Fun In Store

I've been buying comics since 1972, buying them in comic book stores regularly since 1981, and buying them with my own "hard-earned money" since 1986.

I had my tonsils removed at the tender age of six. My mother, God bless her, set me on a lifelong path of comics enjoyment by bringing me comics at the hospital to make my stay easier.

I can remember in the mid-'70s walking miles and miles (okay, two) to the 7-Eleven in St. Augustine Shores, a housing development we lived in in Central Florida. I'd jaunt off to this convenience store, two dollars in hand, and come back with 10 new comics to spend the weekend with.

Of course, for two dollars now you can spend about 7 minutes reading comics--if you're lucky and pick up one with words worth reading--but, don't get me started.

So I have in the ensuing years experienced quite a few different kinds of comics stores, from shops that specialized in rare coins and had grungy boxes of comics off in a dark corner somewhere, to stores that boggled the mind with the amount of comics and related material they had, like the Heroes World I visited in a New Jersey shopping mall in the late 1970s. I remember that store because a) it was the first store I had ever seen that dealt exclusively with comics.

I spent more than one hundred dollars--1979 dollars--my parents dollars--that day. A perfect day, except the Mego Wonder Woman action figure I bought had a broken arm that wasn't visible until after we were back on the interstate. Oh, well.

Now, here we are over twenty years later.

I am a radio news anchor with a wonderful, tolerant-of-my-hobbies wife and two small (but significant!) children. Obviously, I can't throw around a hundred bucks like I could when it was Mommy's money. So I'm pretty selective about the comics I spend my money on, and even more about the stores I choose to spend it in.

For many years, ten, in fact, I drove nearly 100 miles round-trip to Albany, NY to shop at Fantaco, a store so long-lived and wondrous you may have actually heard of it. They also published comics for a good long stretch of time.

They closed up shop a few years back, and I began shopping at a store that had opened less than three miles from my own front door.

The employees of the store were friendly, and always willing to chat, but they were completely unaware of anything in the world of comics outside Marvel and Image. They had in fact opened the store as an adjunct to their sports-card shop (right next door) during the comics boom following the Death of Superman.

The amazing, horrible part of this store was that they were completely unable or unwilling to service my needs. Every month, I would look through Previews and choose items such as The Comics Journal, Eightball or American Splendor, and three months later I would go to the shop and get--whatever I'd ordered from Marvel, DC or Image (which was 1963 and nothing else--they've come a long way, but it was all crap until Alan Moore's 1963 came along).

Oh, they'd be nice and friendly when I went in, make small talk, but have nothing but apologies when it came to the special items I had ordered. Stuff that had been on the shelves for all to see at Fantaco was completely inaccessible at this new store, even when I tore the page out of Previews to show them how to order it.

"Where's my Comics Journal?" I'd ask. "Couldn't find it listed, are you sure there's such a thing?" Would come the reply.

Gaaaaaah!

Month after month!

After many months of this, with many promises of better service made and then broken, I resumed my 100 mile round trips to the Albany area, to a great store in Schenectady, Electric City Comics.

The clerk, Jevin, always greeted me by name, found whatever I was looking for, and didn't make me feel like I was at fault somehow for wanting something he had never heard of. He would, in fact, go out of his way to point out items to me I might not have heard about but that he thought might interest me based on my buying habits. Imagine that!

About a year ago I began buying my comics at another store locally, in fact right up the road. It's a hobby shop specializing in radio-controlled cars, with a small selection of new comics each week and a spattering of back-issue bins. But, damn it, the owner services his comics-buying customers (about 50, I'm told) right. He has never failed to come through for me when I special-order something, and he even lets my 6-year old daughter use the employee bathroom. He's a good guy, and I'm happy to give him my business.

I still shop at Electric City, occasionally, and at Earthworld, a great store in midtown Albany. An interesting thing about Electric City and Earthworld, stores that have survived while other Albany-area stores have come and gone, is that both put a great deal of emphasis on Alternative comics, while Marvel, Image and DC are simply comics among many on the racks. It's like, I don't know, they want adults to shop there or something.

Eventually, the store that I had abandoned in frustration went out of business, which came as no great surprise or sadness to me. Retailers (especially in the current market!) have got to wise up and treat their customers right. I found I enjoyed the 100-mile round trip to Electric City more enjoyable than the 6-minute jaunt to the local store because I knew I was a valued customer in Schenectady.

If you're a retailer, be glad when you see a customer come in the door. Treat them with respect and courtesy, and make your store a place the customer won't be ashamed to bring his wife and/or kids into. That store I quit going to, with the attitude and service I received, might as well have hung a sign in the window saying "Please Take Your Money Elsewhere."

Because that's exactly what I did.