CR Sunday Magazine

Go, Read: Dan Nadel Interview



Usually when I talk to an interesting person working in and around comics, they have one or two projects coming out of note. Writer and Art Director Dan Nadel of Picturebox Inc. and The Ganzfeld has more than a half-dozen major projects out or about to come out, any one of which could potentially change the way you look at comics. Please Read.


I Did Manage To Hit the Button that Said Watch College Football All Day

If you are a daily reader of this site, and God bless you if you are, I forgot to hit the buttons that make the "CR Week in Review" and the "This Week in Review" entries pop up on the blog, so they're down below.


Go, Look: Jimmy Swinnerton



The great newspaper strip cartoonist James Swinnerton was born 130 years ago today, and while any day is a good day to check out his life and work, this may be a slightly better one. There are biographies at Don Markstein's Toonpedia, Lambiek.net (where I nicked the image), and Comic-Art.com. He has a Wikipedia entry here and Diamond Galleries talks about him here, in an article which includes a photo of the cartoonist with George McManus and Walt Disney.

There are some really great comics to check out at Coconino World and at an OSU library site.


Go, Read: Chun on American Masters

The comics historian Alex Chun has written a piece for the LA Times on the still-living artists profiled in the "Masters of American Comics" show.


Sufferin' Shad: Ghosts of Retailers Past



Like many of you, I'm sure, I spent a portion of my weekend reading Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner #2, cover dated October 1984, starring the world's only superhero so cool he routinely shows up for fistfights in nothing but his swim trunks.

Here's something I never thought of before that struck me while flipping through the comic book. Check out this list of comics shops and related services advertising in this issue (allow for misspellings caused by bad '80s Marvel printing and/or Attuma):

American Comic Book Co., Studio City CA
(6) (9) Another World, Los Angeles CA
(3) (9) A&S Comics, North Bergen NJ
Comic Sales Company, Brooklyn NY
(5) Comic Vendor, Torrence CA
(2) (5) (9) Dave's Comics, Richmond VA
Discount Comics, Santee CA
* Graham Crackers Comics, Naperville IL
Grand Book, Inc., Brooklyn NY
Harti Comics, Phoenix AZ
(3) Howard M. Rogofsky, Queens, NY
(4) Island Fantasy, Victoria BC
(7) (8) J&S Comics, Red Bank NJ
* Mile High Comics, Boulder, CO
Moondance Enterprises, Hamden CT
(3) Passaic Books, Passaic NJ
Rainbows End, La Mesa, CA
R. Creslichi, Montreal, Canada
Robert Bell, Coral Springs, FL
(1) (9) Tomorrow is Yesterday, Rockford IL
* Westfield Comics, Madison WI

The ones I'm familar with now I've starred. Do any of you know the fate of any of these other retailers, if they're still around, why they aren't, in what form? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

******

(1) Will Pfeifer:

Tomorrow is Yesterday, which was mentioned in that Namor ad, still exists. It actually managed to expand during the great comic book shop collapse of the mid to late 90s, mostly due to good management and great customer service. Super-heroes are most prominent at the store, but they carry plenty of Manga and just about any independent I can think of, along with all sorts of toys, games, models and even a used paperback book section. It's a good store. I'm there every week, and the staff is always helpful and working (as opposed to sitting behind the counter and playing Magic all day), and they make an extra effort to help people -- parents shopping for gifts, young kids -- who might've never set foot in a comic book store.

I'm glad it's my local comic book store. I could've done a lot worse.


(2) Johanna Draper Carlson

Dave's Comics is unfortunately still around in Richmond, VA. It's a terrible place, with suspicious, unhelpful salespeople and clutter everywhere. Yet that's what most people in town think of when they think of comics. I've had a number of conversations with people that ran "Oh, yeah, I hated that place, but I kept going there for years." There's no accounting for taste, I guess.

(3) George Khoury:

A & S is still around -- went there early this year. Passaic Books is no longer around -- believe they closed down several years back. Howard M. Rogofsky continues to sell via catalogs, listing classified ads in movie magazines.

(4) Dave Knott:

Island Fantasy is now long gone, having closed their doors over ten years ago. I'm not sure what happened, as I had moved to Vancouver by that time. It seems likely that they fell victim to the speculator boom (and subsequent bust) of the early nineties.

It was the first, and for two decades the only, comics shop on Vancouver Island. At its height, it was pretty successful, even spawning a satellite store in Nanaimo (further north on the Island).

It the first true comics shop that I ever set foot in. I have fond memories of the place, although it's possible that I'm viewing the past through rose-coloured glasses. It was located at the bottom level in a really nice enclosed square in downtown Victoria. I remember it having a pretty good range of comics, in addition to role-playing games, and other nerd-fare. Every so often I'll come across an older comic and remember seeing it for the first time at Island Fantasy.

(5) Harold Sipe:

Comic Vendor, Torrence CA is closed - I think it happened some time late 03 - I was living in the South Bay of LA and would stop in from time to time to pick up new books because it was close to work. I knew something was up, because toward he end they got really aggressive toward browsers, along the lines of asking multiple times if they could help or sometimes out-of-the-blue if the customer was going to buy anything. They also got to be very aggressive on their subscription service - which is why I stopped shopping at the place - it was very far from being one of the better shops in the larger LA area.

Dave's Comics, Richmond VA - I also was in Richmond through 2001-2002, I never found this place - I had remembered the name from the old Marvel lists, but never came across it. I am hesitant to say it is closed however, I seem to remember some ad years ago saying it was a mail-order service. It may still be operating in that kind of capacity.

(6) Tom McLean, Variety:

Hey!

Saw your list of old comics shops and wanted to let you know that Another World in L.A. is still open. The owner for years was a guy named Bob Costa (I think that's his name) and he and his wife recently brought in some new management to make over the store. It used to be a "classic" comics shop with lots of clutter and an extensive back issue selection that required an employee to head into the mysterious back room to see if they had the comic you were looking for. I haven't been in for a while, but the shop looks much better from better from the street and it appears from their website (http://www.anotherworldcomics.com/) that they've done a lot to fix it up.

(7) Raphe Cheli:

J&S Comics is still around -- it's the mail order end of (I think) Comics Plus, a store in Southern Jersey (the last one left -- they had around 6 in the 90s heyday). I haven't been to the shop in a few years since I moved to Chicago, but they're still selling on eBay (their eBay id is jscomics). The shop, at least how I remember it, is decent -- not great, not terrible.

(8) Andy Grossberg:

J&S Comics, Red Bank NJ

I just bought a comic off of them on Ebay last week. They're still going and have piles of great books for sale.

Oh, and Discount Comics was probably the city of Santee, CA.

(9) Eric Julien:

Another World Comics - Web: www.anotherworldcomics.com

A&S Comics - Two Locations. Web: www.ascomics.com

Dave's Comics - www.davescomics.com

Tomorrow is Yesterday - www.tomorrowisyesterday.com (site is loading kinda odd, though!)
 
posted 6:15 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives