A hand-painted sign with a familiar, bat-themed masked man standing in the distance reads: ‘The Comics Place’. It is one of the last bastions of community. Nerdy, geeky and comic-loving, but community anyways.
An aura of nostalgia hits me when I walk in. A man at the counter, dressed in flannel, has a giddy smile on his face as he proclaims that ‘Scooby-Doo Apocalypse’ is going to suck, but that he’ll read it anyway. Comic shop goers are known to dress up as comic book characters like The Shadow, Loki or Green Arrow on Free Comic Book Day.
A poster on the wall, featuring all female super heroes, states: “The Real Power of DC”. There are tons of people in the store. The old nerds, yes, but comic virgins are dotted throughout too. It’s a Wednesday, after all. New comic book day.
Daily, it’s the Comics Place that brings Bellingham folks to the heart of it all, where the fad began. The friendly staff show new customers why they like this stuff, as do all the other shops around the country. In fact, nationally, comic book shops are on the rise. Comics are in a renaissance, and, thrown in with the recent pop culture craze for superhero movies and spin-off TV series, it’s the adrenaline shot to the bricks and mortar.
But it doesn’t end with the comics. Django Bohren, the mutton-chopped owner of the local Comics Place, also does marketing for Fiamma Burger, a local restaurant. He was able to bring the community together, which is exactly what he says keeps comic book stores alive.
“We’re trying to build community of comic and game nerds. A place where you can ask the vaguest questions, and if we can’t answer, it’s the dude who’s been hanging out here for 20 minutes who can.” says Django with a laugh.
Speaking of community, the Comics Place has a ‘Superhero Month’ promotional, worked out with Fiamma Burger. For a month, coupons offered at the Comics Place provide free fries, and each year there are new delicacies to try. This year there’s a superhero-themed ‘Miss Marvelous’ raspberry and pineapple shake, for example, that looks like the perfect way to unwind after a slogging battle with Ultron.
Today, comics as a medium and genre is in its golden prime. Comic books are better written and drawn than ever before.
And other businesses are smart to catch on. According to Comichron.com, sales of comic books have been on the steady rise over the last few years. In 2013, the total comic shop orders in North America stood at $517 million and in 2014 they climbed to $540 million. The overall market size for 2013, including printed as well as digital sales, came in at $830 million, and in 2014 stood at $935 million. The data for 2015 is still out, but with the movies like ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ bringing in $1.405 billion (!) worldwide, it’s safe to say that stoked fans still crowded the local shops.
A prospective customer scans the long rows of trade paperback volumes offered at The Comics Place in Bellingham, Washington. The local shop also sells graphic novels, T-shirts and action figures (including the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man).
The folks who work at comic book stores are the old pros of the trade, Bohren says. If you need car advice, you’d go to a mechanic. If you need help distinguishing between the ‘ordinary’ Superman, Red Son Superman and new Kenji Kong Superman, these guys, who could break down the political alliances, are here to help. “We live and breathe this stuff.” Bohren says. “It’s a total immersion coming in here.”
And that’s what keeps comic book stores around. Some people may use a comic book shop as a preview window for their shopping cart at Amazon.com, but the personal touch that the employees add is the extra value that cannot be replaced, as is the strengthening of the community and the smell and feel of the freshly-printed comic book.
“You don’t even get a smell from the digital comics,” Bohren complains, “I like the physical feel, the smell, and the ads.” Comic book readers know very well which smell he means: a friendly, slightly dusty scent that instantaneously conjures memories from childhood.
Comic shops are the protein in the pop culture food chain. Nearly everything else in pop culture feeds off the comic books. “Pop culture owes a debt to comic books” Bohren says. The symbiosis works also other way round. Many video games and TV shows get later their own comics.
Knowing precisely what comics to grab, a customer navigates The Comics Place like a veteran. Comic books are not anymore solely for the bubble-gum & baseball card wielding youth of long ago.Formerly the niche subculture reserved primarily for geeks, since 2008’s ‘Iron Man’, the comic book scene has gone mainstream. No more swirlies for the awkward kid bringing in big stacks of mylar-wrapped magazines for silent reading in the corner of the class. Now any kid, geek of chic, can be seen wearing a Hulk T-shirt, and nobody gives a second look. And some of them never even have read a comic book – and that’s great, Bohren says.
“They’ll screw it up eventually though – three bad Marvel movies in a row and kids will get swirlies again.” prophesies Bohren.
For any small business, money is tight, though. And your local comic shop isn’t an exception. Marketing businesses is how Django makes his real money; comic book shops make no, or very little profit. And with so many youths moving to digital reading, the future of the comic book shop sector is uncertain.
“It’s a big hurdle,” says Bohren, “I don’t know what it means for the future of comics.”
Selling two trade-paper back volumes of comics, or TPBs, roughly pays for the Comics Place to be open for one hour. A few sales per day are crucial for the small shops and assure that downtown doesn’t turn into a ghost town.
