Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Worst news a Comic Fan can get

OK, maybe not the worst, but pretty awful.

I work part-time at my local comic shop. The owner is a good friend of mine and I work Tuesdays and Thursdays (mostly to give him some time off). This past Tuesday I arrived at the store and started moving last week's books to the recent issues rack and asked if anything exciting was going on at the store.

"Yep," my friend replied, "we're going out of business."

My heart sank. While there are two other comic stores within 15 or so miles of my house, Grover's was our clubhouse. We play HeroClix on Mondays. We hang out and talk comics on Wednesdays. We play DnD on Saturdays. And Grover knew his customers well enough to know when we would want something we didn't ask for. I don't relish the idea of shopping at one of the other stores. One (unfortunately the nearer one) is owned by a guy who loves the indy comics scene, but disdains superhero comics. When I had a sub at his store, he failed to order the Secret Files and Origins issue that kicked off Foundations! How do you work in a comic store and not recognize that the SF&O books were essentially DC's replacement for annuals? I ultimately had to go online to get the issue because despite several requests, he never got it for me.

Mostly though, I'm sad for my friend who just wanted to make a store where people who love comics would feel at home. He did that; I guess there just weren't enough of us to make it work in the long run.

So, any of you who live in the New England area and want to help out one of the good guys make a graceful exit from the business, stop by Sidekicks on route 9 in Hadley MA. He'll be open through the end of the month and will probably be offering some pretty good deals.

Awww. That's awful, DL. And yeah, that IS some of the worst news you can get, when your favorite shop's closing its doors.

I mapped the route to Sidekicks, and it's about an hour and a half from here. If I can work out a trip up, I'll give you a heads-up.

Maybe I could bring along THEE infamous Cobalt Kid...

Hey guys, I'll see what I can do. If it's at the end of this month then I'm a bit busy with the con schedule in Nashua and a charity event this Saturday in West Boylston.

We should have a Massachusetts LMB gathering sometime anyway. We're all here aren't we?

If you go POV and spot some real good deals, let me know. I may have you pick some up for me. Any collectibles would be what would interest me.

Some comic shops, depending on their atmosphere, can be more of a hangout than a shop. Sounds like that's what Grover's was to you, DL, and I'm sorry to hear it's closing up.

I understand, I've had four of those, in the past two years.

Don't give up hope though. I've been buying comics from the same guy since the mid-70s. He's had four shops in that time and at least three different investors. The current incarnation of his comics shop has even expanded into two stores.

If your friend is serious he may be able to find a way to make a new place work. My guy has really struggled at times but he's still there, he's had to move his shop a few times and he's had to give up total control but now he has it pretty easy and lets the younger crowd take care of most of the details. In the long run his perserverance has paid off but it wasn't a cake walk.