Tell us about that old comic book shop you remember...

[Foolkiller]

I thought I'd consolidate this idea into one thread, since it's a really good one. Tell us about an old time shop that you used to visit and some memories of going there. I'm sure it's been done before, but I know I can roll out a new story and talk about a store I'm curious if anyone else remembers.

 

When I first started seriously collecting in the mid 1990s, there was a shop in Greenbrook, NJ on Route 22 called Star Spangled Comics. It was run by a gentleman named Tom (I forget his last name) but it was a wonderful store. When I first went it was a massive store with 300,000 back issues on the floor, every imaginable new book, a deep silver, gold and bronze age selection and an incredible store with a selection of other cool comic related material. They used to advertise in CBG with some fairly extensive ads.

 

I was really surprised when they started to go out of business (everything on the floor in back issues was either a buck or 50 cents, some incredible material) and most of the SA also went on sale.

 

There were probably a number of factors of why they went out, but I'll never forget the sense of wonder and awe I felt whenever I went in there.

[joe_collector]

I never really had a LCS nearby when I was growing up, so my fondest memories are from used book stores, local flea markets and the weekly Church bazaars where the odd stack of old comics used to show up.

 

I think the flea markets were the best, as that's what they really were back then and late-SA/early-BA boxes used to show up with regularity. I bought what I could, but kid money was tight.

[Mister_Comics]

From 50's to the 70's up until it closed, Supers Drug Store on 32nd and May Street in Chicago Bridgeport area. A great name for a store that sold comics. Thats were most of my Silveage books came from that I still have to this day. Can remember the owner being a crab with us kids but he let us hang out around there anyway. He even tell us to go ahead and open the bundled new books if we wanted to see if there were any we wanted to buy. He knew want we wanted. Comics. Miss that old store.

 

Today the store is now owned by someone else and is a beef sandwich deli.

[sufunk]

I grew up in Dayton Oho in the late 70's, early 80's.

 

My 2 LCS were the Dragons Lair and The Bookie Parlor. I remember just being in awe of all the books they had on the wall and dreaming of owning them. Back then, my beat up back issues of Marvel 2in1 Annual 2 and Avengers Annual 7 were considered my "grails".

 

I would BEG my parents to take me there every weekend. Those were the good old days when you could just drop off an 8 year old and they would let me stay in the store for a few hours while they went shopping elsewhere. Today, they'd take your kids away and put you in jail if you left your little kids at a comic store

[g-man]

a few places....

 

New England Comics in Allston/Brighton had a separate store called the Vault where they sold back issues....some killer stuff back in the day. Picked up many nice ASM and early XMEN in my younger days.

 

Roslindale Spa in Rozzy Square....a little coffee shop with an owner that was as old as dirt and always barked at kids that would read any of the comics "This isn't a library." I would pick up 2-3 books a week there..I recall getting a few copies of ASM #200 there.

[Larryw7]

The first LCS I visited(and became a customer of) was Comic Investments on Bustleton Avenue in NE Philly. Ron Oser ran the place. From the moment I walked in that store, I lost interest in new comics for awhile. With my limited allowance, I wanted to use the money for the GA and EC comics they had. The inventory was vast, loads of GA, SA and everything in between. I used to save my allowances for a couple of weeks so I could buy better books. I also started doing a paper route so I would have enough money to buy the stuff I wanted. I remember getting a gift certificate for Christmas in the late seventies from the store. I got a Good+ Batman 15, and two EC's(Crime Suspense 23 and Haunt of Fear 26), all for fifty bucks and some change.

 

The store had a convention related accident in the early eighties(they lost most of their stock in a traffic accident), and it was never the same after that. By that time, I had discovered Fat Jack's, which also had a great selection, and also better prices than Comic Investments. But I'll never forget the feeling I had when I went to that store for the first time, and I still get some of that feeling whenever I get a new book in the mail, or at the LCS.

[JuliusSeizure]

Escargot Books in Brielle, NJ. It was a used bookstore that had a lot of then-recent back issues in boxes on the floor. None bagged or boarded and the price was always written in pencil on the top right corner of the first page. It was a little distance from where I lived, but IIRC, I found it in the phone book and every now and then my mom or dad would take me there with $20 or so and I'd pick out a massive stack of 70s DC.

 

There was also a guy at Englishtown Auction (huge flea market in Monmouth County NJ) who had - as I remember it from 30 years ago - bookshelves absolutely full of comics. For some reason I remember getting a batch of Superman's in the 330s there, along with many many others.

[Foolkiller]

When I was a teenager but not old enough to drive it always stunk that I had to get my parents to drive me to the comic book store, but they always gave me a lot of time to roam around (while they waited in the car because my parents weren't fans of the environment of most of the stores).

 

It was funny, after Star Spangled closed, I discovered JC Comics in North Plainfield which had rows and rows of back issues as well and so much silver that when I went in for the first time in 1998, they were tripping over themselves to sell me stuff since the vintage market was in a lull - I wish I could go in there now with cash, there was so much great stuff it was insane.

