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Comic Shop Shout Out: Multiversity’s Thanks to Our Favorite Shops

By | March 28th, 2017
Posted in Columns | % Comments

A comic shop is more than just a row of comics sitting next to magazines at a convenience store. Great comic shops become places where you can not only buy each week’s new releases, memorabilia, and card games, but where you can let your nerd flag fly, meet up for game nights, and feel welcome.

Sure, there are still comic shops out there where the stench of unwashed masses permeates the air, and the angry guy at the counter will audibly judge you for daring to prefer “Beast Wars” over “Transformers” generation 1, but that’s not what we’re looking at now. Today, Multiversity writers have come together to talk about their favorite shops, and give props to the stores that go the extra mile, in the first of what will be a semi-regular look at the places that we trust to feed our comics addictions.

Mark Tweedale:
Secret Identity Comics
Brisbane, Australia

Most comic stores I’ve visited tend to be cramped and hidden away. This is not true of Secret Identity Comics. It’s in Charlotte House, a heritage listed building in a part of the Brisbane CBD formerly known as Frog’s Hollow, and it’s an elegant store—the shelves line the walls, leaving open space in the middle for socialising and games. Christine Chien and Tash Green (the stores owners) have really pushed the social aspect of their store, with regular comics meet-ups and board game days. They have a focus on inclusivity and diversity, and it shows. It’s more than a comic store; it’s a community (and a welcoming one).

Plus, you should see their back-issue cabinets—they are truly a thing of beauty.

Paul Lai:
Tr!ckster, The Escapist Book Store, Fantastic Comics, Cape and Cowl Comics, & Dr. Comics and Mr. Games
Oakland & Berkeley, CA

During last year’s holiday shopping season, an assemblage of five comic shops around Oakland and Berkeley in the California Bay Area put together a Holiday Gift Guide Youtube video to offer shopping suggestions and spread cheer. For a frequenter of these shops, namely Tr!ckster, The Escapist Book Store, Fantastic Comics, Cape and Cowl Comics, and (mentioned in the video) Dr. Comics and Mr. Games, it was a heart-warming sight, separate businesses who could easily side-eye each other as competitors, instead teaming up in a visible show of mutual support. As I watched the video for both the familiar recommendations but also the familiar friendly faces from these stores, I thought about what makes them all good in common.  A broad spectrum of comics, from the superhero mainstream to the small press and local indie. Regular events to join the community together, like signings and book clubs. And across the board, welcoming and knowledgeable staff, cognizant that a Bay Area comic shop needs to know Sailor Moon as well as Sal Buscema. I’m always impressed by the diversity of customers all of these stores entertain so well: grandmothers who are also professors looking for gifts for their grandchildren, or adolescents of color entertaining their first longbox dives for old Christopher Priest comics, or lifelong fans wearing new Non-Compliant ink on their wrists.
Yet each shop has its distinctives that make it worth a visit, even if one of the others has your pull list and devotion. The two-story Dr. Comics and Mr. Games (Oakland) has been around the longest, well-stocked with back issues and yet as current and smoothly organized a shop as I’ve seen. Cape and Cowl Comics (Oakland) is the new shop on the block, attractively designed to match its downtown Oakland environs. The Tr!ckster in Berkeley is as much art gallery as it is retailer, so its emphasis on showcasing creators and their talent makes it a special kind of place. Fantastic Comics resides in downtown Berkeley’s Shattuck Ave., in the spot the classic and now closed Comic Relief used to be, blocks from where the Image Comics offices just moved from. Fantastic feels like a vibrant and contemporary comics community. But personally, the vibe I love most is at the store I’ve adopted as my LCS, The Escapist Book Store, named for Berkeley’s Michael Chabon’s creation from Kavalier and Clay, and stacked high up with shelves and shelves of deluxe editions, trades, OGNs, and new comics, enfolding you like a university library, but which all manage to magically open up to a great floor space for events like an April 8, 2017 signing with the likes of Jason Latour, Ivan Brandon, and Greg Hinkle. We’re spoiled around here.
Continued below

Robbie Pleasant:
Comics FTW
Santa Rosa, CA

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, or so the song lyrics go. For many a nerd in Santa Rosa, that place is Comics FTW. The moment you step in you’re greeted by Kris (the store’s owner) or Melissa, and when they ask how you’ve been, you know they honestly care.

But aside from the staff and comic selection, what makes the store really stand out is its events. There’s a strong sense of community at Comics FTW, which has been grown and nurtured by its many weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly activities. Geek Trivia Nights draw huge crowds every other Saturday, where cleverly-named teams compete to prove their combined collection of trivial knowledge reigns supreme, with store credit on the line and some surprisingly difficult questions every time. There’s an Expanded Reading Book Club, game nights, the “Girls With Issues” book club, and writer meetups, that all are free to attend.

Whenever there’s something big going down in the world of nerdom, Comics FTW will be doing something for it, from Free Comic Book Day sales to Halloween parties. In fact, this weekend they’re setting up for a Wrestlemania viewing party, which will be sure to draw a crowd. You really get to know the staff and your fellow customers at this shop, making it one of the most welcoming comic environments I’ve ever been to.

Ken Godberson III:
Fourth World Comics
Smithtown, NY

Fourth World Comics is a shop that has been around for over thirty years and when you go into it, you can see why it has survived for so long. It evolved with the times. It’s not just your Wednesday Warriors shop. It has trade collections, manga, figurines, DVDs, a large RPG/Gaming section. It has also cultivated a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere with a nicely stocked section devoted to all-ages material and a fantastic staff. But what really attracted me to the place, what made me choose this place as my regular shop in spite of other places closer to me, was its neatness. There is a shop closer to me and -while the employees are nice people – the place is not kept well. Single issues on the racks never look neat and they hung their trade paperbacks on displays for so long that the covers began to curl. Fourth World Comics is much more presentable as a shop, always clean and organized. They have bookstore shelving containing all their paperbacks, hardcovers, omnibi and so forth in a nice, organized fashion making it easier for customers, new and old, to find what they are looking for. All in all, the shop is a bastion for great customer interaction, neatness and a plethora of stock.

Have you been to any of these shops? Got one that you’d like to mention? Let us know in the comments below!


Robbie Pleasant

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