What happened? I love collecting Batman® comics, but now, if I want the latest issue of it or the spinoffs, I had better subscribe to the monthly issues. What happened to the stores? Is it just not lucrative to sell $1.75 cent comics and the occasional collectors item anymore? I know of one in the metro-Atlanta area and he runs another business, making it necessary to call for an appointment if you want to buy comics.
Thanks
Quasi
That’s odd. I mean, I must have at least six comic book stores within a five-block radius from my apartment. Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong places.
There are still comic books stores–in the Twin Cities area, at least. They don’t sell just comics, though. All the ones I know of also sell role-playing game (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons) and collectable card game (i.e. Magic: the Gathering) supplies. One in particular sells many other games as well. (They bill themselves as a “comics and games” store.) Comic book stores also deal in anime (Japanese animation) tapes and collectables, and manga (Japanese comic books), which have become quite popular lately. I would guess that many of these stores make more money on the games and videotapes they sell than the comics, but I don’t know for sure.
I looked up Atlanta, GA (and surrounding areas) and “Comics” at Qwestdex and I came up with a whole bunch of listings, so I don’t think that comic book stores are dead in Atlanta, either.
Worst Thread Ever!
Quasimodem, you don’t say where you live in Atlanta: intown or suburbs? I live intown, and get my comics at Criminal Records in Little Five Points. I could just as easily go to Oxford Comics over in Buckhead.
Outside the Perimeter there are several Titan Comics franchises, and I think there’s still Dr. No’s up in Marietta. You can find comics if you want to.
You’re right, though, that there are many fewer shops than there used to be. The reasons for this are complicated, but put as simply as possible, the comic companies and retailers screwed themselves by pandering to the market for comics speculators. “Special issues” and “variant covers” abounded, temporarily causing comics sales to spike back up to late-1940s levels…
…until the fanboys realized that one copy out of four million will never be worth anything, especially when all four million are preserved in Mylar. The speculators then deserted the market in droves (around 1993-1994), prompting a precipitous collapse at the time and gradually declining sales thereafter.
There are now probably only a tenth as many comic shops as there were eight years ago.
Diamond Comics (the only remaining major comics distributor) maintains a Comic Shop Locator Service. It’s a toll-free call to 1-888-COMIC BOOK. I believe you have to punch in your zip code, and it tells you the two or three shops closest to you.
I use milehighcomics.com
I used several “brick and mortar” shops over the years and finally just found that I was going out of my way for nothing. Mile High’s discount offset the cost of shipping. Their catalog gave me access to stuff my dealer did not carry. I had a number of experiences where my dealer would miss an issue and then I was stuck. This has happened once with MHC. I was reluctant to go to the cyber-dealer, but it has worked out pretty well.
Here in Connecticut, most of the comic shops have gone out of business too. Or cut way back on hours. Same with baseball card shops. The hobbies ebb and flow, I guess.
I also notice that there are almost no big comic conventions. Back in the late 80’s there were huge shows almost every weekend within driving distance. I loved those 25 cent bins!!! I would come home with grocery bags full of great comics. Oh well.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term metro Atlanta in my post, but Dallas, Georgia is considered one of the 'burbs, even though we are located about 40 minutes west of the big city. Yeah, I knew that there were some comic book stores in Atlanta, but there were also some in Douglasville and Austell and those were the ones I frequented, and they were a hell of a lot closer. Anyway thanks for the tips y’all.
Quasi
There has been a massive shakeout of comic book stores over the past few years, all attributed to the actions of Marvel Comics, and especially its boss, Ron Perelman (the true antichrist).
It’s a long story, and we have to go back quite a few years. Marvel Comics was up for sale. One syndicate was headed by former Marvel Boss, Jim Shooter. Shooter was strongly detested toward the end of his tenure, and when Marvel found out he was planning to buy the company, the executives looked for a white knight. That was Perelman.
Perelman had no experience in the business, and was your typical 80s-style corporate raider. So he put together a mess of junk bonds and outbid Shooter. However, it left the company with a lot of debt.
Perelman started wrecking the company. It was the middle of the comic boom, so Marvel flooded the market with “Collector’s editions,” foil covers, pointless crossovers, and cheap sensationalism, hoping the collectors would continue to buy (his business plan at the time was to increase the number of comics published to absurd levels and keep increasing prices with the unstated assumption that a price increase wouldn’t affect sales). The comic boom went bust (partially because of the overuse of gimmicks). A lot of stores went under around that time, but generally those run by poor businessmen. At that point, Marvel and Perelman were only one of several factors; it was like the current dot com crash.
But Marvel became desperate; they had to pay off their massive debt. They decided that they would not only publish the comics, but distribute them as well. In this goal, they purchased Hero’s World, a small comic distributor, and announced that their comics would now be distributed only by Hero’s World.
Now comic book stores at that time could pick and choose their distributors, and – importantly – were given discounts based on the number of comics they bought. Since every comic book store needed to sell Marvel Comics, they had to either go with Hero’s World or pay more money for their material.
Further, Hero’s World was much too small to handle the demand. Ask any comic dealer and you’ll hear horror stories. I seem to recall one where a person was put on hold wondered how long it would take to get a person. The next day, the line was still on hold.
Around this time, DC, the second largest comic company behind Marvel, realized that it would hurt their sales to have multiple distributors, so they announced all their comics would be sold through Diamond Distributors. This was probably a necessary defensive move by DC, but it meant that a comic book store would buy only from Hero’s World (for Marvel) and Diamond (for DC and anything else). Several distributors went under, since they had nothing to distribute. A lot of stores went under, too, unable to cover the higher prices they were forced to pay because they couldn’t order enough to get a good price. I know my local store had to close one of its branches solely because of this issue – the owner was no longer making any money, even though sales were about the same.
Eventually, Marvel gave up on Hero’s World, but it was too late. Diamond took over their distribution (there was no one else), but by then too many stores had gone under. Perelman took Marvel to bankruptcy before he was finally forced out.
An ugly tale. Perelman nearly killed the entire comics industry.
Seems to me I recall a comic shop on Bankhead Hwy/78 near the intersection of 78 and Thornton Road, in Lithia Springs, GA. Come to think of it there may be one or two on 78 in the Austell/Mableton area.
I live in Atlanta and do most of my infrequent comic shopping at Oxford’s on Piedmont Road, just south of Lindbergh Plaza. Though, I will say the best comic shop in the state is Bizarro Wuxtry in beautiful downtown Athens, Georgia. There’s ALWAYS something cool to buy and the staff knows their comics. AND they sell records by the pound!