How did they change over time, and do you have any stories from your trips to them over the years? I posted this on the wrong board the first time like a retard.
>>150713397I remember being a kid looking at the NOT FOR KIDS section and seeing Old Man Logan
>>150713397I remember when they were mostly about comics and had rows and rows of longboxes. Now they are mostly funkos and 40K miniatures with a rack of new issues someone in the corner.
>>150713397My old LCS hasn't changed much since the 90's, well, aside from all of the Funko Pops.
Really depends upon the shop.We still have some classic old boy shops in my area, sadly the owners are aging and the hours are spotty so I cannot visit which is a damned shame. While modern fans may not understand the appeal, the old keepers of comic knowledge and long boxes will be respected in my heart.The thriving shop near me has changed location multiple times over the past 20 years. Adding toys, losing toys. Adding manga, trimming manga. Toys are still gone, manga is back in a more curated form.The thriving shop is also brighter, cleaner, and more well organized than other local stores. They're also more involved in the community by having charity art shows and donating FCBD stuff to the local public library system.
>>150713397We don't have comics stores around here, they're on magazine racks if they're anywhere. And the selection has been gutted over the last 20 years to almost nonexistence. Manga is struggling too. It's like the entire print medium is dying. Just crossword magazines and weird WW2 history mags now.
Every comic store I've been in in the last 10 years has been dead as shit inside as if to mirror the very industry it supports. It's always depressing. Your average person doesn't go to the comic shop to read comics anymore they go to Barnes and Noble.I remember in high school it was a hub for nerds but everyone got old and moved on even though capeshit became mainstream
>>150713397I'm 22, my comic shop opened at my mall like in 2019, nothing way too exciting other that at one point there were two long boxes full of Vol 1 Batman and Detective Comics that I would snatch out of and find like $50-$100 issues for a buck or two.
>>150713397My LCS in my home town went from a messy but charming place to a less messy and decently run place. The former owners were chill people who on more than one occasion let me buy something without paying and later pay them back. The current owner is someone I consider a friend and gives good recommendations.In college my choice of LCS was two places that were run by stuck up people with zero taste who were constantly rude, gave bad advice. I hated the cringe worthy conversations I overheard in those places.
>>150713397What are the employees like at your LCS?
>>150716671Very typical, best to avoid
There's a few game and comic shops close by I want to visit. I just don't have the time or money lately, sadly.
>>150716735Did it just skip the 00s or was this made in the 00s
all my local stores are an odd mix of diehard fans and “comics? what are those?” typesThere’s one that’s huge and very well-kept, probably the only one that isn’t on the verge of bankruptcy, with two floors. It’s mostly merch nowadays, with some literal toddler books and manga hiding among gundam sets, card game booster packs, and FUNKOOOOOOs. SO many fucking Funkos.They still have three or four shelves dedicated to new, modern stock. Maybe one or two longboxes of sealed, graded, expensive old stuff. The staff usually look straight out of 2015 tumblr. One of the cashiers was cosplaying as Magik last I went there, but the fact that she was 250 pounds and didn’t bother to dye her already-dyed hair blonde kind of ruined it for me.All of the clientele either mirror the cashiers in looks and attitude or they’re the unfortunate children of such people.All the smaller stores are pretty stereotypically bad. Messy, cramped, littered with unrelated crap and staffed by rude fat guys. I honestly prefer them to the big sterile place because they’re still mostly comics with some merch on the side. Once in a millennia you’ll even get a fan of the older stuff sitting at one of their tables, either reading an old floppy or talking with someone else. I think some 40-something i saw there once was browsing /co/ or some other board on his phone. Guy looked bored.From time to time, either of these stores will be invaded by the most normal-looking women ever. The kind of woman with two spoiled kids, a dog, and a mediocre husband. She’ll come in, ask where the manga is, question the difference between that and comics, and usually leave. Sometimes the kids will stick around and stink up the place by stealing display gundams or trying to unwrap the graded stuff. That can be funny, sometimes.It’s a pretty sad state of affairs all around. I can’t speak for change, because I haven’t lived here long enough to say.
