I realized something the other day. I don't hang out at the comic shop anymore. I also realized that I don't visit the comic shop at least once a week like I used to. Heck, I was in such an introspective mood I realized that I don't even have a regular comic shop.
The first person that says something about growing up gets smacked. Upside the head with a wet fish.
I still buy comics, or writing this column wouldn't make a lot of sense. I just don't have to buy them as soon as they come out. In the day I would make a trip after work, tired and hungry and just wanting to get home and kick back and relax with food and drink, to the comic book store on that fabled Wednesday when new comics arrived. Except if I do believe so, at one time new comic book day was Tuesday. It's like if I waited even a day, reading those new comics might not mean as much to me. And this was before the internet, so it wasn't like I might accidentally come across a spoiler and have the big surprise ruined for me. If a couple days, heck even a week, went by it wasn't like I still wouldn't be able to pick up those comics and be as surprised as I was going to be. But I had to have those comics right away. It was a compulsion. It's not like I have to explain it most of you out there reading this. I'm preaching to the choir.
Half the fun was hanging out at the comic shop. If I had to make one of those late night drives to get my comics before the shop closed I would still find myself back at the store later in the week, before the next arrival of new comics. I'd go and look at comics I might have missed the first time, but more importantly I'd go to stand around and talk comics with whoever was there. Reading may be a solitary endeavor but reading comics was a group affair. You had to discuss what had happened in the latest issue of what you had just read, what was coming up in future issues, what series your favorite writer or artist was leaving and which series they were taking over, which was better – DC or Marvel? Now it's usually in and out, pick up whatever comics I'm buying and maybe a little small talk but than I'm on my way.
And of course you had your favorite comic shop. The metro New Orleans area didn't have an abundance of comic shops, but there were a few. New Orleans had a few, there was even one out in New Orleans East that I knew of, but I didn't have a vehicle at the time and getting around the Westbank and Metairie was hard enough, much less driving into the city or to the East. Now I just decide which store by where ever I'm closest to at the time I want to pick up some comics.
I found my first comic shop because Marvel decided to sell three of their titles only through the than infant Direct Market, which meant they would only be available to people who frequented comic shops. Up to that time I found my comics at the newstands. Than you could pretty much find all your comics in such a fashion. Sometimes you had to check out more than one place to get all the series you collected, but I managed without too much effort to get whatever comics I needed. Drug stores, Time Savers, Mini Marts, there were quite a few places that had the circular rack with the Hey Kids! Comics sign atop.
Until the day that Marvel decided to pull three of their titles from such establishments. Comics shops existed before that day, but they were carrying the same comics I could find at my local 7-11 and the 7-11 was closer. They were good for back issues, but I don't really remember buying new comics from them at the time. But Ka-zar, Micronauts and a title that escapes me were going to be sold only through the Direct Market now. (I could also be wrong about Mirconauts being one of the titles, but I know Ka-zar was one.) Now the problem was that Ka-zar was one of my favorite comics at the time. Written by Bruce Jones and drawn by Brent Anderson this comic was unlike any version of Ka-zar every published. So if I wanted my fix of Ka-zar and Shannon I was going to have to go to a comic shop.
If memory serves me right (and what a fickle beast my memory seems to be) the first comic shop I started going to on a regular basis was Family Books in Metairie. But it was in Metairie and I lived on the Westbank and man, I hated driving over the bridge at that time. Still there were no comic shops on the Westbank. Or at least that's what I thought. I found one, in Westwego, in one of those little strip malls right off the Expressway. For the life of me I can't remember the name of that shop and it's a shame, I spent a lot of my money and time there. What was weird was that the store had started out as a water bed store and somehow morphed into a comic book store. Eventually their main source of income came from the comics and they might sell a water bed every blue moon. I don't remember the name of the store but I do remember the name of the people that ran it, John and Minnie. The were an older couple, well to me every adult was older.
This became the first comic shop that I can consider “my” comic shop. The Direct Market was causing an explosion in the comic book publishing field. Fantagraphics, Eclipse, Pacific, First and a thousand and one other companies sprang up publishing comics. Cerebus, created and published by Dave Sim wasn't the first black and white comic, but he and his aardvark creation soon became the vanguard for a new movement of self publishing.
I found myself spending too much money and probably too much time at their store. They went to Houson for a comic book convention and I went with them. (That story and other convention memories will be a future column.) Though them I ended up meeting Carl and venturing into his store, BSI Comics. This was at least three moves before he ended up at the store he retired at.
I still shopped with John and Minnie but found myself driving over to Metairie more often to Carl's shop. I'd also still manage to stop at Family Comics now and than. Somewhere in all this John and Minnie closed their store, so my comic book fix was being supplied by Carl on a more regular basis now. BSI became “my” comic book store. Anyone that knows Carl knows what a unique person he is. I could spend hours in his store and I did quite regularly.
