Stories of the places you bought comic books as a kid

[bminor]

My earliest two memories of purchasing comics (always used).
Late 60's Dedricks department store, Anoka, Minneaota, in the basement the owner had a pile of old comics in a rack. I can't remember exactly how much the comics were, but I bought few. The one that jumps out in my memory is Daredevil #38, Daredevil caught in Doctor  Dooms body!

The other memory much more vivid is downtown Minneapolis at an old Salvation army on Nicollet Island. It was about 1967 or so. I remember seeing a box with a whole bunch of comics in it. I was about nine, for the life of me I can't remember one of the books in that box!!!
Maybe someone could put me under hypnosis and get me to remember!

Bminor

[jfglade]

 The first comic book I remember buying with my own money was a copy of "Western Comics" from DC in August of 1953, and I bought it in Temple Drugs in  Riverton, Wyoming on my fifth birthday. Temple Drugs had a soda fountain and if you were with your parents who were waiting to have a perscription filled you could have a free soda (they had free coffee). Western Comics featured Pow Wow Smith and Nighthawk, and I bought the issue because I was crazy about Nighthawk but that was also the first comic in the spinner rack that caught my eye and it could as easily have been some other issue bought on impulse. Temple Drug also sold a wide variety of other things, includig fishing licenses, and the thing that really stuck in my memory was a Timex display which was switched out two or three times a year. Sometimes the Timex was struck repeatedly by a mechanical hammer, other times it would be dunked repeatedly in a tank of water, but not matter what it was subject to the Timex keep on ticking, as long as it was wound regularly which no one ever seemed to do to the demonstration models and they were generally only right twice a day.

   Unlike Dubois, which was the closest town to where we lived (just fourteen miles away), Riverton had a wealth of stores which sold comics but Dubois only had about 300 people in the summer and a little less than 200 in the winter and only Dubois Drugs sold comics (they also had a soda fountain and sold fishing licenses but didn't have a Timex display). Riverton was more like a city (it had a population of 3000), so of course it had more stores that sold comics; it even had a library that was open six days a week (The Dubois Community Library was open twice a week, except during hunting season). Since Dubois only had one place to buy comics, you had to be on the ball if you wanted to get the latest issue of Western Comics, or Detective Comics, or the Lone Ranger, or Uncle Scrooge, or Adventure Comics, or Turok - Son of Stone, before somebody else bought all two or three copies of the newest comics. Since the person who restocked new magazines lived in Riverton and didn't seem to be on a regular schedule, there was no telling what day of the week the new books might come in. On the other hand, although Dubois Drugs has a sign by the magazines and the spinner rack that said you weren't in the public library, no one seemed to mind if you read the comic books as long as you didn't look like you were camping out while you did it. Early in the 1955-56 school year, the elementary school burned down (it was a wooden building which had been constructed in  the twenties and, reputedly, went up like a match) and the elementary school classes (all six of them, the largest of which was the first grade class which had a whopping sixteen students) had to hold classes wherever there was room. The first graders had classes in Bob White's taxidermy studio, and I lucked out because I got to have classes in the back of the Post Office which was right across the alley from Dubois Drugs, where I spent all my recesses reading comic books for a blissful six weeks or so. Eventually, my mother used the lack of a proper school as an excuse to take me and spend the winter in Riverton. Since Riverton had two movie theaters that were open every day, instead of one theater that was open only on Monday and Tuesday so I was enthused by the change (the Rustic Pine Theater was too small to hold all of regular movie goers at the same time, so it was open two nights in a row and everyone had a chance). As a result, I started seeing more movies, and if I searched hard enough at the various grocery stores, drugs stores, and the one filling station that sold comics, I could almost certainly find any new comic book my heart desired there was only one drug store that would let kids read comics before they bought them, and that depended on who was working after school got out. I got to read fewer comics, but I did get to see more movies which seemed like a fair trade.

[Roygbiv666]

I bought my new comics at various mom n' pop shops and a book store.

In retrospect, the best place was one I now wish I'd spent more money in. This elderly fellow named Tommy Nickerson had this small stand alone building  and he sold candy and games. In the middle of the shop was probably ... a dozen or so long boxes full of used comics. This would have been the mid-70s, so some could have been from the 60s (or earlier). I remember going thru them all the time, but rarely walking out with a big stack. Maybe they were lame.

My older cousins (born in, say, the late 1950s, early 1960s) had comics I'd read when I went over there. I recall lots of 60 Legion of Super-Heroes comics. Wish I'd asked for those.

