Name the single best comic shop in your hometown.

[DKB]

Ya, Big Planet, any of them, isn't the place to go for back issues. Great place to find TPBs though. I'd be lost without Phoenix for new books, twice the new comic rack space of any other store in the area.

[chrisfuccione]

It's not in my town. I have to drive about 1/2 hour away but I would say Web Head in Wakefield is my favrote one. As someone who dosen't collect comic books but likes to read them I can always find stuff there that intrests me.

 

CHRIS

[reddog4063]

Jim Hanley's Universe here in NYC....the staff is the best, they have a great selection of both old and new stuff (except golden age), I love that place.

[Larryw7]

I actually prefer Showcase on South St. over Fat Jack's who have probably the surliest staff ever

 

 

I haven't been to Showcase in awhile. Do they have anything interesting in the way of Gold and Silver? I may make a trip to South Street soon.

 

I agree about Fat Jack's. The customer service sucks. Back in the eighties and nineties they had some of the nicest people around there. What happened?

[143ksk]

I would have to say Nostalgia Zone is the best shop in MN. I have to travel about an hour to get to it. The Source in St. Paul is also nice, though they don't have the back issues Nostalgia Zone does. I remember when the place used to be called Comic City over 20 years ago...

 

Dreamhaven is also good if you like indy / alternative stuff.

 

I agree completely, Bob!

 

I rarely buy back issues in shops anymore, but Nostalgia Zone is always worth a look (especially for off-beat stuff) and Dreamhaven is excellent for any new alternate titles.

[BradleyX2]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

[Norrin_Radd]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

 

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

[BradleyX2]

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

 

 

About the only consolation I get is when I occasionally think to myself: "It could be worse. I *could* live in Indiana."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Illiterati-migration]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

 

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

 

Kansas is a beautiful state. Our comic shops, however, suck.

[greggy]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

 

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

 

Kansas is a beautiful state. Our comic shops, however, suck.

[Illiterati-migration]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

 

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

 

Kansas is a beautiful state. Our comic shops, however, suck.

 

[FlyingDonut]

The DC area is terrible for comic stores. The best is Phoenix Cards and comics in Herndon, but they never have anything older than about 1965. They are good guys though, and can help you get almost anything, and it is 5 minutes from my house. Cards Comics and Collectibles in Baltimore is the best in the area for older stuff.

 

Ah, Phoenix comics! Before I moved to the vast wasteland of Kansas in 2002, I lived in Herndon, and Phoenix was about 10 minutes from my house. Great store! I was going there back when it was even "Fantasy Five & Dime".

 

Hey Donut. Tell Gary that Brad in Kansas says "Hi". He'll remember me.

 

Indeed, Kansas is a wasteland. I've driven through it a dozen times. I believe their state motto should be: "Kansas goes on forever!"

 

Realizing that Kansas may in fact be a wasteland, somebody from Indiana shouldn't throw stones. The license plates from Indiana used to say "Wander Indiana" to which the response was always "[#@$%!!!] no".

[garthgantu]

This is a tougher question now than a few years ago... used to be Comic Relief on University Ave...decent SA / BA back issue selection with some GA (mostly low grade), tightly graded and always priced at guide, plus plenty of current stuff, tpbs, figures, whatever. But their back issue stock has dwindled somewhat in recent years. Then there's House of Comics ( website ), which doesn't really have a 'storefront,' but will hold private "browsings" by appointment. House of Comics has pretty extensive inventories of SA and BA DC, Marvel, Dell, Gold Key, etc., and some GA. It's very tightly graded and most is priced at 20 - 40% below guide. So in terms of where I spend most of my $, it's House of Comics...their website has something like 60,000 books listed and is worth a look if SA and BA DC and Marvel (in mid- to high-grade) is your bag...

[thanos_oftitan]

I like New Dimension Comics (NDC) in Cranberry PA. Todd (the owner) is a pretty fair guy. Hey anyone that can get himself in a Wonder Woman (#179) comic can't be all bad.

 

Read all about it

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/022202/ent_wonder.shtml

[Foolkiller]

Showcase got a silver age collection that has a lot of overgraded mid grades in it. Although there were a number of keys in the collection, they haven't moved many of the books. Why? Because the managers don't know very much about grading and pricing themselves (which is fine) so they brought in a guy to do the grading and pricing. He's kind of gnomish fellow who thinks he knows a great deal about grading, but really is pretty out of touch. Compounded by the fact that when I see him at the Philly show he skulks around, but is hardly someone I would consider a "seasoned" collector that I would feel comfortable with his grading.

 

This creates a problem with pricing, because the grades are inflated, they charge tax, and the biggest discount they offered (even if I spent $1000) was 30%. That's not bad, but when you consider that on Fines/F+s you can generally get them at 50% off, it's a problem. I'd pay a little more to support their store as well, but again, they just don't have anything all that special.

 

Additionally, they don't present or store their nicier books. They put the $12 books in mylars and the $150 books in cloudy bags in boards. . it's rediculous.

