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Post by brutalis on May 24, 2018 15:20:16 GMT -5
By the way I live in a small town. No comic books at all anymore at the grocery store. Like I said, I have to go out of town for a 2 hour or even 3 hour road trip to the city just to go to a comic book shop to buy the next new comic book series or to buy old back issues of stuff I grew up with when I was a little kid. That's sad. I was very spoiled in Rochester, NY. There are (or were) 7 or 8 comic shops there. Now that I've moved to central Florida, I've only found a couple of comics shops in the area, and they're not that great. Here in Phoenix there is a decided lack of the quality LCS anymore. In the 80's and 90's we had well over 20+ shops spread across the metropolitan city grid here within 30-40 minutes drive to any of them. Now there are maybe 3 Quality LCS still operational and lots of mediocre shops which don't carry much in the way of anything other than a small row of current with a box or 2 of back issues. Comics are just a small part of their revenue anymore. They make more from statues, toys, cards and such.
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Post by urrutiap on May 24, 2018 16:04:52 GMT -5
Would be nice if grocery stores or some drug stores/pharmacies would start selling comic books and other magazines all over again but theyre drug pharmcy stores anyway.
Doesnt really bother me that much whenever I go for a 2-3 hour road trip drive to the city to buy comic books etc from the comic book shop just as long the comic book shop isnt busy with weird people during a special day like Free Comic book day or whatever.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 17:59:52 GMT -5
Would be nice if grocery stores or some drug stores/pharmacies would start selling comic books and other magazines all over again but theyre drug pharmcy stores anyway. I agree and yet many grocery stores and drug stores don't do this ... of which in my days they did (60's to mid 80's) and yet they don't anymore.
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Post by MDG on May 25, 2018 10:43:19 GMT -5
That's sad. I was very spoiled in Rochester, NY. There are (or were) 7 or 8 comic shops there. Now that I've moved to central Florida, I've only found a couple of comics shops in the area, and they're not that great. Yeah, but for a big collector town, we still can't get a halfway decent show in town--have to go to Buffalo or Syracuse.
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Post by dbutler69 on May 27, 2018 9:57:32 GMT -5
That's sad. I was very spoiled in Rochester, NY. There are (or were) 7 or 8 comic shops there. Now that I've moved to central Florida, I've only found a couple of comics shops in the area, and they're not that great. Yeah, but for a big collector town, we still can't get a halfway decent show in town--have to go to Buffalo or Syracuse. You're from Rochester? I'm surprised that Syracuse would have a good show, but maybe everybody from the whole eastern part of upstate gathers for that.
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Post by brutalis on Jun 8, 2018 8:08:44 GMT -5
Remembering When X-Men was “GREAT” and at its zenith for me during the Claremont/Byrne issues. I had found the New X-Men with issue 98 and was enjoying the freshness and fun of this new team of colorful international mutants. The Cockrum art was instrumental in gaining my interest and Claremont was in his infancy for writing the mutants and finding his way which made for interesting reading as most of the team was a clean slate for characterization. Cyclops was the stern leader. Banshee was the veteran father figure. Wolvie the gruff get it done soldier. Nightcrawler is the errant swashbuckler ne’er do well. Storm the aloof powerful “goddess”. Colossus is the silent devout powerhouse.
This was a group of mostly new heroes working together finding its way into becoming a cohesive team just like the early days of many other Marvel team series who were now old-timers. It felt all new and all different just as it boasted on the cover! Without this initial burst of mutant rebirth there wouldn’t be the explosive takeover of the MU by mutantdom. Soon there would be just as many comics as there were mutants but for now there is only this bi-monthly group fighting for their kind. And boy is it excitement during this time with the return of Sentinels hunting the team, Magneto’s returning to the spotlight of villainy and Juggernaut thundering through.
Amidst this exciting return there is the introduction of newer threats with Eric the Red and the Shi’ar and the Legion of…oops I mean the Imperial Guard and the debut of Byrne on art pushing forward into the Savage Land and suddenly this comic is on fire, hot and burning brighter than a Phoenix rising or a Dark Phoenix dying. This is more fun than an Arcade game of life or death and the very most wild reality altering ride in comic books since the past and future collides while dropping us off at the Hellfire Club for a dinner party the likes we haven’t seen in a very long time at Marvel! All hail the rise of the mutants…
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 8, 2018 13:09:47 GMT -5
Would be nice if grocery stores or some drug stores/pharmacies would start selling comic books and other magazines all over again but theyre drug pharmcy stores anyway. Doesnt really bother me that much whenever I go for a 2-3 hour road trip drive to the city to buy comic books etc from the comic book shop just as long the comic book shop isnt busy with weird people during a special day like Free Comic book day or whatever. I thought Archie digests were still sold in grocery stores.
