Comic Book Stores

Cafe Society
1

I just finished reading Comic Shop:The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture. As you can surmise, it’s a history of comic book stores and the rise of the direct market and independent comics that comic book stores made possible. Comic book stores were originally fueled by the demand for back issues, but a NYC teacher and part-time comic book dealer and convention organizer named Phil Seuling helped make them something more by coming with the idea of the direct sale non-returnable model.

I discovered my first comic book shop while in junior high in the early 80s, and the book touches on things I experienced then, such as trekking to the cavernous Passaic Book Center, or taking the bus into Manhattan to go Phil Seuling shows, or going to Jim Hanley’s Universe. It also covers a lot of the struggles that have hit comic book retail over the years, from the rough-and-tumble distributor wars of the early days, to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-inspired black-and-white boom and bust of the mid-80s, to the speculator boom and crash of the mid-90s. (My hometown went from zero comic book stores to four and then back to zero within three years.)

The last third or some of the book is a paean to and listing of the most notable, distinctive, innovative, and well-run comic book stores in North America and their strategies for surviving in what is, even in good times, a very fickle market.

Any good comic shop stories or experiences to share?

2

I first went to Geppi’s back in the late '70’s, but I didn’t start going regularly until the mid '80’s. Interesting note, although Geppi’s is out of business, he established an incredible comic book museum in downtown Baltimore. If you ever get a chance you should visit. It’s really incredible.

3

I live in a hi-rise with a comic shop on the ground floor. I’m not buying comics any more and they’re not buying what I want to sell so I’ve never perused the back issues, but I poke my head in once in a while to look at the mind-blowing sculptures they have for sale. They’re all dead ringers for the actors these days, or deliberate representations of different artists’ renditions. And they aren’t cheap either.

4

Wonderworld Books in Long Beach, CA was technically not a comic book shop in the early 1970s. They carried lots of new comics, but no back issues as I recall, in addition to new fantasy, sci-fi and horror novels. I was young and just getting into comics at the time; I had only recently read scattered issues of Jim Steranko’s run on Strange Tales, enjoying them tremendously.

So there we were - myself, my brother and a cousin (who was not into comics) – looking at new comics in Wonderworld when we hear the magic words: “You think that’s something, this is Jim Steranko.” All three of us looked up: the store’s manager was referring to a distinguished looking gentleman and had spoken those words to a 20-something African-American customer. The customer was incredulous (“Really?”), looking back and forth between the manager and the gentleman.

We saw – but somehow the customer standing not two feet from the gentleman didn’t see – the gentleman shaking his head vigorously at the store manager; he clearly did not want the attention. I distinctly remember the gentleman’s face turning very red; it was not anger, just the physical exertion of head shaking (or perhaps the exertion of working a bit of “magic”). The store manager hesitated, then confessed: “nah, just kidding.” None-the-wiser, the customer left soon after and we left soon after that.

I don’t think I had seen a picture of Mr. Steranko by that time, so I wasn’t sure if it was really him. My brother was pretty sure it was. The cousin was of course totally clueless, having never even heard of the guy. Needless to say, having seen Mr. Steranko in the flesh at a few conventions since then, there is no doubt in my mind that it was him that day in Wonderworld. Although we were in awe of Mr. Steranko’s talent, neither my brother nor I had any inclination of approaching him. It’s almost like that would have spoiled the treat we got to see.

5

Ours was Electric City Comics. In the 80s, they had two branches, but after the Hero’s World fiasco, they closed the second one. But they’re still in business and doing OK. The guy who ran it back then did a yearly “This year in comics” book, which went over the year, not from what comics were produced, but rather on the business end (his discussion about Hero’s World was fascinating).

I once had the opportunity to buy a comic book store. A new one opened down the road from me and I was checking it out when the guy behind the counter asked me if I wanted to buy the store. Weird because I didn’t know him and had never set in the store before. But this was toward the end of the comic book boom of the 80s and I knew I wouldn’t be able to run it properly.

6

I don’t recall ever having a bad comic shop experience, and I’ve been to many store all around New York City and out-of-town as well. However, I will say that the rise of eBay pretty much cut out the portion of my visits where I looked for back issues to fill out my collections, and after that point I was pretty much just visiting the same store every Wednesday for my weekly fix.