 

They make other classic store mistakes like putting the books too close to the lights, not enough support so that books on the wall are depressing inwards and making the books extraordinarily difficult to see.

 

They could move the books very easily with just a little effort and smarts.

 

As for Fat Jack's... I think they got complacent with no competition. Someone could easily come in and blow the doors off them and take over center city's comic market. They've become rediculously poor in customer service, back issue selection and carrying anything other than new comics and trades.

 

 

I actually prefer Showcase on South St. over Fat Jack's who have probably the surliest staff ever

 

 

I haven't been to Showcase in awhile. Do they have anything interesting in the way of Gold and Silver? I may make a trip to South Street soon.

 

I agree about Fat Jack's. The customer service sucks. Back in the eighties and nineties they had some of the nicest people around there. What happened?

[Forbush-Man]

Here in San Diego, it's Southern California Comics. Nice selection of books from Golden Age to Modern Age. Discount of 30% for many books on orders over $300.00. You can visit thier website here LINK

 

The shop is in two warehouse units. One side is "The Dollar Room", which is mainly 80's to Modern books with some Bronze & Silver Age books for $1.00 each, 12 for $10.00. The other side has the Gold, Silver, Bronze and more collectile Modern Age books. They're good people to deal with. The owner, Jamie Newbold, writes a monthly market report in Comic Book Marketplace. Well worth checking out.

[Larryw7]

They've become rediculously poor in customer service, back issue selection and carrying anything other than new comics and trades.

 

 

That's what I noticed the last time I went to Fat Jack's. That was around August, and most of the stuff on the wall was on there on my last visit, which was 2002. They used to have a really decent selection, but no more. Maybe they should pay more than 20% for back issues.

 

Thanks for the info on Showcase. The last time I was there(probably three years!) they had a GREEN LANTERN #1(SA) on the wall for a very high price considering the grade.

[Forbush-Man]

I wonder where the boys in Sarasota, FL. buy thier books?

 

Something that I also find interesting is that not all large cities have been represented. For example, Stronguy lives in Dallas and mentioned Lone Star Comics. What about Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio & Houston? These are the major cities in Texas (should I have included El Paso?).

 

We here on the boards must represent a small fraction of the collecting community. I wonder why there is not more representation, what with the internet and all?

 

Lurkers come out and be counted !

 

[helionaut]

In Austin, the best shop hands down is Austin Books. There are a handful of others and some are pretty good (First Federal, Comics & More, and Funny Papers are OK), but say you're in town on business and you have time to check out one place, it's Austin Books. They've won the Best of Austin award from the Austin Chronicle readers poll about a dozen years in a row. Great backstock, very wide range of current stuff, huge TPB library, and nicely priced, accurately graded Silver Age. A small amount of Golden Age, too.

 

In the DFW area, Titan is probably the best. Lone Star has something like 8 shops, and I've been to about 5 of them. They are of varying quality, depending on what you're looking for, but put together I don't think they have the depth of Titan. Titan's pricing is sometimes pretty high on backstock, like 2-3X Wizard. But they usually have what you're looking for.

 

Bedrock City I hear is the best in Houston, though I've never been.

 

I used to love going to Fat Jack's Comicrypt in Philadelphia, but I haven't been there in years. Sorry to hear it's gone downhill. It can be tough to run a collectibles store in a sliding city, I guess.

 

In St. Pete Beach, Florida, or Pinellas Park, one of those little towns, there's a shop called Emerald City, IIRC. Pretty nice shop there, at least it was last time I was there, May, 2001.

 

And back in the day in Poughkeepsie, New York, it had to be Iron Vic's. Don't know if that's still there, though.

[Forbush-Man]

In Austin, the best shop hands down is Austin Books. There are a handful of others and some are pretty good (First Federal, Comics & More, and Funny Papers are OK), but say you're in town on business and you have time to check out one place, it's Austin Books. They've won the Best of Austin award from the Austin Chronicle readers poll about a dozen years in a row. Great backstock, very wide range of current stuff, huge TPB library, and nicely priced, accurately graded Silver Age. A small amount of Golden Age, too.

 

In the DFW area, Titan is probably the best. Lone Star has something like 8 shops, and I've been to about 5 of them. They are of varying quality, depending on what you're looking for, but put together I don't think they have the depth of Titan. Titan's pricing is sometimes pretty high on backstock, like 2-3X Wizard. But they usually have what you're looking for.

 

Bedrock City I hear is the best in Houston, though I've never been.

 

I used to love going to Fat Jack's Comicrypt in Philadelphia, but I haven't been there in years. Sorry to hear it's gone downhill. It can be tough to run a collectibles store in a sliding city, I guess.

 

In St. Pete Beach, Florida, or Pinellas Park, one of those little towns, there's a shop called Emerald City, IIRC. Pretty nice shop there, at least it was last time I was there, May, 2001.

 

And back in the day in Poughkeepsie, New York, it had to be Iron Vic's. Don't know if that's still there, though.

 

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Way to go, you pretty much covered the second largest state in the union!

 

Good job!

 

What about the other states?