I’ve read comics off and on for most of my life, with some of my very first comics being battered copies of late 80s/early 90s books that my brother and I would track down at local flea markets for fifty cents. Those issues, never in any sequential order and often only telling part of the story for that arc, made me fall in love with comics. Random issues of the X-Men battling their foes or playing baseball, Captain America saving the world, or Superman being generally super were just fantastic to a kid, even devoid of any and all larger context. Growing up in rural Alabama, that was about the most access to comics you had. The nearest comic shop, I would later find out, was nearly an hour away. While the idea of a store full of nothing but comics was enticing, it was too far and we were too broke for it to be of any real use. The nearest book store, with only a smattering of trades during my childhood years, was over 30 minutes away. No matter how much I liked them, comics weren’t always easy to come by.
As time went on, this pattern would continue to hold. No matter where I lived, often in the mostly rural South, there hasn’t been a comic shop close enough to actually matter. Even my current run of five or six years of being pretty big into comics and even writing about them regularly for years has been sustained entirely through a Comixology account and copious amounts of digital comics. A local comic shop has never been a part of the picture. Until now.
I moved to California during 2016 and found out soon after moving that there was not just one, but two, comics shops within about five miles of where I lived. For the first time ever, I had a local comic shop and I had options. Though I’ve only been to one of the shops more than once, it’s been a great experience so far. Of course, there are those stereotypes that permeate the comics community of the douchey, know-it-all guys that work at comic shops who correct and belittle folks without mercy and that was something I was genuinely not looking forward to. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case and my comic shop experience has been great so far.
The folks I’ve encountered at the local comic shop (shout out to Metropolis Comix in Sacramento, CA) have been nothing but great and helpful. They’re constantly recommending books based on what I’m buying and letting me know about sales. They’re the best kind of comic fans in that they’re not judging, but want to discuss. If they haven’t read something I’m buying, they ask me how I’m liking it. They talk about what their favorite artists are doing or how cool that new issue of “Deadly Class” was or the newest episode of a show based on a Robert Kirkman penned comic. I may not always agree with the folks at the comic shop about which books are good, but that’s half the fun. It’s the good parts of Comics Twitter, without the constant outrage and instances of creators doing dumb things. While I’m not used to things just being out of stock since Comixology has an infinite supply, the folks at Metropolis have been quick to special order things that I was looking for and generally just make sure I can get the comics I want to read. For a true first-time experience of an LCS, things could definitely be a whole lot worse.
Granted, I’ve only gone once or twice a month since I moved and have bought almost entirely trades since I’m still sticking to digital for my weekly titles. But that could change in the future. The idea of a physical pull list sounds enticing, at least for a few of my favorite titles. No matter how great the comic shop is, the prospect of having a ton of physical comics laying around and never getting organized since I’m lazy just doesn’t seem as great as having them all digitally and never having to worry about them. With access to a local comic shop finally, I feel like I’m finally experiencing a piece of the puzzle that most comic fans on the internet have had for years and that’s enough for right now.
