LCS Stories

Let's talk about our local comic book stores.

How many issues of America do they still have on the shelves?

My LCS for the last decade, the previous owner of which got me back into comics, just closed and I'm bitter. Original owner was a consummate salesman by being interested in customers and his enthusiasm was infectious. Oh you like this, cool yeah me too, you might like this as well, check it out!"I wound up dropping loot and getting into a lot of different stuff. Same with other customers, sense of joy and eager to spend.

Anyway, he sold it to two employees, one of which became the face of the store and the problem is he was like Comic Book Guy from the Simosons to a T. He was above everything, it all sucked. "Hi, I really dig this writer what has he--" "Ughh, he's the worst." "Hey, how's this series anyway?" "Uhh, terrible." My friend would show up after pay day looking to waste money and would leave empty handed after this guy would convince him everything he wanted to buy was shit. I'd watch as customer after customer was just turned off from the store, and in some ways the medium, stopped spending money, stopped showing up and the place inevitably had to close its doors.

None. I wanted to pick up the meme issue with the letter from the Sup Forums guy just to catalog it for future generations, and they quit stocking America with the previous issue, so I was never able to get it. Hasn't been back since.

My local comic shop is a fun and nice place that is well kept but a little out of the way

my lcs still has dozens of copies of Rebirth #1s
nothing DC sells besides Batman, Green Arrow and Wonder Woman
Doomsday Clock isn't even selling but Watchmen trades are flying off the shelves

I have two LCS's in my city and they're both on the same street within a few blocks of each other and they're both pretty popular. One of them is pretty loud most of the time because there are table top gaming tables in the back so there's usually alot of people there, but the staff are super friendly, the other one is usually very quiet like a library and has much more special merchandise like figurines and anything else you can think of.

I believe comic book stores is their legacy name. I believe they are trendy shit stores now, where you can buy your Pop! toys to show others you have nerd cred.

Pops are such a literal cancer. All they do is eat up more and more shelf space. Every convention there's one more booth actually selling nothing but Pops.

I believe you just have a shit LCS.

>meme issue with the letter from the Sup Forums guy
elaborate pls

My LCS changed owners recently and the new guy is pretty good at ordering comics. No issues of America on the shelves or in boxes.

I had a guy do this at a gamestop. I had to report him to corporate I had no choice, the experience was that awful

>go to buy shadow of the colossus
>keeps trying to get me to buy some JRPG instead and that SOTC is just 10 bosses and then you're done
>I say no thank you, this is all for today
>he insists
>I say no it's alright man ill think about it though
>he insists I get it used instead
>I say it's ok mate, this is all im getting I want to get it used
>sneers and raises his voice after giving me a receipt, NEED A BAG?

As for LCS stories, all of my visits have been pretty well.

Issue 4 or whatever of Gabby Rivera's horrendous America comic had a letters page, in it, someone by the name of "C.O." exclaimed how much they loved the comic and said it was just as good as 'The Room.'

Closed down last year. The guy opened it because people he knew kept insisting they'd shop there, and they didn't.

>>go to buy shadow of the colossus
>>keeps trying to get me to buy some JRPG instead and that SOTC is just 10 bosses and then you're done
He isn't wrong

This

>nerd cred
So soft and sensitive.

Fuck, somebody needs to post pics.

Kind of reminds me of this story a guy on tumblr posted about the time he harangued some kid and his mom because they were buying Assassin's Creed and not Yakuza 0.

This man was not an employee.

>be pasty white dude
>at LCS browsing trades
>black guy who kinda looks homeless walks in and heads straight towards me
>reeks of old cigarettes
>tries to push his mixtape on me for 5 minutes straight
>have to repeatedly pass
>black guy walks straight out
I will wonder to this day why he picked me out as a potential customer

Here ya go, user.

user, nobody believes you.

...

Maybe he wanted to gets those lucky trips.

