When did it become normal to buy your comics at comic book stores and not6802
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Ladic private msg quote post Address this user | |
| at the supermarket? Was it in the 90s? | ||
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SD2416 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I was buying comics from the supermarket in the 80's. Kroger had a big section, Harvest Foods, Food For Less, Mega Market, IGA. | ||
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daywalker private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I also bought them in the late 70’s and 80’s at Hornsbys, Walgreens, Belscott, Shoppersfair, and the occasional adult bookstore I would waltz into and head straight to the comics. Wasn’t old enough, but they never said a word...as I looked around through the corner of my eyes! Lol! | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Comic books began disappearing from supermarket shelves in the early 1980s, with the exception of the Archie digests which you can still find to this day. There was a big push by magazine distributors in the 1970s to restructure rack space so that magazines with higher price points were given prime display space and cheaper items, such as comics, were either relegated to a spinner rack or not displayed at all. This is why the price of comics skyrocketed in the 70s, while ad pages multiplied greatly. It is also what ultimately gave birth to the direct sales system. The first comic shop I ever encountered was in 1981. By 1985 they were all over the place and by the end of the 80s even the spinner racks at drug stores and 7-11s began to disappear. Direct distribution turned out to be a double edged sword for the comic book business. On one hand, it literally saved the industry in the 1980s and allowed for an unprecedented explosion in creative growth. On the other hand, when the bottom fell out in the early 90s after the speculator boom/bust, the limited distribution system nearly killed comics altogether, because it hindered their ability to attract new readers. | ||
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stanley1883 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I guess I'm too "young" to remember comics in super markets. My first exposure to shops was in the 90's when i was about 12-ish. I feel comic shops are really the only place to buy, with the exception of conventions and online forums for specific issues/runs etc. | ||
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BrianGreensnips private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by michaelekruppWere you in the Detroit area in the 70's and 80's? If you were, do you remember Comic Kingdom on Gratiot in Detroit? That was my first exposure to a comic book store and I have a lot of great memories of that place. |
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Manonfire private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I remember getting my comics in the late 80s and 90s and from the news agency & pharmacy in my town. | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I was in the Pontiac area, so Detroit was a little outside my stomping grounds. My first encounter with direct sales was at Front Page Books, next to the old Fiero plant. They only sold two kinds of books: comics and pornos. The back half of the store was a separate room filled with nothing but dirty books! Of course, I was about 11 at the time. I don’t even think I knew what was back there until later on. I also used to frequent Fireside Books at the old Winchester mall. My main source of back issues was the Dixieland flea market in Waterford on the Pontiac border. | ||
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 -Our Odin-Rest in Peace |
Jesse_O private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I grew up buying new comics at the drug store and back issues at a flea market. There was a seller at the flea market that just had books. While my parents went to check out the other stands, I got lost in his tin shed digging through comics, pulps, magazines and novels. That was in the 70's early 80's. We moved to Arlington, Texas in 1982. My first comic shop experience was Lone Star Comics. I had seen their ads for years and even ordered through the mail from them. I thought I was in heaven the first time I went there!!! On a side note, I asked a distant relative (in more ways than one) of mine who lives in rural Germany where comic books are bought where he lives. He said they are sold alongside magazines in grocery stores, drug stores etc. He had never heard of a store dedicated to just comics. He said there may be comic stores in the bigger cities, but they are not common. I just asked him that about 2-3 months ago. |
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I imagine comics are much more widely read overseas, given their old school distribution. I am trying to remember the first “comics only” store I can remember outside of the flea market dealers. It may have been “Comics and Cards” in Waterford, Mi. Not positive, though. It’s been nearly 40 years since those early collecting days. | ||
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 Beaten by boat oars
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I remember buying comics at Kroger, Walgreens, K-mart, Media Play, Waldenbooks, and probably a few other spots in the early to mid 90s. It was a chore to get someone's parents to drive us to the comic store though. The stores weren't far away, it's just after working all day, then doing more grown up stuff, they didn't always want to take us to the comic shop. As far as back issues, we usually just bought them via mail order. East Coast Comics, Mile High, and American Entertainment (and whatever other names it had) were frequented by us a lot via mail. | ||
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 SpongeBob Comics #1 sells for $991!
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Joosh private msg quote post Address this user | |
| October 2017: DC pulled out of the newsstand. I sat in silence. Newsstand now relegated to a few small press brands. February 2018: I finally got over the shock and made my first ever pull list at a LCS. I've always loved comics since reading my first; never loved comic shops. |
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KYoung_1974 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I found my first local comic shop in the mid 80's while visiting my father in a larger city. In the smaller town I grew up in and the even smaller surrounding towns, it was Kroger, the drug store, and a couple of cash stations that all had spinner racks. |
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 I bought a meat grinder on amazon for $60 and it's changed my life.
