Comic shop memories

[karlos]

When did you guys find your first actual comic book shop, then?

For me, in Hull, there was possibly one of the earliest in the UK, in 1980.

No photos or anything at all exist, sadly.

After that, there were a few throughout the 80s onward.

Does anyone here remember probably the best of them - Final Frontier aka Grimjacks?

[JohnW]

Forbidden Planet on New Oxford Street and Gosh on Great Russell Street, summer of 1990, possibly on the same day, but I don't remember.
The majestic metropolis that is my home town didn't have any dedicated comic shop that I can remember until a couple of years later. Then it was some hole in the corner at the back of a dying market, with a pretty poor selection and a proprietor who probably thought himself a 'character', which is to say a contrary pain in the arse.
You had to engage with the guy and deal with his unfunny schtick if you so much as wanted to know the price of something.
Comics fans not being generally known for their gregariousness, it's not surprising he didn't last long. Nevertheless, the prick remains something of a minor legend among Cork nerds of a certain vintage.
For those too young to have known the days before the internet, I should point out that there were a lot of similarities between buying out-of-the-mainstream comics and trying to get your hands on porn.

[moly]

I was lucky living in Birmingham as we had nostalgia and comics before it changed ownership but I possibly spent more money in the second hand shop in the underpass near it, still have my 2000ad issue 1 from there

[nxylas]

Forever People in Bristol, circa 1983. I used to go there to get the Eagle Comics reprints of strips I'd already read, for some reason. It was famous for its Basil Fawltyesque staff, who could barely disguise their contempt for their customers.

[karlos]

It's funny how similar our experiences back then were - buying comics was hard work!

I do miss it all, though -tracking comics down, randomly discovering something new and amazing, meeting so many different people.

Happy days

[Tjm86]

I was lucky living in Birmingham as we had nostalgia and comics before it changed ownership but I possibly spent more money in the second hand shop in the underpass near it, still have my 2000ad issue 1 from there

Wow, remember that little place.  Picked up a few bits and pieces there on my first visit to a comic mart in Brum.  N & C was a completely different beast back then, packed full of stuff.  Plus Andromeda Books just around the corner and Mega City comics which didn't even bother with tables the one time I managed a visit.

Forbidden Planet when it was on Denmark street seems a lifetime ago, not to mention utterly transformed compared to what it is now.  Hard to believe that something a fraction of the size could have so much more to offer than it does now.  Then again there were plenty of options in those days, weren't there?  Was it Comic Showcase that had a branch in Oxford?  Biggest mistake of my life was passing up on pages from Light and Darkness War.  Still kicking myself to this day.

Where else was there?  Hobbit Hole in Gloucester was a cracking little place.  Lasted quite a few years too with a good selection of comics, back issues and books.  There was another one on the other side of town that didn't last all that long.  Like a lot of places I've stumbled across over the years, I can't remember its name.

Lincoln had a natty little place in the arcade up by the Cathedral.  Had an issue of the Judge Child Quest (Eagle reprint) from them.  There was that peculiar place in Ipswich that had stairs just inside the door up to the actual shop itself.  There was another shop in Oxford just up from Showcase.  Far more back issues than was good for me, to be honest.  Loads of choice.  Not like these days.

[The Legendary Shark]

Comic shop? Comic shop?!

When I were a sharkling, we didn't even have a doctor in the village, never mind a comic shop. Those were things to be found only in the teeming metrolops where the idle rich had time to fritter, not out here. No, out here there was work to be done and comics was just frittering. We had no need for metropolistic fritterings and made do with three ironmongers shops, a Co-Op and a Spar, a Methodist chapel and an Anglican church (each with their own primary school), at least half a dozen places from whence fresh shrimp could be purchased, Charlie Bond's legendary bicycle repair grotto, two chip shops, one police station, and two newsagents.

These newsagents were both my comic shops. Mrs. Johnson's was where my loyalties lay, and she could get me almost anything. For what she couldn't get, there was the other guy - a sour old git whose name I can't remember. He took it as a challenge to procure what Mrs. Johnson could not and so, between them, they got me just about everything I wanted. The first time they both let me down was with Warrior, which consequently became the first comic I ever subscribed to through the post.