I believe him. Some places just don't pull DC as much.

holy shit this is actually my local store

its Carol and John's in Cleveland. great place

Mine is owned by a cranky 60ish year old man. He has been at the same location for about 30 years, the shop is old as fuck but really, really comfortable. He treats the regulars with a lot of respect, but is so close to retiring I don't think he has much concern for growing his business. He basically ignores all other customers. His taste is great and he was the one that got me into euro-comics, as when U started going there in early high school I exclusively read capeshit. If you shop there regularly, he also does 20% off pulled books, and $10 put of every hundred you spend on comics. The shop lost a little charm when he started dping tabletop games, but that might be simply because I am not fond of the Magic: The Gathering crowd or the D&D crowd - I have never met a D&D player there that wasn't "LOL RANDOM GEEK XD", honestly. It is a shame because it may have been something I might have tried.

See user wouldn't it be better if we lived in an ethno state? Come join us on Sup Forums we can promise something like that will never happen to you again.

This i have never met non-cancer CCG players

DnD in shops is never a good idea ime.

>Sup Forums
no thanks, too autistic for me

>D&D
>CCG
Pick one.

>that unironic sincere reply
Based Gabby

>but that might be simply because I am not fond of the Magic: The Gathering crowd

I want to be mad at you, but you keep getting trips

I grew up whit trash, user. The last thing I want is a country full of white folks.

Oh fuck, I kek’d.

It's because these trips don't lie user

D&C said something about that in one of his videos, not sure if he knew it was from Sup Forums, but he could still tell it was a fake, joke comment.

>D&C

Reddit is that way holmes

Mine is pretty boring. 'Cept that one time a guy was in there making sure they order some special variant of the Steven Universe Funko Pops. Looked like a dead ringer for Comic Book Guy.

>Be me
>Go to comic shop to catch up on Venom
>The glorious bastard who runs the place gives me all of the free comic book day shit that hasn't been taken
It was pretty neat.

Based

You tell him user! This is a Tumblr friendly board and we wont stand for any anti-SWJ sentiment.

Yah! He needs to go! Stupid Alt-righting nazi scum!

>recommend LCS on Sup Forums
>somebody took my advice, but got weird looks from the staff there like he was going to shoplift
I still feel bad about it.
As somebody diagnosed with autism when I was 4 years old, I object to being lumped in with those insufferable turdburglars.

One of the most pathetic samefags I have seen in a long time.

>unironically liking D&C
>this obvious samefagging

Local comic shop owner recently relocated the shop from it's out of the way location to a strip mall which saw a lot of recent upswing in traffic when a Dollar Tree/Ollies opened up where the long shut down K-Mart used to be.

For a while he had been having one of his employees running the store on new comic day, but said employee kept forgetting to put books in peoples pull folder, so he has started working new book day again due to complaints.

The story does well but the guy has openly admitted the bulk of his sales comes from Magic and RPG shit. He lost a lot of customers with SJW Marvel/DC You but Rebirth was a mixed bag: he got a lot of new customers with New 52 but lost them when they brought back OG Superman (though one of his regular whales started buying pretty much every Superman book post-Rebirth and won't stop talking about how Rebirth Superman renewed his faith in DC).

Said whale is one of the more amusing customers. Short bear type gay, who works at a call center. One of the shop's oldest customers and spends about $400-500 a month on new books, back issues, trades, and toys. One of the ironic things is that he used to be a huge SJW types in the 00s/early 10s until recently. Apparently he is a big Trump supporter and pretty much doesn't buy Marvel anymore except for Venom (but only the Eddie Brock Venom).

>whale

What? Is that a fat/fag joke or am I missing something?

Yeah and what would the women think of they white folks with small dicks? No country should be without People of Color, not one

One of the most pathetic samefags I have seen in a long time.

