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REMEMBERING THAT FIRST LCS...
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361 posts in this topic

Any Chicagoans remember the name of a small shop located on W Morse Ave. in the early 80's? I remember stopping in there all the time as a kid walking home from school. Don't remember the name though as I was only in first grade at the time.

Evil Squirrel Comics? Looks like they've closed down.

 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/evil-squirrel-comics-chicago

 

That wasn't around in the 80s, though. It opened around... 2005, I guess, and closed in 2013.

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I believe it was Little Nemo's off of Austin Street in Forest Hills NY. It was near the "L" that the LI Rail Road ran on. Typical shop that was small, cramped, dark and dusty.

 

My first experience picking up back issues was out or Richie Muchins van in the 70's at the Aqueduct Racetrack flea market.

Exactly the same for me. Chris and Joe Parente at Little Nemo's, followed by a quick jog to Carbanero's place around the block. While oogling the girls running around on Austin St in platform shoes and hot pants.

 

Richie coming to my house in Queens. The only time I went to Aquedect was when I cut school and took the bus there to play the horses.

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I discovered some of the best comics and music from that store from what would go on when the owners weren't around and the kids ran the shop.

 

I almost forgot about the music! The Comicshop also had an eclectic soundtrack to it, and to this day I can be driving in my car, listening to the radio, and hear a song (I remember they used to play the White Album a lot) that immediately drags me back to those long gone treasure-filled comic bins of my youth :cloud9:

 

Really? I never knew the staff had played music in the Comicshop. Of course, due to me not able to hear ... But the long gone treasure-filled bins? These, are what I remembered the best. I had finished my Archie Digest collection full from the results of these bins under the tables. lol

 

Great old photos to share! Thanks for showing.

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For new issues, it was

 

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and

 

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My first back issue shop was Fat Jack's at its original Walnut Street location in Philadelphia: Head shop up the steps, comic shop down the steps (it moved to Sansom Street, but the Head Shop, Wonderland, is still going strong).

 

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Memories. I remember the old Fat Jack's. I actually prefer it to the new location. I also remember a place called Record Rendezvous on the same street. They had old records, and back issue comics too. I remember getting one of the Kubert Hawkman covers on a late issue of Flash Comics there.

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My first comic shop was New England Comics in Plymouth, MA, they've closed down because it would only do well in the summer time. I loved those NEC Newsletters they used to give out, the old grey newsprint flyers with what was coming out.

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First lcs was C&P comics on Fordham Rd here in the Bronx. It was located above a Blimpies and I would go there at least once a week (comic shop not the Blimpies) and rummage through their 3 for $1 bins. Also remember buying the Superman vs Spiderman treasury for cover price...owner ended up scribbling on the cover to be spiteful when he asked his cashier how much they'd sold it for. What a

 

First place I would get comics from though was a little coffee shop owned by brothers Henry and Harry right across the street from the building I lived in as a kid. They had a spin rack and a wall display and my earliest memory of my mom buying me a book was the original X-Men in their new costumes. I couldn't read yet but I loved the pictures. I've been hooked ever since....who know's, maybe I'll even learn to read some day.

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Everybody likes to tell and read cool stories about comic stores of old.

 

In the 1960's and early 1970's I bought all my new comics at an early version of the 7-11 called Tote-Sum, in Jackson, Mississippi. I bought my back issues from other collectors and once-a-month flea markets. However, in 1977, the folks that owned Memphis Comics in Memphis opened a comic book store called The Star Store (Star Wars had just come out) in Jackson. That was the first time I had been in a comic book store, and it was a good store. It lasted until the early 2000's, when it fell victim to my Jackson-area store, called Action Island (opened in 1998).

 

However, the best LCS experience I have ever had was the first time I walked into More Fun Comics in New Orleans. A number of my collecting friends in the early to mid 1990's said "you really have to go down to New Orleans to see this awesome new store", etc. I put it off for over a year, but I finally made it down there and found the store. I walked in and it literally floored me. I had never seen a comic store like it. It was so big, it had everything, and in the foyer, there was a series of glass display cases with copies of golden and silver age keys in multiples. All over the wall were every silver age comic you could want and lots of GA and bronze as well. It was owned by Bill Ponseti and managed by Matt Nelson, two outstanding people. Both proved to be a gold mine for information and rare items, and both really shaped my collecting mindset.

 

In the stores that I have owned, I have always had it in my mind to try to recreate for first time customers and visitors that overwhelming experience of stepping in to More Fun the first time.

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It wasn`t really a comic store, but the first place I ever went to with a real selection of new comics was the Stars & Stripes bookstore on the Army base in Seoul, Korea back in 1972.

 

The base PX, where my father had previously bought us some comics, were all Gold Keys and Harveys for some reason. Then some kids at school were showing me their superhero comics ("not the kid stuff!") and told me they were sold at the Stars & Stripes.

 

To this day I remember the smell of newsprint and magazines that hit me as I walked in for the first time, and the "wall" of Marvel and DC comics. My Mom had given me $1, so I could buy FIVE comics! I still own one of them, Captain America 149.

 

Marks Jewelers inserts?

Yep, in many of the BA books I purchased in the 70s at military bases. Never realized until many years later that they were not standard in comics.

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The very first comic store I went to was the Comic Kingdom run by Bill Cole. I think it was only open on specific days, and it was in some weird industrial type building. (The Colonial Village Mall in Quincy, according to Mackenzie999.) I wish I could remember the specifics of the location, but it was 40 years ago and my folks are gone and my memory of that aspect is a little hazy. I suppose I could just email him.

 

The comics were on staggered/tiered wall units, I don’t recall going through boxes.

 

Walking in and seeing those old books from the 60s, which at the time seemed as long ago as the turn on the century, was amazingly magical. I bought my first back issues there: Marvel Tales 1 (recommended by Bill for the young reader) FF 48-50, ASM 44 and 45. They remain in my collection, except for the FF 49 and Marvel Tales; I think I sold or traded those as a kid. I also got my Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins there; they’re dog-eared now but still on my bookshelf.

 

From Bill I found out about the local monthly show, The Sunday Funnies at the Boston Howard Johnson's and run by Don Phelps. The monthly show spoiled me a bit. When more comic shops opened up in the ensuing years, I didn’t find any of them a good source for back issues – you could always get much better deals and selection at the show.

 

Wow! This brings me back!

 

The first comic that started me collecting was Spiderman 126 at Vallas News in Weymouth Landing. I bought GS X-Men #1 in Columbian Square at a Pharmacy (they only had B&W books & GS comics), next door was a newsstand now called "Bets & Butts", but that's where I got most of my other books

 

My grandparents lived in Quincy and Comic Kingdom was one of the first comic shops I visited, if not the first. The "Mall" it was in was a repurposed Department Store, but with a near-Flea Market type business model - the spaces wee cheaply built into the gutted building and were pretty uniform in size, IIRC.

 

They had tons of Gil Kane cover roughs for $10 each I think - wish I'd bought them all, but I was barely in my teens.

 

When it first opened the place was packed, but it gradually dwindled to nothing as business dried up and stores closed. It was a craft shop after that, no idea what it is now.

 

There was also a book store in Brockton that sold back issues (and tons of porn). No idea what it was called, but I recall the owner being somewhat cantankerous. I had to beg my mortified grandmother to bring me there to buy Neal Adams GL/GA back issues (#76 = $3 - she nearly fainted!).

 

I used to sell at Sunday Funnies at the 57 alongside Mike Dreese & the Newbury Comics guys - long before they had their first shop. There was another con (or maybe Sunday Funnies moved?) in the lower level of an older Hotel across the street from the 57. Was at 57 when Bill Cole bought the Barks painting at auction & rode elevator down with him, the painting & my mom. She engaged him in small talk and he told her "all comic book dealers are crooks." Odd, as he was a comic book dealer....

 

Moved to Hartford in 1979 (only 1 comic shop, the pretty uninteresting Bookie in East Htfd) and then to Minneapolis in 1984 where I discovered Shinders at 7th & Hennepin (I talked a friend into moving out with me by telling him "There's a place where you can buy Marvel Triple Action #6 at 11pm on Sunday night!") and original College Of CB Knowledge.

 

Was a Hot Comics customer from 1989 until I moved back to MA in 1995 - get all my books at Harrison's in Salem these days, but I'm less and less interested in modern Marvel & DC comics, buying more hardcover collections and indie books than big 2.

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Now that I think of it, my first comic shop may have been Supersnipe in NYC - got DC Captain Action back issues/ Went with my mom, tiny store was jam-packed, and they had to leave the store to get them from some nearby storage(?). It took forever but worth it!

 

Also probably the first of many times I made an innocent woman wait for me at a comic shop.

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The legendary Passaic Book Center.

 

C'mon JP, give us some details.

 

This name is familiar to me... I seem to remember had read an article in one of comic book themed magazine many years ago. It talked about this place how great if was. I'm getting old ... can't remember what magazine! :sorry:

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