[Ant-Man]

I grew up in Dayton Oho in the late 70's, early 80's.

 

My 2 LCS were the Dragons Lair and The Bookie Parlor.

 

I've got a few comic bags with the red Dragons Lair logo printed on one side. Has a huge flap if I remember correctly.

 

Mine was Joe Sarno's Comic Kingdom in Chicago. I had been to the location on Pulaski a few times, but the store on Irving Park was much closer to the house. Made the weekly trip with my younger brother for years, ever after moving to the 'burbs. I was a regular in the discount boxes, but dreamed of one day buying something good enough to be displayed in the glass cases. After receiving a gift certificate for Christmas, a Cap #100 in F+ made the dream come true. In addition, the cert was (according to Joe) the first from his shop. It was hand-drawn by Joe on the back of a sale flyer. It was made to resemble US paper money with a pic of Howard The Duck. He let me keep it after it was redeemed and I still have it today. I went to the Mt. Prospect shop once, but I don't think it was around long enough for me to make another.

[sufunk]

I grew up in Dayton Oho in the late 70's, early 80's.

 

My 2 LCS were the Dragons Lair and The Bookie Parlor.

 

I've got a few comic bags with the red Dragons Lair logo printed on one side. Has a huge flap if I remember correctly.

 

Mine was Joe Sarno's Comic Kingdom in Chicago. I had been to the location on Pulaski a few times, but the store on Irving Park was much closer to the house. Made the weekly trip with my younger brother for years, ever after moving to the 'burbs. I was a regular in the discount boxes, but dreamed of one day buying something good enough to be displayed in the glass cases. After receiving a gift certificate for Christmas, a Cap #100 in F+ made the dream come true. In addition, the cert was (according to Joe) the first from his shop. It was hand-drawn by Joe on the back of a sale flyer. It was made to resemble US paper money with a pic of Howard The Duck. He let me keep it after it was redeemed and I still have it today. I went to the Mt. Prospect shop once, but I don't think it was around long enough for me to make another.

 

DAMN!!! Good memory! I didnt even remember that until you just said it but you're 100% right

 

Their bags did have a cool red chinese dragon on it and they had HUGE flaps for some reason.

[FrankCastle]

I grew up in the cold north of Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada. We had one comic shop when I started collecting in the mid-80's, I can still remember drooling over the back issue wall, specifically GI Joe #2 for $65!!!

 

I think more than anything I remember the boxing day sales, only one day a year, every year, 50% off all back issues AND new comics (now who's ever heard of that)? I would save up all my Christmas money to go. The line-up was usually about 200 people deep, and this store was small (it was mainly a book store with the comic section in the back). You could barely move, it was incredible! I've got some great memories of that place especially one year being first in line, getting there 2 hours before it opened and I swear with the windchill it must have been 50 below waiting outside for comics!!! Man the fun we had...

 

Jay

[sniderwj]

I started collecting comics when my family lived in England at RAF Lakenheath. I don't remember where I started but I think I picked up my first books at the Shoppette on the base and eventually got a subscription.

 

I then graduated to a Comic Store on the way to RAF Mildenhall. It was a small little shop above a Dr. Martin shoe store. I remember going in there and scoffing in my mind that the British comics like Judge Dredd were funny looking because they were a different size.

[Jeffro.]

I'm afraid I don't have a story about an LCS with skads of boxes full of back issues, but the one thing I remember about my first comic store back in 1981, The Aardvark, in Berlin, CT was that when the new comics were released, the owner always had a nice stack of each book to look though, unlike most comic stores these days.

 

I would ask for gift certs every year for Christmas and back in those days, a $10 cert would get me two weeks worth of comics, sometimes with a little left over.

 

I'm still friends with one of the guys who used to work there.

 

I think it was in the late 80s, they started having problems and weren't getting new comics in every week. One Sunday I went there to find the store closed permanently.

 

There were a number of other shops I used to visit back then, some with much better back issue stock, but none of them were my LCS.

[KryptoSpidey]

Super-Hero's Unlimited in Hollywood,Fl. owned by Glenn Lightfoot.

Grew up hanging around that shop and playing football with the guys on Saturday mornings at the field at Chaminade-Madona Catholic School.

Bought my first key book there,a coverless Showcase 22.

Good memories right there,he and the shop eventually re-located to North Miami Beach,and is renamed "Villians".

[the blob]

West Side Comics in Manhattan. 70's into the early 80's.

 

The owner was, well, creepy. At least from a kid's perspective. He had a sign behind the cash register indicating that shoplifters would be executed with a picture of an executioner with an axe. I pretty much believed it.

 

He paid nothing for any collections that would come in. One day some guy was so pizzed off at the lowball offer he set up shop outside the store and was giving comics away.

 

While he seemed to have a fair amount of vintage material (he was well-located for collections that would walk into his door), his prices were generally on the high end, though he tossed enough stuff in the 3/$1 and 4/$1 box I was able to keep myself amused. And for a while, when comics were 60 cent cover price, all new marvels were 3/$1. I don't know why he was doing that, to drive competition out of busines, I dunno.