>it’s another Sup Forums defends Islam episode
If you guys aren’t Muslims yourself you are the most radical leftists on the Internet, beyond tumbler and the front page of rebbit

>go to my LCS to pick up Superior Foes Volume 2 and The Boys Volume 9
>go to the counter to pay for my stuff, two guys behind the counter, one is free, the other helping someone out with some Magic the Gathering questions
>guy helping me see The Boys
>goes on about how the writer knows him personally and added him into the comic as the Comic Shop owner
>just trying to continue the convo I ask him if he’s read any of Superior Foes yet
>Gets snobby and turns his nose up, “What? 30 issues of these guys sitting around in costumes talking about how they’re going to kill Spider-man. Yeah I don’t read stuff like that
>before I can say anything the guy beside him leans over
>”this guy, right?”
>he laughs
>I laugh
>MtG customer laughs
>the guy who helped me just stares at us blankly

>our
Thinking all of Sup Forums are americans.

You do realize there's comic book stores in the U.K as well right?

"Whale" is a business/jargon term for a certain type of repeat customer.

Whales are repeat customers who spend huge amounts of money at an establishment, to the point that a business will bend over backwards to make them happy. So they keep coming back to spend huge amounts of cash on your products.

In comics, whales are the type of people who come in every Wednesday and buy $50-100 worth of new books (and by new books, I mean floppies not trades) on top of merch and trades every week, who buy books that they don't like because they are completists, and will only stop buying a book in the event that Marvel/DC does something beyond the pale to piss them off (Brand New Day, the New 52 Reboot of Superman, Hydra Cap, replacing A-list characters with blacks and women).

Comic "whales" are what keep comic shops in business. They also get special treatment: the whole reason comic shops do hold/pull folders is to ensure their "whales" get their weekly fix and don't have to deal with them coming into the stores, seeing the new book they wanted to buy isn't there, and then just walking out and not buying anything. It's why comic shops give them a 10-15% discount on everything they buy (justified by their pull folder), special order shit, why they let them have "reserve" folders where the shop will hold merch/back issues/newer issues for them, for months on end at times, so they keep coming back and spending hundreds of dollars a week.

These guys are your traditional fanboy types. They buy DC and Marvel exclusively though also some indie/manga stuff. They also are heavy trade buyers, especially older stuff and will pay good money for back issues.

They are like the big time gamblers who come into casinos, spend huge amounts of cash at the tables (win or lose) and who the casinos treat like royalty with free room, endless stream of booze and food, just to keep them coming back to the casino to lose thousands of dollars gambling.

>Thinking anyone cares about shithole countries

>go back to my LCS to see if Empowered Volume 4 has arrived
>it’s there!
>take it up to the counter
>guy, very loudly, shouts to the other guy working
>Who the hell ordered this? We don’t sell adult comics like this in my store
>point out to him that he has a Crossed TPB on the shelf behind him
>he shuts up
>two months later the cinema that I used to work at reopens and begins to sell comics
>go to a new store with new people and start a pull list to help support them

>it's another "Sup Forums tries to shit up another thread instead of staying in their containment board" episode
Fuck off, you stupid child

>Carol and John's
It makes me sick to my stomach knowing there are other Sup Forumsmrades in northeast Ohio

I don't have a local store but I went to a store in London earlier this week because I was there on a trip. It was very uneventful and they didn't have either of the somewhat rare back issues or the one trade I was looking for. Didn't really see any America books either.

I work at my lcs and we constantly get 16/17 year old kids coming in to ask for a job but never buy anything

inshalla infidel, when I achieve jihad I'll kill you quick

>D&C said something about that in one of his videos
I'm proud to be part of community that got recognition from D&C. Guy's a legend and he's getting insane results for the size of his operation.