7

You probably remember the old FantaCo store in downtown Albany. That was the first comic book store I ever went to.

8

I grew up in the area of a huge flea market. My comic book store was a small building attached to a bay on one of the huge covered (I guess you would call them arcades) areas. All comics bagged and boarded (so no in-store reading) and a few long boxes of back issues. Only a tiny amount of comic adjacent stuff. (This was early to mid 1980s.)

But I probably have stronger memories of “old school” comic distribution–in wall racks in drug stores and wire spinner racks on conveniance stores. No bags, so while you might get a pristine comic when it first came out, over time they would get bent and tattered. Copies would be there for months, or even longer depending on the location–long enough for the covers to become sun-faded.

There was one drug store in particular that used to be beside the laundromat my family went to on Saturdays that I used to walk to to buy comics (for example, I remember buying issues of *Secret Wars II *there.) Even though the laundromat, the drug store, and my comic buying days are all long gone, I still every once in a while dream about going to that store looking for the latest issue of X-Men or something.

9

Steve Geppi is a major player in the book I mentioned in the OP, not only as first one of the early dedicated comic book shop owners, but also as one of the first owners of a chain of stores, and then one of the first independent distributors, and then finally as the last man standing after the distributor wars shook out.

10

In the 80"s in the city of Redondo Beach california. THERE was a comic shop called Galaxy comics.it was in business from 1980 to 1995. There w as comic vendor in the 80s in Torrance. I still go to a store once and a while but the days of the big comic shop that had everything are long gone.:smack:

11

My first two comics shops were Passaic Books in Passaic and Collector’s Comics at the Bergen Mall in Paramus.

-Passaic Books was one of the earliest generations of comic book stores that were built on collections of back issues and were often just as much used bookstores as comic shops. A big sprawling, musty place that was as much devoted to old magazines and used books as comics. Focus almost entirely on back issues. They didn’t even have display racks for new comics and just put 'em directly into longboxes for everyone to paw through. They sold me a complete set of Star*Reach, a seminal independent series but most definitely adult material, when I was thirteen. My friends and I would walk down there from Clifton in middle school.

-Collector’s Comics was in the Bergen Mall, but not in the mall proper. Bergen Mall (the first indoor shopping center in the US to actually call itself a mall) had an unusual design feature. The mall proper was on the ground level, but there was a large basement area with two cavernous open spaces. One of these was left open and used for boat shows and the like and the other was a mall-within-the-mall called the Village Mall. It was full of about 50 very small stores, most of which were not much larger than booths at an indoor flea market. Each store had its own walls and door, though. Collector’s Comics was tiny (I once knocked over some shelving trying to reach something in a corner), but was my comics shop of choice for years, until I was able to drive. It was the place were I pretty much discovered independent comics, and the first place I saw anime art books, Elfquest B&W issues, and lots of other stuff. I loved the Village Mall, which not only had Collector’s Comics, but also a game store, a SF/Fantasy bookstore, and a card store.

12

Cleveland has its big ornate famous Arcade running from Euclid Avenue to St. Clair, but if you go across the street and a few steps east, you run into a couple of low-rent arcades bridging Euclid and Prospect Avenue to the south.

One of these, the Colonial Arcade I think, in the mid-1970s housed Manifestations Bookshop, an occult/New Age shop where I bought my first Aleister Crowley and other Western Magic texts, and Cosmicomics, where I was introduced to R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez, S. Clay Wilson, and the rest of the 1960s luminaries…as well as the 1970s up-and-comers.

Across Prospect was the legendary Kay Books, a sprawling used bookstore owned by the creepy and confrontational Mrs. Kay. Upstairs in the porn department toiled Gary Dumm, the artist who drew most of the early issues of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor.. He and I got to be good buddies (over comics, not porn). While I was away at college he made sure to get me the latest issues, hot off the presses.

After graduation, in New York, my main providers were St. Mark’s Comics in lower Manhattan, and Montague Street Comics in Brooklyn Heights. Both long gone; comics shops can’t hack the rents.