>>150718885made in the 2000's, Cooke would be dead by the mid 2010s.
>>150713397I think they've become more corporatized over the years, I've only been in one that is like what you'd want it to be and it was in NYC
>>150713397I spent a lot of time at my local comic book shops as a young girl with my dad. He had a webcomic back in the day and even before that, it was kind of a bonding experience on the weekends to go and buy trade paperbacks. He’d also get me a bunch of kids comics during Free Comic Book Day and I’d help himtable during local craft fairs where the comic shop would let him have a table. They even sold his books, which was really nice of them. Honestly a lot of fond memories and I never felt like they were unkind to me simply because I was a girl even as a teenager. Maybe it’s because they knew my dad and watched me grow up but it was genuinely not an issue I had. I ended up graduating to conventions and collecting comics of my own, so I still go to comic shops in the area I live now but it’s just not the same nowadays.
>>150719837what webcomic?
>>150719920It was a really old comic that ended already from 2009 and it was never super popular but it was actually about a strip mall and a comic book store itself. I feel like saying what it is would accidentally doxx my Dad lol
>>150716671Generally pretty chill guys, but a couple of years ago had a massive woketard working there for a while. Always cool to me but apparently a dick to others. Kind of a more general point, but do other anons notice recency bias with most store owners? I don't like being elitist but I've come across guys running shops who clearly aren't familiar with silver or bronze age comics
>>150720264I’m >>150719013; yeah, there’s definitely a recency bias around these parts. I’m not super close to any major cities but nowhere near the sticks, for reference. The sterile store is nothing but modern slop, as I said before all the old stuff is graded and expensive. I once asked about an old X-Men issue and the only answer I got was “it’s pretty rare.” The employees will rave about any new issue but can’t tell you shit about what happened in it.Most of the older stores are better? They at least know what Silver/Bronze age *means,* which is an improvement, though most of the store owners either have terrible taste (one is a huge Bendis cultist, he’s how I initially learned Bendis was writing Superman and the guy thinks all comics have been shit since he started writing less) or just don’t read the old stuff because “it’s too corny.”
>>150720553Are they circlejerking around Fraction Batman?
>>150721250I don’t know, I haven’t had the time to visit any of them in a while. They might be.
>>150713397They're dead now
>>150713397bump
>>150713397We don't have it
>>150713397Wouldn't know. Never stepped foot inside of one.
I've exclusively read manga my entire life, but now that I'm getting older, that itch for comics is starting to hit me. I made some trips around my town and they're rather nice. The real small ones usually have the best selection, deals, and variety compared to the gigantic "commercial" ones; which usually if not always bloat the amount of space up with cruddy merchandise rather than actual comics.
>>150713397My city of about 68,000 people has 2 comic shops. As well as 1 dedicated TCG shop and 1 sports card shop that also sells TCGs. My local comic shops used to have arcade games which I really liked. There used to be people there at all hours of the day playing MTG and Yu-Gi-Oh. You didn't have to schedule, you could just walk in there and play games. There may be random people playing MTG or Lorcana these days, but it's usually just 2 friends who know each other.
>>150713397>>150714657We have a mix of this; one of what you are calling an old boy shop exists but has a lot of toys because one of their employees has been hording in card action figures and is selling them there - so they don't really have anything new, and certainly no walls of Funkos. The TFAW is in a very touristy mall so of course it has Funkos and current toys but it does have a good selection, well displayed in their own endcaps of things like DSTLRY and Fantagraphics, and the other standard things you would expect. What's not out are the tables of long boxes of older issues - no idea if they have them in back or elsewhere and have a catalogue you can go through, we were there to see a 3D IMAX and I had 20 or so minutes before our meet up time to kill.>>150715122A B&N has reopened near me after being closed since before lockdown (new location); I would say they actually have a better selection of trades and collected editions than they carried in the years before 2020 - yes, it's filthy with Boom and Schoolastic stuff and Manga, but that is what normies are buying so what can you expect.>>150716735I also have a few more shops like the bottom row of this as well, but I am in a huge metro area. I think only NYC and Chicago has more stores.