Let me tell you about Nostalgia Newstand. Place is old as fuck and the people who run it are old as fuck. The actual shop is in the fucking ghetto, right next to an abandoned crack house, shitty ass roads at every street due to hurricane damage from like 3 years ago, etc. But hey, I don't have the privileged to be picky so I start going there anyway. I meet the owner of the shop, a super chill old southern man. I mention to him that I myself am a cartoonist and draw a little here and there and the guy offers to sell some of my shitty comics at his shop too. Things are seeming pretty good until I realize that the guy, despite owning the shop, doesn't really run the shop. That job goes to the fucking Ogre. 40 year old guy, looks like your stereotypical walmart shopper and acts like it too. Constantly just says the most awkward shit to you even when you're just browsing. Every time I go in there to ask how well my comic's been selling, he fucking shouts out the name of the book and starts pretending he's a god damn ninja like he's a 10 year old. I give a big smile and try to ignore the god damn mass amount of cringe this guy emanates just by talking but eventually its just not worth it anymore since they haven't sold a single issue of my comic in 3 months (I'm 95% sure Cringe McGee intentionally hid my stuff from view since I refused to play along with his Rick and Morty bit) and the one time they did I had to force it out the guy since he was really fucking adamant to giving me the single dollar it sold for. Creepiest part is that I've started seeing the guy at some of the bigger conventions I go to. Mother fucker stares me down at a distance and fucking stalks me once he spots me

>go to my new LCS to pick up my pull list
>see Ostrander’s Suicide Squad Volume 1 sitting there
>oh fuck yes!!
>clerk behind the counter tries to push New 52 Suicide Squad onto my
>politely decline, pay for my stuff and leave
>a few months later I’m back to get my pull list, see Suicide Squad Volume 2 sitting there
>clerk tries to push New 52 again
>decline
>really pushes, going on about how the art is much better, the writing isn’t horrible out of date and they have Harley Quinn (a founding member of the SS) in it
>tell him I’ve read some of New 52 and don’t like it, and I don’t like Harley Quinn
>pay for my stuff and leave

Wtf I thought I posted that in

That's nice, dear

My local comic shop has THREE copies of the Ostranders Suicide Squad V1 still on the shelf. Two of them are first printing copies, from the late 00s failued push to get the series collected.

Local whale who loves SS already owns a copy of it but doesn't bother bugging the shop owner to order the later volumes "because he has a complete run of the series".

Same whale has like 5-6 months worth of Rebirth SS in his pull folder, really hates the revival (but loved the movie) and keeps buying it every time an arc finishes, because he doesn't care for TPBs.

I see you post this in every LCS thread and it still makes me mad

>tries to push New 52 Skawd

I sincerely hope this person gets a lobotomy

Are you that sweety bitchh from twitter?

>stop being mean and problematic toward savages!
damn, the 00's kids really are arriving

>Short bear type gay
> used to be a huge SJW types in the 00s/early 10s >>is a big Trump supporter

Can I assume you've talked to this guy and asked him WTF? Because that doesn't sound right in terms of progressions unless the guy got fag-bashed by Muslims or did an entire flip-flop of his beliefs for someone's dick.

They have boxes full of those special legacy comics

>go back a week or two later to pick up my pull list
>Spider-man and Deadpool should be there, it’s not
>ask about it each week
>still not there
>go back the following month, the recent issue is on their shelf
>ask the clerk what happened to the other issue that was on my pull list
>”Oh, Deadpool sucks man, so I took that off your pull list so you wouldn’t waste the money.”
>let the owner know about this via e-mail
>come back the next week, that clerk is gone, replaced by someone else
>my missing issues are waiting for me with a note that reads “Paid for, sorry”

To this day I’m convinced that that little bastard was super mad that I didn’t like Harley Quinn and just wanted to fuck with me somehow

You guys realize DC books are fully returnable, right? If they are keeping extras on the shelves that means they are books they think they give to casuals/first timers or people that aren't pulling that stuff.


Goddamn, try and learn about the industry you are talking about.

I know a bunch of SS fans who have bought the New 52 and Rebirth SS books simply to keep DC from canceling it and shipping Waller and Deadshot back over to Gail Simone for a Secret Six revival.

Remember, SS would have gotten a comeback had Secret Six not been a big hit for DC in the late 00s.

They can return DC books if they want. They are choosing to keep them on the shelves.