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kaptainmyke private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I would buy comics at Walmart, Kroger, Waldenbooks, B Dalton Booksellers, Books A Million, and Toys R Us, and Barnes & Nobles Booksellers as a kid from the 80s to the 90s. Then I worked in 3 comic book stores in the mid to late 90s and was direct edition from there until I rediscovered Newsstand Edition Marketplace 3 years ago. | ||
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 Leftover Sundae Gnus
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CatmanAmerica private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I'm almost embarrassed to say my collecting started at a local drug store & soda shop buying comics off spinner racks. By the time comics were being sold in supermarkets I was hooked on ECs and GA, buying back issues via mail order and from comic dealers at conventions. During the 90's I bought Marvel and D.C. Archives from LCS, but most modern comics are less interesting to my collecting psyche since my predominant focus is on earlier books. Truth is, eighty years of comics is a lot of ground to cover and you gotta draw the line somewhere. Sigh, I've been around awhile.   |
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shrewbeer private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Studley_Dudley Pretty much this for me as well in the 90s. Getting a ride to a comic shop was a rare treat, whereas parents would go to the drug store frequent enough. |
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tonnage71 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Bought most of mine as a kid in the ‘70s off spinner racks at my uncle’s drug store in small town northern Minnesota. They still had the racks up until about 10 years ago, but alas they don’t sell comics anymore. Didn’t see an actual comic store until the early ‘90s when I went to the “big city” for college. | ||
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| As soon as I discovered a comic book store, it became normal. Late 70's I'd guess. It was better than driving around to every convenience store to locate that one comic my normal convenience store didn't get. | ||
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JLS_Comics private msg quote post Address this user | |
| In 1991 on my way to the YMCA I discovered a comic book store. | ||
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 past performance is no guarantee of future actions.
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KatKomics private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I started working when I was 12-13 so 1986/87. We had no comic shop in town but the corner stores had wall racks or floor spinners. By the time I went to University (early 90's) comic shops were the place to go with only a few issues at the corner store. Don't remember my first wage but I remember getting a raise to $2.90 per hour. My after school job was at the pharmacy/hardware store (like 3000 people in town) stocked shelves, cut keys, chain , rope, delivered house hold goods and medications to elderly on my BMX when I was 12/13. with my ~$30 per week I could buy basically one of everything on the wall rack and still have money left over!!! |
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Drogio private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I had a friend whose dad would drive us 20 minutes every Friday night to the hobby shop (we were 14-16 at the time). We lived in a very rural area of northern NY. This was 1989-1991 time frame...we could plan ahead what we would be buying that Friday based on Previews. before then I relied on trips with my mom to Kinneys Drug Store and buy them off the rack....and I missed issues a lot because of it. I actually subscribed to a few titles as well...I think what was mailed to me were newstand copies. A few comic shops were around before then, but they didn't last more than several months. So I'd say 89/90 was when I made the switch newstand to direct. |
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 I live in RI and Rhode Islanders eat chili with beans.
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esaravo private msg quote post Address this user | |
| As a kid growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, things were very different. There were dozens of drug stores and variety stores within walking or biking distance, and about half of them carried comics. And my dear father, who I am sure was tired from working all day, would drive me once or twice a week to a few stores that had the best selections on those giant spinner racks. I started buying back issues when I was around 8 years old. Every couple of months, my father would drive me to downtown Providence to a creepy used bookstore (Lincoln Book Store)on a Saturday morning. The owner smoked a pipe and had an eye patch and the place smelled like musty old books, but they had a couple of wooden racks of used comics too. When I got my drivers license in 1976 I started frequenting a small local comic and baseball card shop called the Home Run Shop. You could go there and talk baseball or comics, make trades, or play Stratomatic baseball. When I went away to college, they kept my monthly subscriptions going. | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| A couple of you guys have made great points about how hard it was to find every issue you wanted back in the age of newsstand distribution. I would often frequent multiple drug stores, party stores and book stores and still would miss issues. People who never experienced those days probably have no idea how erratic it actually was. The best bet was to get a subscription if you were serious about not missing issues. | ||
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BrianGreensnips private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by michaelekruppThere was a drug store about 8 blocks away that had a great comic book selection. That was my first exposure to comics before discovering Comic Kingdom. I remember the books hanging all crooked and bent in the spinner racks. The collector today is pretty spoiled. I also bought comics at the Dixieland and still go there once in awhile mistly for the outside dealers. For new books I enjoy Comic City. They order pretty heavy on everything. |
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| They have a comic city in Pontiac which I visit on occasion. They have a nice selection of new comics, trades and hardcovers. I haven’t been to Dixieland in a little while due to there being hardly any comic dealers there anymore. I went there pretty regularly from about 1980 through the early 2000s. There used to be a guy there, Vic Steele, who had an amazing amount of stuff. In the very early 80s he was in the back of the center aisle, then he moved to the back left corner where he was a fixture for decades. In addition to everything he had at the flea market he had about another 450 long boxes in his garage! Super nice guy and always a fair dealer. He eventually got out because his wife was having health problems and he needed to stay home with her. I haven’t talked to him in years but he was one of the good ones. | ||
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past performance is no guarantee of future actions.
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KatKomics private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by michaelekrupp Ahh...my first subscription was Hawk and Dove vol 3 1989 by the Kesels on the heals of the Liefeld 4 part mini. Unknown to me (not advertised) the first issue came signed on the first page by both Kesels - now that I think about it that would be my first signed issue!! Should get it slabbed just for the memories! |
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Nice! I remember when DC was offering that. I had a subscription to X-men from 1981 to 1985. During my peak subscription years of 1983 and 1984 I probably had about a dozen active subs. | ||
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PeteN private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by CatmanAmerica Catman, where Schomburg WWII covers in demand when you started collecting golden age? over the past ten years i have been buying a couple here and there, because I just love his art...and those covers themselves provide a tangible representation of ideology of the time...if you have any and are ever selling or trading, please let me know! |
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BrianGreensnips private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by michaelekruppYeah, he had an amazing amount of comic books. I actually have a New Gods #10 in high grade that I remember buying from him. I still have it too. |
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