Toronto’s Silver Snail Changes Hands; To Move

The Canadian comics news-focused site Sequential has a nice catch/thinkpiece up on the sale of the big-name Toronto comics store Silver Snail from founder Ron Van Leeuwen to a longtime manager (George Zotti) and his business partner (Mark Gingras) -- news in an of itself for a store that's been around three decades. What makes it that much more interesting is that a move from its current location is apparently imminent, including the possibility of relocation into a neighborhood in which another Toronto comics mega-institution, The Beguiling, is headquartered. The comments are worth reading as well.

Something that strikes me about the story is that it makes me wonder what actually constitutes the survival of an institution like Silver Snail. Is it the same comic store if it's in a different location? Does it have to retain a certain percentage of the longtime clientele? Does it have to have a certain overlap in shelving and purchasing strategies? Is there something in the feel of a store that tells you if it's the same place it used to be? Does the fact that it's a longtime manager involved make it more of the same store, or would that be transferable to anyone? I would imagine that it's some rough measure of all of these things, combined with the intent of those involved in how they conceive of the establishment then and now, but as these places exist in a cultural sense at the same time they exist as businesses, it seems an intriguing notion to explore. Certainly one can imagine a very similar purchase being made with, say, a name change involved and within months we might only connect the two resulting institutions as trivia.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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