Post by zilch on Jan 25, 2015 1:12:28 GMT -5
Gather round younguns... ol' Uncle zilch gonna tell you bout the old days...
WAY back, one of the out of the way places you could look for comics was your friendly neighborhood porn shop.
In downtown Saint Louis, back before the hipsters turned the unused lofts into living areas, before the yuppies tried to build a mall where no one actually lived, there were lots of little shops and a couple of these were "adult" book stores (as opposed to book stores that sold one or two boobie mags). Two of these leap to mind as a place the enterprising young male could learn about stuff that wasn't taught in Health Class. The first i encountered, and best, was a place called The Peppermint Lounge.
Not really a lounge, as you might think of as a bar, but a book store that specialized in magazines, in later years focusing, on the all ages part, in comics. As you entered, the wall behind the front counter was 8'-10' of wooden boxes built to comic size with the logo of the books in the box taped to the front. On the wall directly across from them were magazines, fanzines and the like. At the back of the store was a doorway with the borders painted red and a large sign both on the floor and on the wall above the doorway saying "ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER THE AGE OF 21 ALLOWED PAST THIS POINT. ID REQUIRED FOR ENTRY". Peering back you would see magazines, but not really certain what they contained. I could see little booths that men moved in and out of occasionally.
The books were moderately priced, but the fanzine stuff was even better. I got the newest Marvel Index books (Daredevil and X-Men) and a couple of Flashbacks on my two trips there.
The shop, sadly, burned down a couple of months after my second trip.
The other one was, when i was older, but not yet 21, to a shop in South St. Louis and driving by, i could see that there were magazines there, but the store seemed like it was never open. I hit on it one day when it was open and it was filled with porn mags, unusually mostly British. Looking through them, i saw a British mag, black and white, which i had never heard of... Warrior. I picked up the second issue and was gleeful to find a neat series called Marvelman. They had nearly all of them, for a buck a piece, and even one or two of the new ones on the shelves. Over the course of the next few months, i picked up all of them.
Then i saw on the news that the shop was raided by Saint Louis City Attorney Geogre Peach, a notorious anti-porn crusader (well, until he was caught soliciting a hooker, anyway) and another one bites the dust.
Any one else find any porn shop treasures?
WAY back, one of the out of the way places you could look for comics was your friendly neighborhood porn shop.
In downtown Saint Louis, back before the hipsters turned the unused lofts into living areas, before the yuppies tried to build a mall where no one actually lived, there were lots of little shops and a couple of these were "adult" book stores (as opposed to book stores that sold one or two boobie mags). Two of these leap to mind as a place the enterprising young male could learn about stuff that wasn't taught in Health Class. The first i encountered, and best, was a place called The Peppermint Lounge.
Not really a lounge, as you might think of as a bar, but a book store that specialized in magazines, in later years focusing, on the all ages part, in comics. As you entered, the wall behind the front counter was 8'-10' of wooden boxes built to comic size with the logo of the books in the box taped to the front. On the wall directly across from them were magazines, fanzines and the like. At the back of the store was a doorway with the borders painted red and a large sign both on the floor and on the wall above the doorway saying "ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER THE AGE OF 21 ALLOWED PAST THIS POINT. ID REQUIRED FOR ENTRY". Peering back you would see magazines, but not really certain what they contained. I could see little booths that men moved in and out of occasionally.
The books were moderately priced, but the fanzine stuff was even better. I got the newest Marvel Index books (Daredevil and X-Men) and a couple of Flashbacks on my two trips there.
The shop, sadly, burned down a couple of months after my second trip.
The other one was, when i was older, but not yet 21, to a shop in South St. Louis and driving by, i could see that there were magazines there, but the store seemed like it was never open. I hit on it one day when it was open and it was filled with porn mags, unusually mostly British. Looking through them, i saw a British mag, black and white, which i had never heard of... Warrior. I picked up the second issue and was gleeful to find a neat series called Marvelman. They had nearly all of them, for a buck a piece, and even one or two of the new ones on the shelves. Over the course of the next few months, i picked up all of them.
Then i saw on the news that the shop was raided by Saint Louis City Attorney Geogre Peach, a notorious anti-porn crusader (well, until he was caught soliciting a hooker, anyway) and another one bites the dust.
Any one else find any porn shop treasures?