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Post by brutalis on Jun 8, 2018 14:07:22 GMT -5
Would be nice if grocery stores or some drug stores/pharmacies would start selling comic books and other magazines all over again but theyre drug pharmcy stores anyway. Doesnt really bother me that much whenever I go for a 2-3 hour road trip drive to the city to buy comic books etc from the comic book shop just as long the comic book shop isnt busy with weird people during a special day like Free Comic book day or whatever. I thought Archie digests were still sold in grocery stores. They are, but instead of the high visibility in being at the check out line at eye level with multiple rows on every checkout line now they are are down on the bottom row of the magazine area which many folk just don't stop and look or buy from anymore.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 8, 2018 15:35:41 GMT -5
Remembering When X-Men was “GREAT” and at its zenith for me during the Claremont/Byrne issues. I had found the New X-Men with issue 98 (…) Oh, yeah. My own entry point was #120, and I was hooked immediately. And, naturally, I later managed to read all of the earlier stuff. It's all just as good as you described, and once Byrne and Austin became the art team, that series was like lightning in a bottle. There was some good stuff afterward, but to me X-men never reached the heights of that stretch from the mid-90s through #143.
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 8, 2018 20:05:02 GMT -5
I thought Archie digests were still sold in grocery stores. They are, but instead of the high visibility in being at the check out line at eye level with multiple rows on every checkout line now they are are down on the bottom row of the magazine area which many folk just don't stop and look or buy from anymore. That's almost reads as comics being devalued to the point they are physically at the "bottom" of consideration, even on a rack filled with gossip rags.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 10, 2018 17:39:04 GMT -5
Spinner-racks of so many shiny new comic books at 20 cents (okay, very earliest memory, so pretty fuzzy), then 25, 30, 35, and then when they were 40 I was following a bunch of Marvel titles either regularly or if they looked particularly good. I remember the wait for the next issue of some titles and going mad if I thought I'd missed it (then visiting further afield spinner-racks and sometimes finding the issue and sometimes not). Collecting up bottles to return for the coins to buy even just one more comic. Okay, the printing was haphazard at times, and the newsprint pretty low quality, but that's why they were cheap and possible to collect in the first place. I wonder if the comics themselves and the specialist shops of today seem formidable even without meaning to for a lot of 12 year olds? I think it's important to have welcoming places where anyone can come along and discover something, and I'm always happy to see comics accessible to kids and girls too!
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 13, 2018 15:02:13 GMT -5
I thought Archie digests were still sold in grocery stores. They are, but instead of the high visibility in being at the check out line at eye level with multiple rows on every checkout line now they are are down on the bottom row of the magazine area which many folk just don't stop and look or buy from anymore. That depends on the store. The #1 grocery chain around here has the Archie digests and the new Marvel digests at eye level in the checkout line. The next Marvel digest, issue #7 with the Avengers featuring Ant-Man and the Wasp, will be on the stands next Wednesday, the 20th.
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Post by rberman on Jun 16, 2018 17:23:39 GMT -5
I got this B&W pocket size reprint at a convenience store in 1982; I'd never read either of the two stories in it before. I also felt it needed some color, though I only got about ten pages in with my "improvements."
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Post by Cheswick on Jun 17, 2018 0:45:45 GMT -5
I got this B&W pocket size reprint at a convenience store in 1982; I'd never read either of the two stories in it before. I also felt it needed some color, though I only got about ten pages in with my "improvements." I remember being so excited when that book came out because, before its release, the only other way to read that story was if you could find and afford to buy the original. Shortly after they released this version (about a year?), they released a full-color, cardstock Special Edition, whish I also happily purchased.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 17, 2018 8:18:50 GMT -5
Remember seeing comments like this on the letters page? (Remember letters pages?) I was reading Hulk #160 (Hulk fights Tiger Shark, who has been hiding behind Niagara Falls) a couple of nights ago and there was a letter from a guy who had just got a copy of Avengers #1 and he was asking when Hulk went from being a big green tough guy who talked in mostly complete (but rude) sentences and became the "HULK SMASH!" version of the 1970s. The response congratulated him on getting a copy of Avengers #1 and mentioned that it was going for FIFTEEN DOLLARS! That's a lot of money for a funny book! This reminds me of when I set up in a local comic show back in the mid 90's and sold a lot of my collection. Another dealer in the show had an Avengers #1 that he was selling for 100 dollars. I was too cheap/scared to pull the trigger. I dare you to find one for that price today.
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