[bcholmes]

There was a chain of convenience stores in Ontario called Mac's Milk.  They still exist, but they're a shell of their former selves, I think. They sold milk and bread and chocolate bars. And, in one of those spinnable carousels, they sold comics.  The kind of comics that are all bent over in the middle with broken spines.  When I was a kid (in the '70s -- I first started reading comics in '72) I would wander over to Mac's Milk to find some good issues.

By the 80's, I was crossing the border into the US to buy comics.  I grew up in a small border city in Canada (Sarnia, across the river from Port Huron -- north of Detroit), and Port Huron had a great comics specialty store called Taurus Comics.  The place was large and cavernous and unlike Mac's Milk, I could reliably get each issue of the titles I was following.  I remember walking over the bridge a few times between Sarnia and Port Huron (they apparently don't let you do that now) -- the customs agents really weren't prepared for that.  They always had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the process for handling cross-border pedestrians.

[builderboy]

There was the pharmacy in town, which also featured a soda bar in back. I was 10 years old, and my neighbor was responsible for setting out the many Sunday newspapers. He was in his sixties, and I was the young muscle.  He was the nicest guy, and I did it for the pleasure of his company. My reward was to grab a handful of new comics off the spinner rack and sit down for a fizz or rootbeer float.

I think the first thing I ever grabbed was an Incredible Hulk #161, featuring Herb Trimpe's work.  I was a Marvel Comics guy for years.  I still love that stuff, particularly his collaborations with Marie Severin. For decades, I was a collector who knew and cared little for Golden Age stuff.

It wasn't until years later that I joined the Comic Collectors Live site...a kind of combined database/marketplace...and working to help them establish their database, when I met Pat McCauslin, a member and shop owner with extensive GA stuff. From there, I found our sister GAC site.  I met Narfstar thru my submissions to the GCD site, and he, in turn, gave me my intro to editing and to JVJ.

Now, I am 51, a scanner and modest collector of GA stuff.  A bit off point, but a there-to-here story.

[paw broon]

Living a considerable distance from most of you and inhabiting a country of 5 million, the following might seem a bit alien. Especially as British comics development was somewhat different to that of N.America. (That's Britain, you know the place, the island off the coast of mainland Europe and where England is tacked on to the bottom of Scotland).  In Scotland, we didn't have drugstores and comics were available in newsagents shops, pubs where a bloke would turn up with a bundle and offer them for sale, or Woolworths. This is the mid '50's. and, in fact, when I was born, rationing was still in place. My earliest comics were "obtained" for me by my parents and would have been something like the toddlers comic, Playhour but as soon as I was given pocket money, I was able to buy a comic of my own choice.  Pre 1959, that would be a British or Australian title and the shop I remember most, in Airdrie, was an old newsagent, or paper shop, as we called them, right next door to the Pavilion Cinema where we went every Sat. morning for the Odeon Club - cartoon, serial and big picture.  The shop was run by 2 old sisters, and it had old wooden counters and always seemed to smell of foosty paper.  But they laid out a small bundle of Australian comics on the counter now and then and I now know they came over on freighters as ballast.  They were always a few d. (pennies - before we went metric) dearer than many British comics but they seemed very exotic. Also, of course, there was the usual selection of British titles, Beano; Dandy; Hotspur; Rover etc. and things such as Superthriller with Ace Hart; Marvelman; Tarzan; Phantom.  These were b&w imitations of American titles.  I was the envy of other boys at primary school because I owned an issue of Superthriller - serious currency at the time.
A couple of years on and my granny bought me The Beezer every week (later, The Victor as well) and one day in 1960 in the shop where they were ordered, there was a small pile of American comics.  Forget everything else, this was the bees knees.  I'd only seen American comics and Funnies sections when someone close by had a parcel from N. America so this was life changing. As the '60's came on, lads would be doing the rounds of paper shops, of which there were a number, looking for (mainly) DCs which weren't in the pile in their local newsagent.  There wasn't any sense of continuity, some titles appeared one month, different ones the next.
All my comics were thrown out when I was a young teenager as it was now time to grow up.
It wasn't until the '80's that I dipped my toe into GA comics and bought a tatty Black Hood from Fantasy Unlimited in London.  Then some GA comics started to appear on dealers' tables at London cons and marts and that was the budget for the weekend gone.  
I can still smell the old newsprint and slight dampness that was a feature of older paper shops and the memory is redolent of the pleasure I had from finding, buying and reading those amazing publications.

[Yoc]

A fun read, thanks for sharing guys.

[John C]

In elementary school, I lived around the corner from a convenience store with a spinner rack.  The only "story" is that one time I decided not to buy a comic because a roach fell out of it.  I was young, though, so it may be that my mother dragged me out of there in a panic or something, when I say "decided."

