"Grandpa, I've been told a guy named Stanley Weston has been calling the company quite often lately? What should I do about that?" Alexander found the chance to open up this topic and sway the old man's business impartations into his summer expansion plans.
A lot of agents and companies had long been ringing their phones to lobby their abilities, Alexander just wanted to use Mr. Weston because they are fated with ThunderCats.
"Yes, I've heard about that. That guy has quite the qualifications." Sullivan remembered some pertinent details about Creed Comics' recent operations and was quite privy about that person's details after some digging.
Anyone who claims to be able to expand his company needed to be checked out after all. The relevance of the matter was also elevated further as it was his grandson's training wheel company that was being eyed on.
"He is quite good with licensing and merchandising but dare I say he was stupidly unambitious to sell his G.I. Joe idea for only 100,000 dollars." Perhaps to an inventor like Weston, having the creator's credit was enough but it was a wasted opportunity for the old Creed.
"If it was me, then I could have grown G.I. Joe myself instead of having Hasbro profit off it." For Sullivan's business ethos, Hasbro won out big time as they finally had a toy line that could face Mattel's Barbie dominance.
Stanley Weston took the invention credit but it probably didn't help much with his credit card.
"The man seems to have founded a company called Leisure Concepts but that company's business model seems to be content as a middleman as of now." Sullivan proceeded to point out the company's pros and cons to educate his grandson on what he could emulate and what he could avoid.
Old Creed seems to still be on his business lecture to educate the young Creed about his business smarts.
Poor Leisure Concepts turned into a business model to be frowned upon as Sullivan turned up his criticism on them to flex and earn amazing grandpa points from his grandson that isn't easy to 'wow'.
Conclusively from the lecture, being limited to an 'idea' pitcher like Leisure Concepts was a waste. It was better if they could have grown their ideas on their own instead of handing them over to someone else.
For a company that Alexander knew would grow into 4Kids Entertainment in the future, he didn't have much defense to give for them.
He could only distinctly remember how they censored One Piece with guns being water guns and Sanji's cigarettes into lollipops.
As much as 4Kids tried to follow children's television guidelines, it has ruined a lot of anime source materials to be more comical than they should have been.
For someone who is planning to be this renewed timeline's Eiichiro Oda, working with Leisure Concepts is out of the question.
He also plundered ThunderCats from them so cooperation might be strained by that unknown but foreboding grudge.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
-----
At some point, the surprising lecture finally took a dive and Alexander could finally interject to stir the topic into the 'summer expansion plan' direction once again.
"So... grandpa, should Creed Comics employ Mr. Weston's help for the toy and animation expansion or not?"
Sullivan, who was just coming down from the high of being a business educator, was surprised by the boy's question.
The old man then turned silent. Not because of Alexander's toy and animation expansion but because of the swiftness of it.
"I was thinking that it would come to this sooner or later but I didn't expect to come even earlier." Sullivan could only turn to his usual sigh when dealing with his grandson's abilities and quirks.
His expectations were already exceeded a lot of times within these past few months and he already has a go-to expression to ease his surprise.
He gave the comic company to reign on so that Alexander can continue his creative productivity, train the boy's management acumen, and for him to be able to keep up while his old bones were still busy with film production.
Creed Pictures hasn't even started with truly filming Back to the Future but Creed Comics was already on its way to overtake it.
Creed Comics did so in a spectacular fashion with a steady market performance that overshadowed existing companies in the industry.
If it were to branch out into toys and animation, there was no denying that everything would go up to a higher level.
Unlike Stanley Weston's Leisure Concepts, Alexander would come up with the idea while handling it with full discretion and an ensured guarantee to own the major profits.
How could he have expected that the training wheel company was already planning to branch out within 4 months or so of its creation?
This meant that more bicycles and more training wheels were needed. At that point, Sullivan wasn't even sure if Alexander needed the training wheels anymore.
In fact, Sullivan was already imagining how Creed Company should already be a motorbike and how his training wheels were totally ruining the aesthetic.
When he went further with his imagination, Sullivan could see 9-year-old Alexander riding the training-wheeled motorbike with ease while a lot of powerful-looking bikes are entouraging the boy without drivers riding them.
If those training wheels would be revoked, then Alexander could be progressing even more than he already is.
It was expected that a training wheel company would become a balancing bicycle company.
Alexander quite simply and directly upgraded his ride into a motorbike company and the prospects of additional motorbike companies were already on the table.
-----
Sullivan was way too caught up in ride metaphors for companies inside his head for quite a while.
"Grandpa, is everything alright?" Alexander had no idea what was cooking up on his grandfather's mind but he had to intervene lest it leads to absentminded complications that a lot of elderly people would go through.
Sullivan was quickly out of his imaginations and declared. "Alex, you don't have to worry about that Weston guy's expansion aide because grandpa would be the one giving you the motorbike companies that you need!"
"Grandpa, why would I need a company about motorbikes when what Creed Comics needs are toys and animation?" Alexander was a bit perplexed by those words so he had to clarify. "Are you even okay, grandpa? Did you forget your medications?"
"Kuhum..." Sullivan coughed as he made a fool of himself. "Nevermind about motorbikes, just wait until grandpa would leave you with our new family businesses, Creed Animations, and the restructuring of Creed Toys."
"Okay... I guess." Alexander felt that he needed to grasp motorbikes but he dismissed that as he got what he wanted.
Just like that, Creed Entertainment was on its way to expansions towards the animation industry- Creed Animations.
As for Creed Toys which was a toy and comic book store, it still had a hidden connection to the toy-making industry that was mostly oriented towards adults.
Through Sullivan's spoiling expectations and Alexander's unnoticed machinations, the summer expansion plan was underway.
As simple as the Creed duo discussed those plans, implementing and making it happen would be a level higher than making comic books.
Nonetheless, the duo was quite looking forward to it.