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They come close....but still can't resist the worst impulses.
Way-ulll...
Graphic novels, on terms of square footage, can make money. Toys make money (a collectable One Ring, whyever the bob fuck you might want one, costs £20 and occupies the same space as a copy of "Lucifer"). Comics generally make no money at all. So, in many cases it isn;t so much the fanboy desire for action figures that is motivating these decisions but the knowledghe that you make more margin on a Spawn action figure and you can stock them in the dead space above arms' reach in a way you can't with comics, which need to be to some extent browsable...
So...in London we have a whole bunch of these things, but probably about five that I'd describe as "comic shops" in any meaningful sense...
Comic Showcase is where I most often end up, simply because its opening hours are the most work-friendly (it stays open until 8 on Thursdays, Fridays and, I think, Saturday). It's almost precisely your paradigmatic comic shop, and disturbs me not only because it looks and smells just like Comics Showcase in Oxford but because it appears to have the same staff; shades of Howl's moving castle here. So, comics are arranged by publisher (black mark), and DC and Marvel get the most shelfspace, followed by Dreamscape/Image/Whatever the fuck they're called with Viz/Oni/Dark Horse arranged shambolically over two smaller shelves at the back. Black mark. On the plus side, they lay out the new indies on a little table on the way in, so you don't have to penetrate too far into Fatbyrdja to get them. Also plus points for providing photocopied sheets containing the new releases. However, these are innovations that minimise browsing time, which is unfortunate but necessary because the clientele are scary and smell bad. There is no real focus on back issues - there is aroom downstairs with maybe a dozen longboxes worth, along with some small press, locally-produced comics, but often the room is not manned and as such is blocked off, so black mark there too. The staff follow the usual rule of big fat owner and slender apprentice in faded Nirvana T-shirt, and although a bit disconcerting they are polite, will on occasion offer an opinion on what you are buying and won't generally ignore you while heatedly discussing Breast Girl #203. Decent place to grab the weeks' new issues in five minutes, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Forbidden Planet is bascailly a toy, book and vide shop, but is still the largest emporium devoted to the socially excluded in London, and as such the fraction (by usual standards) of its floorspcace devoted to comics is still fairly sizable. You won't find many surprises here - all mainstream stuff, really. Its best use is for reading things you don't want to buy but fancy a look at, since t is more supermarket-like than the other shops and has a higher punter to shopowner ration. Also, although their store of back issues is pretty sucky, badly organised and, I suspect, no longer being replenished (though they do sell "collectable" comics, i.e. overpriced first issues and the like, stuck up on the walls), they *do* have the previous issue of their titles arranged in bookshelves, so again good for browsing and reading. Large graphic novel section (two lengthy bookshelves), but superhero-dominated. I wouldn't try getting any special services from the staff, mind: the margins on comics just aren't high enough. And, since this is the geeky equivalent of flipping burgers, they look undernourished and germ-ridden, as opposed to the clientele, who look overnourished and germ-ridden. The sound of scores of milkstinkers all mouth-breathing in a gentle, unconscious rhythm is a very strange one.
Just down the road from Forbidden Planet is the Mighty World of Comicana, which is *terrrifying*, but does indeed specialise in back issues. It's a small business, it needs our support, te tum te tum, but if you have the money *and* the desire to pay that much for the first appearance of Ant-Man II, then I don't know you.
Also nearby, facing the British Museum, is Gosh!, generalyl held up as the saviour of comics retailing, and as such the one most likely to go out of business at any moment, because the world is perverse. It scores big for having the graphic novels at the front, and for having them in alphabetical order, with a decent representation of indies. Not sure how they do on tiny press/locally produced comics...the "recommended by" tags on certain of the GNs is a nice touch, although they have a certain "who likes puppies?" feel to them (League of Extraordinary gentlemen? Really?). Comics are also alphabetised, and cover the walls of a corridor leading to the downstairs (cartoons and comic art for sale and a small but varied back issues and alternative GNs section), and recent GNs asre put alongside current issues, I think - good indexing here, and I don't see why more people don't do it. The down side is basically that this just throws into sharp relief how reliant the comics market is on basically shit things. Also, the tininess of the space available means that you are thrust into the very teeth of fannism. It's disheartening, as I have mentioned before, to have to begin your quest into the grown-up, sexy, cool world of grown-up, sexy, cool comics by explaining to a shoggoth in the by-now-legend Green Lantern T that he is blocking a) your view, b) your ingress and c) OUT THE SUN. But that might just be me.
Finally (not counting the Books and Comics exchange, and sticking to my experience of Zones 1 and 2) there's Mega City Comics. This has a varied range - mainstream stuff along one wall, odd stuff, rather whimsically organised into "Gothic", "Adults Only" and such things, on the others, a shelf of videos (manga porn and "cult" stuff, mainly), toys, clothing and accessories around the sales desk to entice the impulse fanboy. New GNs are arranged to face the punter as he walks in, nice touch, and the general way to describe the shop appears to be clockwise. Marvel and Dc again get the lion's share of shelf space, but there is a decent allocation for more far afield stuff. Points definitely lost for polybagging almost all the stuff on the shelves, but points scored for having laminated "testers" that you can read with impunity. Mega-City Comics has probably the most serious back issue section of any of the surviving mainstream shops (Acme comics, in all its shambolic, ridiculously badly planned glory, is missed), with a long room (maybe fifty feet?)'s central spine largely devoted to them. Also, the short far wall (fiften or twenty feet? Going form memory here) has the closest thing to a quarter bin I have seen in London outside Acme comics, with comics going usually for 50p. Still a fair whack, but I got a lot of Doom Patrols and Shades from these boxes...also, MCC is the only comics shop in London I have ever known to having an actual sale (howe does this work? If comics aren't sale-or-return, how come we *don't* have more quarter bins? Low order numbers?), which also scores points. God knows what the clientele or the staff are like - I don't get to Camden enough - but in general when I do go to MCC I usually come out with more stuff than I expected, which is arguably a good sign... |
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