Neither of them could get things like the Titan reprints, though.

It wasn't until the late 90's that I discovered Planet Eater in Southport. It was an odd place, at once filled with exotic wonders and an atmosphere which could only be described as, "f*ck off."

[nxylas]

I remember someone in an '80s fanzine comparing the comic shops of the day to, ahem, adult bookshops. The same dark, sweaty, unwelcoming atmosphere.

[Jim_Campbell]

My first* exposure to proper American comics (as opposed to Marvel UK reprints... largely Star Wars, in my case) was actually in our local Games Workshop, which had two spinner racks of US books that I regularly ignored until they put a Watchmen poster at the top of it and Moore & Gibbons' names kind of leapt out at me. Although Watchmen was several months away at that point, I then noticed that Moore's name was on the Swamp Thing books they had, so I started getting those and, after that, I was hooked.

A few months later, Nostalgia & Comics opened a proper comic shop nearby, and my descent into nerd-dom was complete.


*Almost first — my nearest newsagent would get random issues of random stuff at random intervals... I'd buy the Indiana Jones book whenever it appeared, which seemed to about one issue in four...

[Richard]

Those Titan books were brilliant at the time. Hard to believe now that I was so impressed by 64 pages of black and white, and now we have 200+ pages of full colour art in the Complete Case Files!

My local was Calamity Comics in Watford. It's not there anymore. 

[Magnetica]

Forbidden Planet in Denmark Street for me was just the best. It wasn't the same when it moved to New Bond Street, but that was miles ahead of what it is now on Shaftesbury Av. It's hardly even a comic shop now. It's spiritual successor, Orbit has gone now, leaving a huge gap. Only Gosh remains in London. But gone are they days when there were boxes and boxes of back Progs. Guess I should have bought them when I had the chance.

And yes I also visited Forever People when at Uni in Bristol. It was my go to every Friday to get my Prog. Which kinda brings up a point that, the day the Prog comes out has moved around over the years. So much for "in orbit every Monday". It's been Monday, then Friday, then Wednesday. Unless you are a subscriber, when it's Saturday, unless Postie doesn't have it.

[Tjm86]

My local was Calamity Comics in Watford. It's not there anymore.

Oh my word, Watford!  3 years at Northwood with school in South Oxhey.  Watford was a real 'treat' to visit back then.  Calamity was before my full on collecting days though.  As a mere sprog it was the prog on a Saturday morning delivered with dad's paper (until StarLord came along and I had to choose ...)

Watford Odeon was where I first saw Star Wars though.  Amazing how powerful that memory is even after all those years. 

[Colin YNWA]

I first  picked up American comics in a newsagent I stumbled across in Birkenhead when I was like 14 I think. That soon lead me via my friend Paul Webster to Chapter One in Liverpool, just around the corner from The Empire Theatre in Liverpool, on Lime Street.

I've talked about this place on here before. It used to terrify me. The owner was a monolith of a man. I can disassociate him in my minds eye from Comic Boy Guy from the Simpson's. He certianly didn't seem to have any time for customers or horrible things like that.

It was dark, cramped, poorly light and had a 'men's magazine' section just by the tatty cardboard boxes of back issues I dared to explore. I hardly dared even turn my head in the direction of that section... however much my teenage loins wanted me to go there.

It was a terrible place and I LOVED it.

Mind I was so much happier then World's Apart opened just down the road. Staffed by a friendly goth couple who actually realised that helping and chatting to customers was a good thing!

[pauljholden]

Dark Horizon's in Belfast, 1988. Saw a poster (drawn by a young John McCrea) and, after giving up comics when I was around 13-14 and still loving them, I thought this would be way back in "Noone will take the piss out of you for reading comics in a comics shop" I naively thought.

Anyway, that's when I met John, where Garth met John too, and here we all are.

Here's the poster (though the orange trimming here was a later edition in John's the Mighty World of McCrea book)

[karlos]

The adult shop analogy is very apt.

In fact,the first comic shop I ever frequented in 1980 actually turned into an adult shop overnight as "it made more money".

Another book shop in Hull dabbled in novels, comics and yer actual naughty stuff, all mingled together in plain view.

A different era!