API

A live query against active eBay listings, keyed on series + issue + condition. Low, average, and high all land as a hint. The curator still picks the number — but the number arrives with the data, not as a guess from memory, and it can be refreshed in place from the inventory table later.

POST /admin/products 200 · linked

handle the-sandman-1989-8 variant cover a · condition VF story_arc sandman stock 1 · main location price $74.00 usd

V

publish POST /admin/products · v2 · Hetzner

Push to Medusa

One tap. The row becomes a real Medusa product — handle, variant, stock at the main location, creators normalised to a join, story_arc metadata set from the comic’s first collection. Photos uploaded by filename with dedup on resync; series collections auto-created once a title has two or more issues.

/shop/c/sandman The Sandman

75 issues

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

filter · condition · year · creator meilisearch · curated

VI

surface Next.js · /shop/c/[arc] · faceted

Story-arc collections

The data the curator never typed is what makes the shop. Story arc, series year, publisher, condition — all filterable, all faceted by Meilisearch. Every book is shelved twice: once by issue number, once by the arc it belongs to. Browsing The Sandman means browsing a real reading order, not a tag.

iphone · flask · sqlite · gcd · ebay · medusa · next.js · meilisearch shelved twice · once by issue, once by arc

The brand had been designed by a hired designer who I gave a deliberate brief: nothing superhero, nothing primary colors, nothing that looks like it belongs in a mall. The result was moody, a little old-world, with a nod to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. It felt right for a store that takes the medium seriously.

Outcome

Worlds End Books is still running. The rebuild is stable. The arc-bundling format has become the thing customers mention most. It’s the reason people come back.

Building something of your own changes how you do client work. You stop thinking about websites as deliverables and start thinking about them as businesses.