No Comments | Posted: December 23rd, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized

So, let me tell you guys a tale of comics shopping. You see, I’ve come to Las Vegas to see my pal Josh, his lovely wife Kathleen, and their new-ish daughter, Svea. The thing is, I’m not very much into What Makes Vegas Very Special to a lot of people – my idea of gambling is buying two or three scratch tickets a month as an idiot tax. Anyway, my first full day in the city (after arriving late last night after one of the Worst Flights Ever was spent getting socks, wandering around UNLV’s campus, and bumming about. Bumming about with Josh means that we go buy comics – it has meant this since 1989 and it will mean this in 2989 when we are floating heads in jars, a la Futurama.

Anyway, we went to two shops yesterday that represented opposite sides of the comics retail spectrum and boy, do I have some things to say about the first.

The first shop visited was Kool Kollectables, which is located on Sahara in North Las Vegas. This shop could serve as a handy definition of How Not To Run A Comics Shop in many ways. In fact, here’s a list of events that show you how crappy it was, presented in chronological order.

1. We walked into a dark comics emporium that was roughly bowling-alley sized. Replica swords and adult trading cards rested in and on top of glass cases that were coated in dirt.
2. An older gentleman, presumed to be the owner, looked at my courier bag suspiciously and then asked if I was looking for anything in particular. I said I was looking for some Silver Age books, especially 80 Page Giants from DC and was led to one disorganized box that featured books in various states of disrepair and storage. (For instance, there was a lovely copy of Kirby’s first Jimmy Olsen issue without any sort of bag or board. I may not be a condition freak, but that was abysmal by any retail standard.) Only about five of the books in the short box featured any sort of pricing and when I asked what they wanted for the two Giant books that I found, I was told they’d have to look them up.
3. Fair enough, I tell him, and I head into the magazine racks that held their inventory, which was roughly alphabetical, chronologically confused (I saw issues of Kamandi shoved on a rack that also featured McFarlane-related KISS comics. I’m informed I need to leave my courier bag up front, and I do so, quite cheerful about the thing – I understand that loss prevention in any retail establishment, especially a shithole comics store, is an important matter.
4. Josh and I proceed to shop a bit and I have to say that I did find some things of interest on the dusty, ill-kept racks – random 70s issues of DC Comics Presents and The Brave And The Bold, not priced. I had a stack of ten or so things when I spied the Winick/Dalrymple issues of Caper. Thinking that there were four issues to that first story and wanting to make sure, I opened up the bag that contained the fourth issue and checked.
5. This was when Elderly Gentleman Who May Have Owned The Place whipped around the corner and informed me that I couldn’t take the comics out the bag, then pointed at a sign (which I’ll admit I missed.) I paused at this, considering the irony of my rummaging through Silver Age comics that weren’t bagged while recent DC comics were bagged and sealed. I said “I’m 31 years old. I think you can trust me to not rip up your books,” in a joking enough manner.
6. His reponse was “I don’t care how old you are, you can’t take a comic from a bag.”
7. I stared for a moment and then said “I guess you don’t care about my spending any money, then.”
8. He informed me that no, he didn’t care if I bought anything. I shoved the books into his hands, told Josh, who had a fair number of books in his hands as well, that we were leaving.
9. His business lost at least $100 because I couldn’t look inside of the comic that I wanted to buy.

Some comics retailers need to learn something: most customers that walk into your joint are there to spend money. Sure, there’s quite a few that may not spend more than $5 or $10, but when someone comes in and immediately asks for the older comics and puts some aside, trusting you to price them fairly, they’re what is referred to as “a whale” in this town. He or she is there to put money in your pocket.

I had the polar opposite experience at Alternate Reality Comics, located conveniently close to the UNLV campus. I walked in and was greeted by a brightly lit-well organized shop that may have been light on back issues, but was heavy on the black and white indie filth that I love and made it a snap to find everything from The Essential Ant-Man to the Identity Crisis hardcover with special sections set aside for creators like Ellis and Moore with a great Manga selection. Original art from titles as varied as Preacher and Optic Nerve took up some wallspace and even the inevitable DC Direct figures were pegged neatly.

The owner, Ralph Mathieu, has been nominated for the Eisner award for his retail operation and a few minutes speaking with him showed me why. He’s lively, funny, and even offered me a 10% discount on my purchase because of my “discerning taste,” which makes him rank quite highly in my book. While his shop (like the similar Comicopia in Boston) may not have a huge back issue stock, that’s the sort of thing I can get from eBay (or contact my boy Chris and ask him if I can get the hookup.) Money that could have been spent at Kool Kollectibles went to his operation and I couldn’t have been happier to give him that cash.

---