The Comics Place is keeping above water, because they have built around the shop a community, based on their wider neighbourhood. They are spreading the message of nerd pride. People come back for that. It’s the message that says: “It’s OK being a nerd”.
“We’re growing faster than Internet beats us down.” Bohren says. “Lots of our customers are brand new.”
New fans are sprouting up because of Robert Downey Jr. and the gang. The only other time comic book shops have seen numbers of visitors like this was in the 1950s and 60s, when comics first hit the stands.
‘I love Image. They’re creator first, and they also have a great attitude.’ says Bohren, and then adds: ‘They’re not a crutch to their TV shows and movies.’
Today, comics as a medium and genre is in its golden prime. Comic books are better written, drawn and designed than ever before, with the widest range of themes, creators and readers ever seen. It’s all because of the popular television shows and movies, the inspiration of which came from these old, dust-covered mags (remember the ‘pop culture debt’, that Bohren mentioned earlier?) And the nowadays TV shows like ‘Invader Zim’ and ‘Rick and Morty’, hugely popular online, lived to see their own comic books. And they’re good. “It’s a great, great time,” says Bohren. “The quality is there.”
The inclusivity of comics is great, too. The best-selling comic of 2016 so far is Marvel’s new writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Black Panther’, the first time the character has seen the top of the charts. Correspondingly, Facebook reported an increase in female comic book readers (remember the power behind DC Comics?). And a wide range of diverse content is flooding the shelves, to mention one example, ‘Lumberjanes’, a comic for all ages of readers, is breaking ground as an all-female produced and led comic, that takes trans-identity as its subject.
This Challengers Comics exclusive cover was created by Kali Ciesemier as a variant edition of the first issue of the award-winning Lumberjanes. Django Bohren of The Comics Place sees comic books like Lumberjanes as a sign that comics are becoming more inclusive.Thus, comic book shops stick around for all the people that want to feel connected to a community of like-minded people, not just watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster. And for just under four bucks, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.
We’re the gamma rays, Bohren says of the comic book shop role in all of this, before adding: The best films came because of the comics.
It’s not all that great, though. Because of all the retroactive popularity of the comics, and TV and movie adaptations of them, the real originators of the billion-dollar booms are sometimes abused. X-Men and Fantastic Four, two of the comic books that began Marvel Comics’ rise in the 1960s and long-time favourites of the fans, are kaput. It’s easy to see why Fox and Warner Brothers, having had these movie rights, caused the rift, and why the only people who lose at the end are comic book readers.
“They forget why they’re making money,” says Bohren. “People are complaining: ‘Batman vs. Superman’ won’t make a billion dollars. I don’t think the comic book industry as a whole is worth even two-billion dollars.” The giga-ginormous multimedia companies are completely out of touch with the world, and their fans. The rate of comic book production has gone down – last year, the biggest companies in the industry published 12 percent fewer comics than the year before.
If we keep innovating and letting new people into the fold, comics won’t go away anytime soon.
The blockbuster nature of comics adaptations for the silver screen, such us the mega-movie ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’, is both boon and bane to traditional comic book shops like The Comics Place, says Bohren. Luckily for the fans of the medium, there are a few comic book publishers that are still just that: comics publishers, not gigantic multimedia corporations. Two of the largest and best-established comics-only publishing companies that instantly come to mind, are independent studios Dark Horse Comics and Image Comics.
“I love Image. They’re creator first, and they have a great attitude.” muses Bohren, before adding: “They’re not a crutch to their TV shows and movies.” (such as The Walking Dead).
39-year old Django Bohren, the owner of The Comics Place in Bellingham, Washington, says comics and the shops that sell them will be around for a very long time.
Django refers to the mega-bucks uber-franchises like The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which began its First Phase with the aforementioned Iron Man, culminating in the crossover film The Avengers. Phase Two started with Iron Man 3, and concluded with Ant-Man. The MCU is currently in Phase Three, beginning with the Captain America: Civil War.
In the back of the shop, there are board games to be sorted and a few empty beer bottles from previous late night stocking sessions. Django’s own ‘Peter Parkers’ of the store, Justin and Jeff, work the cash register and make jokes with customers. Wednesdays are always busiest for fans rattling their sabers for new reads.
This surge persists until the weekend, and then the cycle starts anew. But how long will the comics craze that has solidly captured the late 2000s and early 2010s last? Will the traditional high street comic book shop be the helpless victim of this titanic pop culture clash? Let us conclude this report with a few reassuring words from one of the industry’s own:
“Comics are here to stay for a while. We’re riding a wave that won’t go away completely any time soon,” sums up Bohren as he keeps one eye on the busy crowd in his store. “It is going well. In general, comic book stores are now healthier than they have been in years. The mood is better. Comics are for more than just dudes now. It’s an open industry and art form. If we keep innovating and letting new people into the fold, comics won’t go away anytime soon.”
08/08/2016 | Paolo Bicchieri (the interview took place in May 2016)