Does anybody remember a chain of stores called Heroes World

[funtasticfour-migration]

primarily out of NJ. Is the owner still in business and if so, what's the name of the stores as of today.

[*paull*]

Heroes World was purchased by Marvel and used as a distributor in the early 90s, weren't they?

 

I barely remember being in a Heroes World shop that may have been in Wayne, NJ in the mid-late 70s.

[funtasticfour-migration]

yes, they also had a store in Woodbridge NJ

[esquirecomics]

I believe there was a store in Levittown, Long Island.

[Foolkiller]

I definitely remember Heroes World but they were gone by the mid 90s.

[Dr_Neff]

Were they the ones with the catalog that was pretty cool, maybe like a comic?

[funtasticfour-migration]

yes, that's them

[The Less Blob]

didn't they snooker a bunch of investors when things were going nuts? didn't someone go to jail or something? or am i thinking of that store up in westchester...

[mar-vell]

yes, they also had a store in Woodbridge NJ

 

i was in heroes world in woodbridge mall many times in the eighties--they are long since gone!

[shadroch]

Heroes World was owned by Ivan Snyder,longtime sales chief at Marvel.Started as a mail-order business,expanded to a group of stores and kiosks.It then went into comic distribution and was the third or fourth biggest in the country. After Perlman bought Marvel,he wanted Marvel to self distribute so he could make 60cents on the dollar instead of the fifty they were.Long story short-Heroes World and Marvel were not equipped to handle it,store-owners got hit with the double whammy of having to split their orders between two places,resulting in lower discounts and higher shipping. In 18 months,Marvel went bankrupt and took half the shop owners with them.Geppi was last man standing and the surviving comic shop owners became unpaid Diamond employees.

[esquirecomics]

Heroes World was owned by Ivan Snyder,longtime sales chief at Marvel.Started as a mail-order business,expanded to a group of stores and kiosks.It then went into comic distribution and was the third or fourth biggest in the country. After Perlman bought Marvel,he wanted Marvel to self distribute so he could make 60cents on the dollar instead of the fifty they were.Long story short-Heroes World and Marvel were not equipped to handle it,store-owners got hit with the double whammy of having to split their orders between two places,resulting in lower discounts and higher shipping. In 18 months,Marvel went bankrupt and took half the shop owners with them.Geppi was last man standing and the surviving comic shop owners became unpaid Diamond employees.

 

So Shad, was I correct in recalling that this was the same outfit in the Levittown Mall back in the 80s?

[shadroch]

One and the same.

 

By the way,they put out a great mail-order catalog with art by Joe Kubert and some of his early students.While there are no credits,these may just be the first published work of some pretty big names.I've meant to research that for years,but never got around to it.