As you can probably tell, 95% of my comics consumption since my teen years in the ‘70s has been the Undergrounds, the independents, and collections of vintage material. Not a big superhero reader.

13

Nitpick: Euclid to Superior. St. Clair is a couple of blocks north of Superior.

14

You can’t get more nostalgic for an old comics shop than by stepping into Capital City Comics in Madison, Wisconsin. A friend called it a time warp to his childhood (though it’s more like his dad’s childhood). Keep in mind that if it looks crowded and messy, Crusty Ol’ Bruce picked up before the photographer took these pics.

And do take note of the Three Fo’ A Dollar boxes on the floor…

I often go for Maximum Nostalgia by buying three beat-up Silver Age comics, rolling 'em up in my back pocket and riding my bike past the 7-11 for a Coke Slurpee, then down to the lake to read my stash. Just like I spent many a Saturday afternoon fifty years ago!

15

Capital City was my original comic-book store, during my college years at UW-Madison in the mid '80s. I’m so glad to see it’s still there! I have so many good memories of shopping there, and geeking out in general. :slight_smile:

16

When I was growing up, the comic book store was a legend. We used to get our comic books from the rack in ordinary retail shops, mainly at Huber Heights Books/Hallmark Cards in the Huber Heights Shopping Center (later renamed the “Huber Centre”) on Chambersburg Road, just around the corner from the wonderful little branch of the Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library.

But we heard tell of something strange and intriguing called The Dragon’s Lair. You could get back issues there! And you knew it, because they stamped their name on the front of every cover.

Unfortunately, somehow I never ever made it to the Dragon’s Lair, probably because no one wanted to take us to that part of town. But when we were a little older, our dad did drive us to the Bookie Parlor on Wayne Avenue. A few years later, when we were old enough to drive ourselves around, a place opened off Brandt Pike, near the Howard’s Pharmacy—the Troll and Unicorn, run by an odious, troll-like fellow. I did have my own folder there for a while, but never managed to buy everything I had reserved.

Once I started attending college in Fairborn, I started going to the Bookery Fantasy at Broad Street and Cypress Drive. I became good friends with the general manager (he unfortunately died of cancer a few years ago—I still miss him). The shop later moved to Main Street, and it has since expanded, taking up three storefronts. But that old location was so cozy and had so much character. I still miss it. I think it’s being used as a storehouse for an appliance company now.

There is also a nice place in Yellow Springs—Dark Star. And for a while, Dark Star had two extensions, one near my parents’ house. Now there’s just the original location, which I guess is good enough.

There are at least three comic book shops within a close distance of where I live now, one quite large with a great collection of figurines and statues, as someone mentioned above.

I’m glad to see that comics currently seem to be thriving. I don’t buy monthly issues any more, but I keep an eye out for things that look good in collected form.

Right now I’m a big fan of Jason Lutes’s “Berlin” and Eric Shanower’s “Age of Bronze.”

Like I am with music, I don’t consider it important for me to keep up with what’s new. I let myself discover things I like regardless of how recent they are.

17

Oh, and the guy who ran the Bookie Parlor was a legend on the comics community but to me he was just a mean old man who made me feel stupid for not knowing everything he knew. So I never really gave them much business when I got old enough to go wherever I wanted.

The Bookery in Fairborn and Dark Star on Yellow Springs were much friendlier places to shop.

And Victory Comics in Falls Church has some great employees who know how to cater to “nontraditional” customers. I think I heard the owner is a close confidant of Bernie Sanders.

18

Oh, right. Sue me, I haven’t lived there since early ‘78. At least I got the direction right.

19

Hey, and you’re an old fart like me. Do you remember Kay Books? Publix Books? The cool used bookshop in the BIG Arcade, on the south end? Coventry Books?

Cosmicomics? Manifestations?

20

Geppi’s was in downtown Silver Spring, right? That was the first comic store I ever went to, right around the time Crisis On Infinite Earth’s started, bought a bunch of stuff including the Flash, simply because he was on trial.

Then I found Collectors World in Gaithersburg, I’d take the Ride-On there, the employees treated customers pretty disdainfully.

But then I found http://bigplanetcomics.com at the time they only had the Bethesda store, eventually I got a box there. Joel, the owner was always super nice.