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Post by dbutler69 on May 21, 2019 14:58:40 GMT -5
I wish I could send some pics, but I am a thousand miles away from where I grew up, and so not too likely to take and pictures of my childhood comic shop. Google Street View is your friend. Google has photos of everything...everywhere...ever. **looks suspiciously around** Thanks. Now I just have to figure out how to post photos that I've snapped myself and have on my hard drive, as opposed to photos already on a website such as comics.org.
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Post by Rob Allen on May 21, 2019 15:36:56 GMT -5
Thanks. Now I just have to figure out how to post photos that I've snapped myself and have on my hard drive, as opposed to photos already on a website such as comics.org. Upload them to an image host like imgur and post a link to there.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 21, 2019 18:57:32 GMT -5
Google Street View is your friend. Google has photos of everything...everywhere...ever. **looks suspiciously around him** Even giant green rabbits. Please, no more...
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2019 2:24:15 GMT -5
As a kid, I got most of my comics form Ideal Drug, Dairy Mart of polybag 3 packs at the super-market, but my first comic shop proper was fairly well known and well-regarded, long before I first discovered it during high school. Here's a picture from the Sunday magazine insert section of the Hartford Courant (in Connecticut) from 1976 of the owner of The Bookie (the shop opened in '69), which was the first comic shop I ever went to. I discovered it in 1984... Hal Kinney was the owner and it was located on Burnside Avenue in East Hartford, CT, but it moved a couple times to different locations on the street during the time I went there. Here's what the shop looked like in '76 at the time of the article (photo is from the article) here's another page form the article showing the interior of the shop... This is how Hal used to store back issues in the shop... you'd ask for a title and he would go back and bring out a pile of issues from the series, all unbagged, for you to look through, then look up what Overstreet said, and come up with a price. If he didn't like you or you were a pain in the ass, it was strict guide, if he liked you, or were just starting out, he would give you a better price. This was the final location of the shop when it closed after Hall passed, circa 2010-2011... I never went to that location (I was already in Ohio by the time he moved to that one). For a few years, Hal co-owned a second shop on the other side of the CT River, in West Hartford, called The Bookie West, here's a newspaper photo from that shop, circa 1983... this was near where my dad worked, so I would go to this shop from time to time as well once I started collecting in high school. It's where I found copies of Dark Knight #1 and 2 still available when #3 came out, which was the first issue I got as it was released. Here's the fullpage form that newspaper... Hal was also good friends with a lot of creators, Dave Wenzel and Steve Woron in particular. During the B&W boom in the mid-80s, Hal even put out an issue of Woron's Survivors, published by Burnside Comics Here's a pic of Hal in his shop circa '74 forma fandom 'zine... Here's a flyer for his re-opening sale when he moved the shop in 1986, this new location was the second location of the shop while I was in high school... you can see what tht location looks like now here it's a Caribbean grocery store now. Here's the flyer for when the shop first moved to Burnside Ave in '73, it had been in Hartford before that... another newspaper articl featuringHal, form a Meriden, CT newspaper... and Hal used to do mail order through the shop as well, here's one of his mail order ads... I was able to find most of these photos because there is a facebook group devoted to memories of Hal and the Bookie. I learned so much about comics at that shop, from Hal and his employees. I built my first Avengers collection there (I had every issue but 1 and 4, all bought form Hal or at the local conventions he organized), I discovered my first indy books at his shop, had my first pull list, met my first comic creator there (Dick Giordano), etc. That shop holds a lot of memories for me and was instrumental in shaping the comic fan that I am. -M
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Post by dbutler69 on May 22, 2019 10:39:09 GMT -5
Thanks. Now I just have to figure out how to post photos that I've snapped myself and have on my hard drive, as opposed to photos already on a website such as comics.org. Upload them to an image host like imgur and post a link to there. Thanks. I'll give it a shot.