 

Can't say I had fond memories of the place, it was just on the way to school.

 

He was driven out of business in the late 80's when he apparently violated his lease by selling/renting videos as he was solely supposed to sell printed material.

[Scrooge]

For me it was the local newsstands / press store. The guy, Rémi Barthès, who owned it was gruff, never really friendly to but a few people but his store was it in town and everyone (remember those days) had to go somewhere to buy their TV Guide

 

I was hanging out there with my twin buddies, picking up comics and reading them in the back, right in front of the nuddie mags but we could care less about those, we had our noses in Conan or Kirby FFs. I was just tolerated, unlike my buddies whom the owner liked because he also was their archery coach at the local club but I never took up archery so ... by association, I was allowed there. On the few occasions, I came in alone and tried reading, I was chased away. I quickly bought the books and read them elsewhere. I can't recall how many times I walked by the front of the store to check if new comics had come in and I do recall how fast I walked after school to grab them as soon as he was open!

 

Years later, I came to learn that my grandmother who used to deliver papers (at some point, she used a cart pulled by a dog to carry the deliveries) had a chance to own the store but turned it down. I can't imagine how that would have been like!!

[Dick Pontoon]

The very first comic store I went to was the Comic Kingdom run by Bill Cole. I think it was only open on specific days, and it was in some weird industrial type building. I wish I could remember the specifics of the location, but it was 34 years ago and my folks are gone and my memory of that aspect is a little hazy. I suppose I could just email him.

 

The comics were on staggered/tiered wall units, I don’t recall going through boxes.

 

Walking in and seeing those old books from the 60s, which seemed as long ago as the turn on the century, was amazingly magical. I bought my first back issues there: Marvel Tales 1 (recommended by Bill for the young reader) FF 48-50, ASM 44 and 45. They remain in my collection, except for the FF 49 and Marvel Tales; I think I sold or traded those as a kid.

 

I still get a thrill when I go to a new comic shop or when going through any longbox I haven’t seen before, but nothing gives me that same sense of wonder I got walking into that shop for the first time and seeing those relics of a bygone era.

 

[thehumantorch]

Like Scrooge I started buying comics at drug stores and newstands.

Realizing that there were older issues I started hitting second hand

book stores looking for back issues.

 

First store in town to specialize in comics was Lifeforce in the

University Hub Mall about 1978. Disco and comics....ah......

 

When that store closed I opened my first file at Hobbits Comics located

in the basement of an old warehouse downtown. The owner sacrificed

his huge collection and quit his City job to open his store. Didn't work

out well for him but he had some wonderful back issues and I picked

up a Kirby OA page from him.

[kidcolt]

I grew up in a small community of 600 people. We only had 1 store and 1 gas station. Only one of the stores carried comics but they only carried Archie & Richie Richie digest and some mag magazines. A few times a year we would travel to a slightly bigger community that had more stories and we would get to buy a few Spider-man, Disney and assorted comics.

 

When I graduated high school and moved to the city to attend university a buddy of mine introduced me to my first comic store. I will never forget the first time I went in there. The store was really 2 different shops with 1 entrance but was connected through an arch way in the back wall. One side had all the moderns and the cash counter and the second side held all the back-issues and the customer reserve boxes.

 

When I walked in I was blown a way by all the different kinds of comics. Of course I knew the main titles but I never heard of Valiant, Dark Horse or even most of the magazine titles. I was hooked and started thumbing through all the different types of comic, the cooler the cover the better I liked it.

 

Then my buddy told me about the back room. When I entered it the first thing that hit me was the smell. Not the best air quality especially with all the old comics in there. Dark, dingy, smelly but yet it quickly became one of my favorite places. There was boxes and boxes of back issues all organized by company and then in alphabetical order.

 

All four wall were covered with hot individual issues. I still remember spending hours just walking around admiring all of these cool covers and reading all the info tags that were stuck on the comic bag....price, key characters, 1st app etc. My first purchase there was the Batman "Death in the Family" first 3 parts, Rai 0, Spawn #1 and Magnus vs Predator.

 

I think that shop got the majority of my first student loan. I ate home made bread and pickles for the first 6 months of school, I wouldn't think of wasting money on food when I could buy more comics. I always liked comics but going into that shop really got me hooked and gave me the true love of comics. The staff there were rude and not very nice but that didn't matter bother me as I was only there for the comics and to talk and share ideas and opinions with the other customers.

 

Since then I have moved to a small rural isolated community and again I don't have a LCS. I really miss going into comic shops to chat and browse through the comics. Online sites are cool but for me there it is nothing like going into a shop and hanging out. Every time I go back into town I make sure to drop by the 2 comic shops to check out the comics, look at those comic walls and to just chat and share with the other customers.

[Wally's Comics]

There wasn't really a LCS when I was a kid, but the 7-eleven that I used to go with my brothers

to that had the spinner rack is still there. It's not a 7-eleven any more but it is still a convenient store.