I have to mention one thing that I thought very strange when I first started buying my comics from these comic shops. They didn't put their new comics out on a rack where you could just go in and pick them up and pay for them. No, all new comics were bagged and hung from the wall, usually behind the counter. You couldn't pick up a copy of the newest issue of Daredevil and flip through it or see who was writing the newest issue of Spider-man before deciding if you wanted to buy it. To get your new comics you had to look at the comics hanging on the wall and tell whoever was behind the counter what comics you wanted and they would pull them from boxes they had back there. All the comic shops sold new comics this way. The older back issues were out to be browsed and touched and pawed over, but the new comics were untouchable. I don't know if this was how new comics were sold all over the country or just in the New Orleans market. Were they afraid of theft if the new comics were within reach or that customers would read them all and not buy the issue? I have no idea and no one ever really could give me a good answer. Than one day they all went to racking the new comics on the floor so you could just pick them up. Very strange.
Around this time I was engaged in a small side business. I ended up stripping and waxing the floors of BSI on more than one occasion. I'd met Carl after hours with the stripper and buffer and spend the next few hours re-doing his floors.
Though Carl I met the owners of what would become my next shop and become the shop that I look back on today as my one really true comic shop. Carl was always helping other shop owners out, offering advice, providing them with a way to get their comics through his ordering with the distributors. On one of my trips to BSI (and can anyone out there tell me what BSI stands for? I know, but I used to wonder about that until I found out) Carl introduced me to a man and his teen-age son and told me they were opening a store up on the Westbank. That was Ron and his son Ronnie and they were opening Paper Gold in Woodmere.
Before long Paper Gold became “my” comic shop. I still visited BSI and shopped there, there was no way I could stop seeing Carl, but my weekly trips were to Woodmere. Paper Gold was a family affair, Ron and his wife Pat and son Ronnie owned and operated the store. I think Ronnie might have been 15 or 16 at the time. I won't say I was their first customer, but I know I was one of their first. I was their from day one and until their last day. Ron used to be in the oil business in Houston, but after the oil boom went bust he and family moved back home to New Orleans and opened Paper Gold.
Paper Gold became a home away from home for me. I can't even guess the amount of time I spent at that store. Ron, Pat and Ronnie became friends, my comic book family. From the start Paper Gold catered to more than just superheroes, they stocked all the latest Marvel and DC and whatever company was publishing four color adventures featuring such heroes, but they also stocked so much more. Ronnie introduced me to Bone. I was able to continue my purchases of Love and Rockets with no problem. Cerebus was always on the rack.
There were more trips to conventions in Houston. This time with Ron and Ronnie. I remember new comics coming in the night before, I don't know if that was just something that happened for a little while or what, but Ron would let me in the store at night when they were all there separating the shipments and working the pull lists for their customers. They'd let me shop what I needed and I'd hang around talking, probably distracting them from their work.
It was a rare week that I didn't make a couple stops at the store. A good portion of at least one day off would be spent at the store, talking comics or whatever. Ronnie was the comic fan in the family, so we could talk comics or I could talk with Ron or Pat about whatever else came up.
During this time Brian Clifton and I decided to self publish Diebold. (The long strange trip to such a decision is definitely fuel for a future column.) We by passed Diamond as a distributor and went after it ourselves. Not the brightest of moves perhaps, but we ended up selling a few thousand copies through word of mouth and mail order. I had a list of comic shops throughout the country and I worked that list. We did use distributors like Cold Cut and smaller ones. Like I said for the time we sold a respectable amount, for today's time we sold what would be considered a lot for a black and white comic. Do I need to say who bought the largest amount of issues from us? Of course not, it was Ron, Ronnie and Pat. I don't know how many copies they ended up stuck with, but they made us happy with their purchase. My only regret is that for some reason I was never able to do a signing at Paper Gold for the series. We talked about it, but something always seemed to come up.
They closed up and moved back to Houston right around the time I ended up moving to Florida briefly. They closed up before I moved and I remember when I'd drive over that way how weird it was not to be able to stop at the store. Not long afterwards I ended up moving to Florida.
I shop most of the comic shops in metro New Orleans and Northshore and I enjoy them all. There's some of them that I can hang around with for a little while and we'll talk comics and the industry, but it's not the same. And that's a shame. I think a lot of the enjoyment I got from comics was the relationships I developed from the comic stores.
Still I'm hopeful. Since I've discovered Ronnie is back in town with his new store Media Underground I'm hoping that it'll become “my” comic store. I can't visit it as often as I did Paper Gold, it's in Metairie and I live on the Northshore, but when I do visit it I find myself standing around talking to Ronnie about comics and creators and conventions and whatever and it feels like back in the days of Paper Gold. Though it is a little strange not to see Ron and Pat around.
So do you have a comic shop that your consider “yours”? Do you like to hang out and talk comics or are you just in and out? Drop over at Lifein4colors.blogspot.com and tell me what your favorite comic shop is and what you like about it.