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Post by Farrar on May 23, 2019 18:02:34 GMT -5
I would use Google maps but I don't quite remember the street names to the places I used to go in the Village. I plan to make it out there to get some pix of them. Nice abandoned Bodega there ... Yes, it's a lot easier for me, since the uptown streets are all numbered. Continuing with "old comic book stores when I was growing up," here's a store I'd mentioned recently in the 50 Years Ago thread. The Friendly Shop was a stationery store/luncheonette about a mile south of where I lived; it was in the neighborhood where a few of my classmates lived. One day they told me about this new shop that had opened in their neighborhood that sold comics. I was always on the lookout for a place where I could buy all three of my Marvels (FF, Avengers and X-Men) at one time, instead of piecemeal--for the longest time none of the candy stores in my neighborhood carried all three comics, so I always had to go to scurry around to different stores to find these titles. Anyway I went with my friends to The Friendly Shop and loved it. It was large, spacious and brightly-lit-- so unlike the mostly small, cramped candy stores in my neighborhood. And best of all, the store seemed to stock my Marvels, so I thought I'd found my Holy Grail! The first time I went I was able to buy all three of my Marvels at the same time--Avengers #63, FF #86 and X-Men #55. Unfortunately I only did this for a couple of months, then The Friendly Shop abruptly stopped carrying Marvels and just stocked Archies. I visited the block last summer, and though there is still a stationery store there, it doesn't carry comics. This is a picture from Google Maps.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2019 20:09:56 GMT -5
I have bought the majority of my comics from 3 stores:
1966-1978... off the news stand at Davis Trading Post in Norwood, PA. I found out it still exists... but as a gift shop.
1979-1989... The Comic Universe in Folsom, PA. I was one of the first costumers when it opened 40 years ago. I even worked there for a short time. Great owner. Found out the owner just retired.
1990-present... The Comic Store in Lancaster, PA. Great owner. Great store. I switched to them when I moved to Lancaster. It opened in 1977.
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Post by rom on May 24, 2019 22:05:10 GMT -5
Nice thread. As a kid who started collecting comics in the very late '70's, my earliest memories are of going into drug stores & getting comics from the spinner racks. I don't remember any specific neighborhood bookstores that sold comics, but also didn't grow up in an area that would have had them around, either.
Direct market comic stores started popping up (in my area) in the early '80's. I grew up in the Baltimore MD/Washington D.C. area (East Coast), and remember Geppi's Comics in Baltimore City (Harbor Place); Heroes World (Columbia Mall, MD), and another large store in Silver Spring, MD (also possibly a Geppi's). I remember this larger store was on a street corner, and it was one of numerous stores in a strip shopping center. The store itself had a large first floor when you went in with new issues & numerous bins of back issues. They also had a smaller basement area with back issues - IIRC, the ones in the basement were magazine back issues, primarily (Savage Sword of Conan, etc.). I never went there that often since it was out of my way (also, no drivers license at the time - LOL).
However, there was no real sense of "wonder" in going into one of these direct-market places - the back issues were all bagged and boarded, and the people that worked there were very businesslike in their approach to selling the comics. And, as a kid I didn't have much disposable income so could only really buy newer issues.
Also this time I do remember going into Kay-Bee Toys (now defunct) @ a local mall and finding loose older comics there for a good price, specifically the '70's title Kamandi, the last boy on Earth.
I haven't lived in that part of the country for over 20 years, so have no idea if many of these places are still around - though, I suspect most of them have probably closed.
I don't even go to LCS's any more anyway, given that I exclusively get CE's online these days - which I honestly prefer.
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Post by urrutiap on May 24, 2019 23:51:45 GMT -5
Back in my day the early 1980s and mid 1980s, it was pretty much NOW Comics, the bagged copies of 3 comics which were of Flash Gordon and a couple of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Magnus Robot Fighter at various grocery stores and the usual stuff from Marvel at the time such as Power Pack, Uncanny X-Men, Spider-Man, Alpha Flight, G.I. Joe and Marvel's Star or Epic kids stuff such as Ewoks and Alf.
Good times back then and simple.
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Post by dbutler69 on May 27, 2019 8:59:05 GMT -5
The LCS I went to when I was a kid was (and is) called Empire Comics in Rochester, NY. Here is their logo, which is on most of my comic boxes, and use to be on the plastic bags I brought my comics home in: This is where Empire Comics is located today. They moved to this location about when I went off to college in 1987, which is when I stopped collecting comics (though I did start up again for about a year or two my sophomore year of college): This is the location that Empire Comics was in originally. Back in the day, it was a plaza which also had an archery store, a Greek restaurant, a beverage store (mostly soft drinks) and I believe some other store which I don't remember. After Empire Comics moved, it was still a plaza for many years. However, when I used Google Maps to look at the location now, I found that the whole plaza was turned into a Family Dollar! However, before I discovered my comic shop, I used to get my comics (and candy) at a food mart close to my home called Convenient Food Mart. This is what a typical Convenient Food Mart looks like: However, the location of the Convenient I used to go to is no longer it is a Convenient. At least it's still a little food mart, though. Off to the right is the house of a kid I used to know in high school. This all reminds me of how none of the places I used to frequent as a kid look anything like they used to when I was a kid. Some have changed, and some don't even exist anymore. Why can't anything stay the same?
