I asked my parents how… where they could find older issues of comics? And they said that they had found a store that sold nothing but comic books. A comic book shop. My mind was completely blown. I asked that they take me. Immediately. They explained it was closed Christmas Day, like everything else.
Chris Butcher explains his origins with comic books and comic book stores, and the excitement he describes upon discovering that there were actually stores that sold nothing but comics is very familiar to me. My first store was in Glasgow, about 45 minutes drive from where I lived as a kid, and was called Futureshock. It was kind of a mess, with books stacked up with no rhyme or reason, and piles just about to fall all over the floor, but that just made it more magical to the ten year old I was at the time. Almost every comic store I’ve been to ever since has been far better organized, cleaner and in almost every objective way more appealing, but none of them have come close to filling me with the sense of amazement and wonder that Futureshock used to.
June 28th, 2012 at 9:08 am
My first comic shop was a dinky little used bookstore in Jackson Heights, Queens. They used to have the week’s new comics in two long boxes and I had to thumb through them to find the handful of books I was buying. I shopped there until my senior year of high school, when I made my first trip to Forbidden Planet’s long-since-gone shop on the Upper East Side. It was like entering another world. Granted, they were primarily (then as now) an SF book and memorabilia store. But downstairs were all these comics, lined up on racks and in boxes.
All at once, everything changed. And never changed back.
June 28th, 2012 at 9:35 am
My first comic book shop was a convenience store that sold comics. Early on in the days of direct sales, a buddy of mine and I convinced the owner to start ordering directly in 1982. Over the course of a few weeks and months, he developed a catalog of back issues. Because comics were not the main focus of this store, ironically named Super Sack even before we convinced the owner to start carrying so many comics, he offered the older stock to us for very cheap, every 6 months or so. This was my main shop for about 5 years or more.
June 28th, 2012 at 11:44 am
My first comic shop was Dark They Were And Golden Eyed in St.Anne’s Court, Soho, London. It was a bit of a mess, but I was transfixed. That was, erm, 1975? 1977?
June 28th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Odyssey 7, in Manchester’s University Precinct on Oxford Street. I remember going in when I was 11 and literally shaking I was that excited by the long central row of comics and the back issue bins.
I think that closed years ago, possibly when Manchester’s other Odyssey 7 in the Corn Exchange closed after the bombing in 1996.
June 28th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
I had picked up comics here or there via spinner racks at the grocery stor/7-Eleven. It wasn’t until I met another kid who read comics that he explained to me that there were entire stores devoted to comics. We went one day after school. It was magic. There was a huge display for Iron Man #200 (one of the few titles I recognized). I had never seen so many titles. It was overwhelming. And back issues!!!! You mean I could find out what had happened…last month?!?!?!
And don’t get me started abut the first time I went to a comic book convention!
June 2nd, 2013 at 3:48 am
Awesome post ! Cheers for, writing on my blog page mate. I shall email you soon. I didnt know that.