The first comic shop in the area was an "inconvenience store."  The racks climbed to about fifteen feet.  The place was dark and seemed to open and close at random.  The proprietor was also of the "better to claim a back issue is unavailable than let customers look for it (or help)" school of thought.

In high school, I lived around the corner from a low-key shop that wasn't so bad.  It was across from the library and locals farted around with role-playing games in back, and they got me involved with Trekkies.  Not a great selection at the shop, but I did get to spend a rainy afternoon talking to Fred Hembeck, since nobody else came out.

There was also the time I went back to a (different) comic shop that impressed me, around the same time.  I was checking shelves for about ten minutes before asking where they moved the comics.  Turned out they bought the place out (I think) and it was...uhm...an "adult shop," that's actually still there to this day (I giggle far too often when I pass it on the way to work).  By convention, we'll ignore that I didn't notice and they didn't kick me out.

By far, the best place I've ever found was in a mall, believe it or not.  Bright and airy, with racks that showed the entire covers and you could see pretty much the entire week at once.  Helpful and friendly staff that tracked what conditions increased and decreased sales.  Really good place by every measure.

They got bought out by the video game place next door, and they had the brilliant idea of expanding the selection to include...video games!  And not so much with the comics.

You might ask how well they were able to compete directly with their next-door parent company.  But you'd be an idiot for asking, because how else do you think that could have gone...?

[narfstar]

Living in the back woods of PA I had a small store 4 miles one way another 4 miles the other. Between going to each I bought my weekly supply of 8 comics for a dollar. My brother and sister got upset because I did not buy any candy and such and they were then told to share. Of course I could share my comics but they were not interested 

[Astaldo711]

I grew up in (and actually live here again after a 10 year absence) Clifton. It has something like 80,000 people so it's not small but there was only one place I got comics. A little cafe' kind of place called The Carousel. My brother read comics for many years and he'd tell me about them. It eventually piqued my interest enough that I walked down to Market Street (the happening spot for kids that didn't drive; pizza place, theatre, Quick Chek, etc) and went to the little spinner rack. Avengers #262 was the first comic I ever bought. It started a life long obsession. My brother took me to my first convention and I still remember my draw dropping when I saw all those comics! I still fondly remember, however, going to the Carousel, buying some comics, going to the counter for a cheeseburger and chocolate shake and sitting there reading away the hours smelling the ink and getting my fingers smudged on the pages.

[larrytalbot]

Mr Stern (a quiet little old man who was anything but stern), ran a small soda & candy store in our neighborhood, next door to a Catholic church.  Mr Stern was disliked by some of the nuns who taught in the Church's grammar school. They suspected that many an errant pupil bought candy & sodas at Mr Stern's instead of lunch at the school cafeteria, thus depriving the school of income. 

I learned that Mr Stern also ran a clandestine (to escape the nun's ire) second-hand comic book business in his shop - carried out under the counter (literally). You had to approach him at off-hours when the shop was not busy, and ask if he 'had any comic books today.' If you looked trustworthy (& not a spy from the nuns; they hated comic books!), he would grab a handfull of comics from under the counter for your inspection. I bought many a golden age comic for 5 cents each. (This was in the 1940s)

John's note about wandering into a former comic book shop that turned out to be an 'adult book store,' recalled this memory: In my quest for GA comics (In the '60s, before they became expensive collector's items), I ventured into any kind of shop that might remotely have old comics stashed with the trash: antique stores, Salvation Army outlets, rummage sales - and, yes, porn shops. One afternoon I hit paydirt at a porn shop! When I asked the guy behind the counter if he had any comic books for sale, instead of a smirk, he directed me to a BACK room (in that universe porn was upfront, but comics censored to the back!). All the comics there were of recent vintage, of which I picked a few to buy.  Just to make small talk, I mentioned to the guy behind the counter that I was interested in old, old-comics & if he ever had any for sale. With that, he reached under the counter (shades of Mr Stern!) & plops down two armfulls of GA comics, priced $2-4 each. I bought what I had the money for & came back the next day for more: Cap Marvel Adventures, Whiz, Cap Marvel Jr, Fawcett Gift Comics, 4C Bugs Bunny, etc.  My one regret: offered a duplicate pair of Cap Marvels - one in good condition for $2, the other in near mint for $4, I bought the cheaper one!

