It feels like a long time ago. I started collecting in 2002 (8 years old). The closest comic book store to me was Heroes and Fantasies. If you brought in your report card and it was all A’s you would get a discount. I can’t remember how much of a discount. But every bit helped with my allowance which was 2 dollars a week.
I would go to the store monthly and buy a few comics. The employees were always very nice and accommodating. Unfortunately, the store closed when I was in High School.
Awesome on the report card perk! I wish my comic shop would’ve offered that…I never would’ve gotten the discount cause my grades were awful, but still, knowing it was available might’ve helped lol
Wow! That’s an amazing story! Also, glad to know someone else went to Forbidden Planet
When I first started reading comics, the store in our mall was Same Bat Channel and then when that closed the managers opened their own place Comics Plus. Whenever my family would go to the mall, I just hung out there all the time looking through the cheap bins and eventually completed my Justice League/Intl/America collection $1 at a time. I was in there so much they eventually hired me but since I was 13 I got paid in credit. So every Friday I left with a stack of comics until I was about 17 and then occasionally until 20. The store moved within the mall a few times and then eventually to a location at a lousy intersection and it went out of business soon after.
I remember mall food, reading books, a lot of sweeping, and breaking down boxes.
@superby1: Thanks for the kind words. I loved the original location of Forbidden Planet with the creaky stairway leading down to the poorly lit basement where the back issues were sold. Oh, I need to make a correction as to the location of The
Village Comic Art Shop. It was just south of Washington Square Park on Sullivan Street. Walking at night through that park in the '80s was an “experience”.
There sadly wasn’t a comic shop where I grew up and if one opened it never lasted too long. So I mainly got my comics from the grocery/drugstore back when they used to carry them. My parents would also get A LOT of comics for me from yard sales.
Thankfully I have a shop now that I absolutely adore.
My comic book. stores
All in Manhattan
Near 34th street
Near 86 street
Only could have a few customers at a time
Both old and never locations
Of Forbidden Planet
St Marks Comics
Midtown Comics in the 40s
Midtown Comics on.Fulton
Those were the main ones
Yes!!! I remember that staircase! My dad took me once and I remember getting an issue of Mister Miracle there in that basement. Still have it, too!
@TurokSonOfStone1950 do you remember which one near 86th? There’s a couple it could be and I’m dying to know which one it was you went to 
You also listed a good portion of the ones I’ve been to, with St. Mark’s easily being the worst. The general rule with that store was never pay with a credit or debit card because the owner was notorious for using your info.
The 86th street store
Was on the East side
And could accomodate maybe two or three people at a time
It sounds like the one referred
To in response up top
Hmmm maybe that one was before my time. I live on the east side and in the nineties we had Alex’s Cards and Comics on 89th and 2nd Avenue (this was the one I mentioned in the first post which then moved to First Ave where it’s very small now)
There was also Action Comics which opened up across the street from Alex’s, then moved to 83rd street and 2nd where you had to go upstairs, then moved to 80th between 1st and 2nd. This was the store where the owner focused more on table top games after a certain point.
See
He is closer to my age of 70
This was probably in the late 70s
Maybe
https://www.scottedelman.com/2014/11/15/r-i-p-ed-summer-owner-of-supersnipe-comic-book-emporium/
Supersnipe, 84th, and Second Ave. Legend has it that Ed Summer bought up every copy of DC’s Shadow #1. If you wanted a copy in New York, you had to buy it from him. I know I did.
The 34th st store
Was Jim Hanley Universe?
I used to get back issues there
Had current and three month earlier
Then one day it was graphic novel no back issues
@superby1: Did you ever venture across the street from Forbidden Planet and go into The Strand Bookstore. Talk about creaky. If you were brave enough to visit their basement, it was like stepping back in time to Victorian England. Two of the greatest bookstores in NYC opposite each other! Good times.
Not surre
Remember first comics
Grimjack
American Flag
Cerebeus
Besides DC Marvel
Maybe E man there
Shadow sounds familiar
Yea, Jim Hanley’s was a regular haunt of mine when I went to summer school one year. It was a treasure trove of back issues and one-shots. They slowly phased out the back issues before they moved to the new location, sadly.
But of course! I’ve been to The Strand a few times! They were always good for books you’d need for school (novels, mostly)
Bought Gladiator there
Superman before
Seigal and Shuster superman
Son of character
Was in Roy Thomas
Young All Stars
And
2nd volume of Anno Dracula
By Kim Neuman
Set in world war i
With red baron.a flying vampire
I found a Book Club Edition of the complete, original Foundation Trilogy there one day in the '80s. It was like striking gold in Virginia City, Nevada.