>DC books are fully returnable, right?
>Goddamn, try and learn about the industry you are talking about.
They were only returnable for the first few months. Nothing has been returnable for a few long time.

the worse are the shops where the owners try to sell you shit like they are fucking gamestop...
>buy x-men inferno trade
>"hey do you like vampires?"
>i guess...
>"30 Days of Nights trades are 30% off"

then you have the shops where the guys who sell you stuff wont shut up
>buy dr. strange essential
>"i met gene colan in 1978 and he drew me a picture of spock for me at a con and his wife was there and i showed him some of my art and..."

Damn that's fantastic. You're a comicstore superhero, I wish I did this about my places

i moved two hours away from my old home, and my coworkers talk about the lcs near us with... mixed opinions
they all seem to like it, yet often bitch about pulls being wrong, issues being missing, and the owner just randomly being gone, while the other employees being mixed quality

i still consider my old towns store to be my lcs, and i just got there the first time in 4 months, and they had all my pulls. the only thing missing was all star superman not being in it, which i thought was in my pulls, but hell, i might be wrong. it was 4 months ago after all

hell, there were things in my pulls that he THOUGHT i would like, and he was right, i bought them there, and did like them

I would assume he's like a lot of gays; once they got the right to marry, they turned conservative once the left turned on them because they were no longer an "oppressed" minority.

>then you have the shops where the guys who sell you stuff wont shut up

This. I'm an ugly autist buying comics, there's no way I can try to socialise, the owner should be surprised i didn't bring my mom with me as well

My LCS also totally supports me too
>before summer house burns down
>lose everything
>go to my LCS to tell them I have to cancel my pull list
>owner tells me not to worry about paying until summer is over
>got four months of comics for free and was able to go and watch WW without paying
It helps that the community is small, everyone knows and supports everyone else

>yet often bitch about pulls being wrong, issues being missing

My LCS constantly blames Diamond. How hard was it to pull each issue of Aquaman Rebirth as it came out????

Not liking Glass’ Suicide Squad.

Listen, I’m not saying the New 52 SS is perfect but his first three volumes were pretty good.

>the owner should be surprised i didn't bring my mom with me as well
kek this is literally me

This. The dialogue was genuinely funny.

squad went to shit when they tried the dark trinity thing

I read the storytimes here when it was released and decided that I didn’t want to pay actual money to put it on my shelf when I can get a far better version of that comic. Funny story, all four volumes Of Ostrander’s SS managed to survive the fair along with a box that had Batman, SM/DP and Renew Your Vows in it. Pretty lucky, but super mad none of my other tpbs survived

Rebirth was returnable. They obviously thought it would be a better investment on their end to keep it on the shelves then return it.

Don't know, I don't usually look at America. They have a fuckload of unsold Legacy 1 though.

My LCS is usually pretty great. Store's clean, the staff's nice, they're friendly to everybody. It being on the way home from work is pretty nice too.

I lived in a small my whole life and there was no comic shop. Moved to a city for college and heard about a comic/hobby shop. I was walking towards there and the streets smelled like sewage. Some homeless woman was sitting on the footsteps of a church and screaming. I then passed by another homeless man on a bench who yelled, and I'm not joking, 'Hitler should have finished the job!' I finally get there and it's a crummy little shop that just had shit to attract college kids. I just left and walked home. While walking a man sitting on a bench exposed his penis and winked at me. Keep in mind that these were the 'nice' streets of the city that students frequent, and they were still shit. I did everything in my power to avoid going into that shithole for the rest of my time in college. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I'm not kidding here. I guess I'll never be a city boy.

I live in berkeley too user

>user visits Sup Forums

Do they play music at your LCS? Before they closed, my tiny as fuck (seriously something like 5 sq.m) LCS's clerk would play death metal nonstop lol, it was kinda funny

Mine is a massive sort of warehouse with a huge selection are some really friendly staff members. They're a local chain with most other locations being in malls but their main store kicks ass.

Nah, they have a TV playing. All kinds of stuff.