[Ami_GFX]

In Albuquerque New Mexico in the late 60s early 70s every drugstore, convenience store and supermarket carried comics, mostly in spinner racks. I don't remember exactly which ones I bought my first comics in but I remember getting more and more interested in comics between the ages of 8 and 11. At first I bought a lot of Walt Disney Goldkey comics with Barks reprints--I didn't have a clue about the artists at that age but I liked Donald and Uncle Scrooge. I also bought a lot of Dennis the Menace and Harvey comics which were popular with the other kids my age--around 9 or 10. There was a convenience store next to our elementary school which also provided us with candy and junk food. I also liked drug stores that also sold ice cream cones--there were at least 2 of them I patronized. I started buying super hero comics at age 11 and my first ones were DC hundred page super spectaculars. I still have them. By age 13 I was a serious comic fan, I subscribed to the Comic Reader so I knew what comics were coming out each month. I had figured out the distribution: The new comics arrived on Tuesday afternoon. The first stop was the same convenience store next to the elementary school. That was a good one because they didn't use a spinner rack. Next was a Thrifty Drug and Discount store and next was a Circle K convenience store. I knew the panel truck the comics came in and followed it on my bike and got my comics fresh. If I didn't get everything I wanted from these 3 stops, I rode another half mile to another drug store that usually had what the others didn't get. On rare occasions where the book I wanted didn't show up anywhere else--Howard the Duck #1 for example--I did a 2 mile bike ride to another neighborhood where there was a drug store on a different distribution route that got different comics. There was also a bookstore that sold used comics in the same strip mall.

    This was just a few years before comic book stores appeared in Albuquerque. There were already a few in other places but the first one there opened in the early 80s. We did have some serious collectors who sponsered a monthly comic swap meet which was heaven to me. I bought and sold at these monthly meetings and got to know serious collecters and all the local comic dealers. One of them did open the first comic books store in Albuquerque a few years later. I remember him flagging me down riding a bike at around age 18 to tell me the exciting news.

I was reading golden age reprints from Gold Key and DC pretty much from the beginning and the taste for comics from that era remains with me to this day.

[bminor]

Well, to continue from my first post (that started this thread).
I realized in about 1972 that I could purchase new comics right off the stand. I remember quite vividly.
I was about 12-13 year old or so.
I would make the circuit in those days from Leeds Drug store downtown Anoka. Across the street to Rexall Drug, down a block and a half (they usually only had a few). then a mile ride down to last drugstore on the end of town, they had a good spinner rack full. Spiderman 112 was the first Marvel bought off the stands. I remember that day when I picked up the issue of Spidey just a few months later when Gwen Stacy died. I remember there must have been at least a dozen issues on the stand that day. I wish I had picked up more than just one!
I would like to publicly thank the bank president in our town. I religiously mowed his lawn and shoveled snow and received $6 a job. That money was the bedrock upon which my collection was founded.
Another funny but interesting story. When I started buying new comics, my Dad got wind of it and henceforth I was forbidden to purchase anymore and bring them in the house.
Well, I did not exactly honor his request. The collecting bug had me firmly. What I did was this.
My room was on the second floor of our house, So as any enterprising collector who was banned from bringing any more comics into the house would do. Well, I had to do something.
What I did was get a long rope and a clean 5 quart ice cream pail. I had it lowered it out of the window. Then I would acquire the forbidden comics from the store, place them into said pail. Go upstairs and raise the bucket up to my room and as Oliver Hardy said more than once to his friend Stan Laurel, "They are none the wiser". I believe this whole maneuver took place in the darkness of the evening.
I can't remember how long I did the secret ascending of the pail, before my Dad either forgot or let me to continue purchasing them and bringing them home normally.

[dimenno]

Olga Snyder's, in the North Side of Pittsburgh, ca. 1970.

[paw broon]

bminor, that's a great story.
I wonder how many other comic fans had problems with parents/guardians.
I know I had, 'cos my mother really disapproved and chucked my comics out when I went to secondary school and I was 12 or 13.  Fortunately, when I married,  my wife was neither up or down about my interest in comics and it wasn't long before I started buying again.  A safer interest than many things. This was at a time when there were lots of newsagents with spinners and racks full of comics and I had started working in Glasgow, a big city.  I had a small company car and could trawl around the second hand shops where you could pick up old comics, often in not very good nick.  The best of these was nr. Bridgeton Cross, an area of Glasgow only advisable to visit in daylight hours and even then it could be a bit dodgy.  Mrs. Russell ran the shop and I don't think it had a name, everyone called it Mrs. Russell's.  That's where I found Kirby's 3rd. World and those Giants and Suoer Spectaculars.
Also, lots of little corner shops on housing schemes had racks and there never seemed to be the same issues in any 2 shops.