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Post by Icctrombone on May 27, 2019 9:07:43 GMT -5
I imagine it might be impossible for anything to not change in the 40 years since I've been a kid. The only thing standing that looks similar is this- Still the same corner and still sells the types of things from the past. I don't know if it even sells comics ,or newspapers for that matter.
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Post by MDG on May 27, 2019 10:23:50 GMT -5
The LCS I went to when I was a kid was (and is) called Empire Comics in Rochester, NY. Here is their logo, which is on most of my comic boxes, and use to be on the plastic bags I brought my comics home in: AKA "The Evil Empire" for their habit of pulling hot books off the stands, bagging them, and slapping a $5 price tag on them,
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Post by kirby101 on May 27, 2019 11:33:58 GMT -5
The first brick and mortar comic store I went to (as opposed to 7/11s and drugstores for the comic racks) was comics and Comix in San Francisco, circa 1974-75 while visiting relatives.
After that it was Golden Apple on Melrose in L.A.
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Post by dbutler69 on May 27, 2019 11:36:33 GMT -5
The LCS I went to when I was a kid was (and is) called Empire Comics in Rochester, NY. Here is their logo, which is on most of my comic boxes, and use to be on the plastic bags I brought my comics home in: AKA "The Evil Empire" for their habit of pulling hot books off the stands, bagging them, and slapping a $5 price tag on them, Yeah, they were not the cheapest place in the world, but they were close (I could ride my bike there) and they had a great selection. You're familiar with them, obviously?
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Post by codystarbuck on May 27, 2019 11:49:42 GMT -5
I grew up in a little farm town, of 700, called Niantic, in central Illinois (near Decatur). We ha a tiny little grocery store/butcher shop, about the size of your average convenience store (smaller, actually). There was no newsstand, though, in the very late 70s, they had a Display rack with the Whitman bagged sets of DC comics. We would go to Decatur for groceries, every Saturday; but, there weren't consistent comic book presences, as I recall. Again, late 70s, a Kroeger was carrying a comic spinner. before that, I might see 3 or 4 titles on the newsstand. The closest I had to a regular comic shop was Johnson' Supermarket, in nearby Illiopolis, IL. Illiopolis was the next town over, to the west, just over the Macon/Sangamon County line. They had a Borden's chemical plant there, a byproduct of a munitions factory that was there, in WW2. There were storage bunkers spread out on some of the farmland, from those days. A farmer I used to work for owned one and showed it to us, once. Anyway, Illiopolis had a slightly bigger population, as a result of the plant and the Market was a decent size, for the town. They had a newsstand, complete with comic book rack. In my younger days, trips were infrequent. I do recall getting my first Phantom comic there. Later, when I was in junior high, I would ride my bicycle the 5 miles to Illiopolis, and buy stuff off the newsstand. This was late 7s, dawn of the 80s. That is where I got things like DC Comics Presents, the Wolverine mini and X-Men, and the Great Darkness Saga issues of the Legion. This is a more recent era photo. If you look past the gas station, you see Johnson's in the background. It also had a small true-Value Hardware attached to it, with some tools and other basics, plus toys. The comic rack was my destination though. It was right inside, after you came through the door. I'd pick my selections, get a snack and a drink, eat that and drink the soda, then hop back on my bike and pedal the 5 miles back home. Then, it was reading time. In Decatur, there was a Book Emporium small bookstore, at the Northgate Mall (older style semi-strip mall). They had a comic spinner for a few years, then took it out. Later, in the early 80s, they brought it back and had Direct Market distribution titles there. That is where I discovered Jon Sable and Starslayer, bought the Baxter reprints of Micronauts, picked up the first 4 issues of Mighty Crusaders, and saw the Nexus magazine-format comic (the first 3 issues, from Capital). I bought Jon Sable and the first couple of American Flaggs there, before going off to college. At the Univ of Illinois, I went into my first comic shop: The Book Nook, in downtown Champaign. It was a used bookstore/comic shop and the owner would appear on the pledge drives, on WILL (the local PBS station, run by the university) during the Doctor Who broadcasts. That is where I got to see all that the Direct Market had to offer, with fanzines, comics, British comics, graphic novels and more. A couple of other comic shops opened near campus, in my later time, after the Book Nook closed down; so, there was one available for my entire 4 years.
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