Sadness for all FOOPs
Over my entire comic collecting history, I remember every store I've been to. From the dusty ol' book store in Clarksville Arkansas that my grandparents took me to, to the high end "Another Universe" in Columbia MD. Comic stores come in all shapes and sizes, small, large, some have good backstock, some only get new comics... some only have backstock and never get new comics (that was one of the best stores I went to in Radcliff KY). When you find a comic store that you really enjoy, it becomes a very special place to you... like a 2nd home. You go there every week and you know everyone, they know you, you have knick names for each other, you count them as family. A couple days ago I found out that MY comic store is closing it's doors soon. So, I just wanted to tell a couple stories about my favorite all time Comic Store, The Paperback Bazaar. Six years ago I moved back to NH after living in MD for four years. Of course the first thing I do when I move to a new town is check out the phone book and see where the closest comic store is. It happened that I worked in Portsmouth, and the nearest store was a couple miles away. That store was Jumpgate. It's a nice store, I was greeted by it's owner and his wife, I got a subscription and enjoyed going there. after about a year I had to cut back on how much I was spending on comics because I wanted to go to the SDCC. So I did.... Now when we first moved back, we lived w/ my in-laws in Mass... 3 months later we moved to where we are now in Somersworth NH. I found out that there was another comic store near me.... the PBBZ. Now I'm a pretty loyal guy, when I shop at a store I only shop there, if I see something at another store, I'll go back to my store and ask them to order it for me before I get it somewhere else. So, I didn't shop at the PBBZ... but I did go in and check it out. On my way out I noticed that they had a newsletter... so I picked it up and looked at it when I got home. Pretty cool stuff for a comic shop, they had fan art from customers on the front and articles/reviews by customers and staff on the inside, and it was funny! So I'm saving my money for the comic show in CA... and I keep going to Jumpgate, only something starts to bug me. This is going to sound super petty. I've been going there a year, and the same employee is there every week to give me my comics, yet she still does not know my name. "Rich, come on, you can't expect someone you see for 5 minutes every week for a year to remember your name" That may be true, but it wasn't 5 minutes, I'd spend hours in there. And I didn't go once a week, I'd go 2 or 3 times a week during lunch just to chat. Yet still every week "hi, can I get my sub?" "Um... sure... what's your name?" Drove me nuts. So I remember the cool newsletter at the PBBZ. And I walk in there one day, still not buying anything and I ask this hot lookin' bald guy if anyone can submit artwork? He says sure and tells me to e-mail him a hi-res scan of whatever I'm doing. So I do, and he publishes it! Wow, how cool is that, a little store published my art in a monthly newsletter... the bald guy turned out to be Ralph DiBernardo. And because I did art for the newsletter he gave me some store credit! Wow, free comics, published art, Ralph was funny and cool to hang out with and I'll be damned if he didn't know my name the 2nd time I talked to him!!! So I drop Jumpgate, and start to shop at the PBBZ. Life is good, I submit a couple more drawings, and then I hear about a guy who's going to be putting on a demonstration on how to color comics on the computer. He'd even had a pin up published in The Savage Dragon!!! (one of my all time favorite comics) So I drag my family to the store, and there he is... Matt Talbot! That's right folks, THE Matt Talbot! We talked and instantly hit it off. Soon Matt was inking the illustrations I'd do for the newsletter, soon after that we were working on a comic strip for the newsletter! Not to long after that Matt and I made history with our awesome book Johnny Raygun. After self publishing the first issue, we realized we weren't the brightest guys around... spent $3.75 an issue and sold it for $3.50. Ralph brought this to our attention. He offered to be our publisher if we wanted to continue making comics. So, Ralph, the manager of the comic shop, our close friend offers to publish our book. Now the store is owned by a guy (I'm not kiddin' here) named Jim Morrison. That's right, the lizard king himself. Jim's a great guy, always around to chat w/ the customers. I was lookin' for a little extra cash and Jim was nice enough to let me work at the store. I'd worked at a comic store in High School so I had a little experience running a register and such.... I must have been one of the worst employees Jim's ever hired. But for some reason he put up with it. Thanks Jim... That leads me to all the friends I've met at the comic store. I know I'm going to miss someone, so forgive me in advance. First there's the entire staff... from Matt (number 2) to Sam (of Cliff and Sam fame... check out Johnny Raygun FCBD the Alligatress story) to Greg, Art, Will (who worked for Jumpgate, and when they didn't pay him, he quit, and I told Ralph that I knew a guy who was awesome, and he should hire him...) then there's the customers... we all know eachother.Ken, John, Jason, Dale, Cliff (of Sam and Cliff fame) Brad, the kid who went into seizures all the time, Don Tommy, Seth, Alex... again, I'm sure there are more. I love em' all, I see Jason at Marketbasket, we talk about Green Lantern, I see Dale at Walmart, and we chat about everything. These people aren't just customers, we're all friends. We all share a common bond, we all love comics... and we all shop at the same store. We may not all agree on who's the best artist, or if She Hulk is cool or not, but we all love that no matter where we see each other we can chat about that crap. And it's all because the PBBZ encouraged people to be friends, and they always treated the customer like a friend. And the PBBZ was not contained to just the comic store, they planned trips, and held cons in the area. They organized a very memorable trip to Philly a couple years ago... there were like 12-14 of us in a Van. So that's 12-14 people in the van, all of our luggage for a 3 day trip, and a cooler filled w/ all kinds of snacks and crap. It wasn't to bad on the way there, cramped but not bad. That happened to be the year that some RPG had these huge ass Drop ships that you could buy only at the con for like $100 and immediately sell them on e-bay for $400 or something. So of course on the way back we had 20 Dropships (which are HUGE) and all the crap 12-14 people purchased in the 3 days we were there.The PBBZ also participated in Free Comic Book Day every year, bringing in guests, free comics for everyone, and I'm not just talkin' about 1 comic per customer, I'm talkin' shopping spree's worth of comics, a huge variety for everyone to pick from. And you may not know this, but FCBD is not Free to retailers, sure there's a discount, but they still have to buy all these comics they're just giving to their potential customers in hopes you'll buy something else. So they gave away hundreds of comics, had guests, AND fed everyone! Hotdogs for all!!! Then there was 24 hour comic day.... that's where an artist would sit down and do a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Good stuff. So the PBBZ hosted 24 hour comic day, and 6-8 participants showed up, most finished, and the stories/art were awesome... again, they provided food for us all, all this and they had to staff the store for the hours they would have been closed, so they had an awesome sale at midnight! The store was incredible, filled with imagination, talent, and love. Those guys loved comics, gaming, toys, your mom, everything. I'm going to miss hanging out there, and I'm going to miss all the people involved in the store, both the employees and the customers. In the days since the store's closed I've ran into a lot of the guys I've known from the store, we all look a little lost, but I know that soon we'll find our way. It's not going to be the same, but we'll figure something out.
PS, this had paragraph breaks, but when I copied it into a spell check, it took them all out, and I'm too lazy to fix them... :)
posted by JohnRaygun at 9:35 PM
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