LCS stories

[Tupiaz]

I think it would be cool to have a topic about weird tales from the LCS around the world. It can be anything good, bad, sad, funny you name it. I will suggest to keep it clean and make it so the place and the people are anonymous.

So earlier today I was at my LCS. A female teenager came in and asked if they had any Twin Peaks related items (it seems like she wanted the show but she wasn't specific). The seller thought about for a few seconds and then kindly reply that they sadly didn't. The seller said that there has been done comics over old series in recent times so it was possibility it could be made but there at the moment wasn't being anything made. A customer then said that there hasn't been released that much recently and that there has only been the Blue Ray. Few hours later Twin Peaks comeback revealed. I assume the teenager is happy today and that my LCS soon will have some Twin Peak related stuff.

[Don C]

If I'm reading your post correctly, your seller missed an opportunity for a sale. He/she could have sold this girl any number of comics that were in the same vein as Twin Peaks.

[Shawn Hopkins]

She might have also liked the video game Deadly Premonition if the store sold games.

[GrandKaiser]

LOL...interesting story.

It isn't really my LCS anymore, just a "CS" that I go to since I no longer live in that neighborhood. It's called Hub Comics and I used to live right down the street from it. I would always have a great time just talking with the two dudes who worked there, because they were just a fun group of people. Anyway, the owner died under mysterious circumstances while I was travelling and I felt so bad, so now it's the only place I shop for comics at even when there's another that's already super close to me.

Here's an interview with the owner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=973AhJDvcEM
Here's his memorial which was at the comic shop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0bK0i8B0E0

[saul_on_the_road_to_damascus]

So I am trying to track down 10 or so issues of the comic the sixth gun. I don' t shop on ebay but I was browsing on there and found a seller that had quite a few issues. Turns out they were a comic shop in seatle. I sent them an email asking them if they could help me out. They said they were pretty sure they had them but would have to check and get back to me. This was friday night. Since I didn't get paid till this morning I said that was fine it could wait till this morning. I called this morning at 10am their time and they still hadn't gotten to it. But said they would and get back to me. 7 my time which is about 4 their time and they still hadn't gotten to it and the guy who handles it had got home for the evening. Wtf. This is a forty dollar order and they can' t take a half hour tops to dig through their back issue bins?

[Harley Quinn]

I used to go to this one CS with an owner that I was friendly and talked with a lot. We started discussing Twilight Zone and Richard Matheson and his episodes of the show. That got us talking about his I am Legend book and the Vincent Price version The Last Man on Earth. When I brought up the newer version with Will Smith, the owner let it fly. The owner used words that I will not repeat and then started talking about their D-I-L that was from another country that the owner hated and I am sure my eyes were the size of tennis balls by the end of it. Sad too because the owner had been so nice before (except the one time the owner started talking about the other CS not lasting because of fanboys running them. I had been to those CS as well and they were really nice (though there was the time about cucumbers that was weird) and I was sad to see them go. The owner in this post didn't read comics themselves.)

[CSTowle]

I used to go to this one CS with an owner that I was friendly and talked with a lot. We started discussing Twilight Zone and Richard Matheson and his episodes of the show. That got us talking about his I am Legend book and the Vincent Price version The Last Man on Earth. When I brought up the newer version with Will Smith, the owner let it fly. The owner used words that I will not repeat and then started talking about their D-I-L that was from another country that the owner hated and I am sure my eyes were the size of tennis balls by the end of it. Sad too because the owner had been so nice before (except the one time the owner started talking about the other CS not lasting because of fanboys running them. I had been to those CS as well and they were really nice (though there was the time about cucumbers that was weird) and I was sad to see them go. The owner in this post didn't read comics themselves.)

I used to go to a shop where the owner was very outgoing, funny, intelligent, and made the place feel like a home (for the most part). The only problem I had, and many of his customers had, was that he was extremely homophobic. And many of his customers (as we tended to use the shop as a hang-out spot), including his friends, would call him out directly on it asking him where it was coming from and pointing out that some of his customers were probably gay.

[tombo]

I live in a town without a comicbook/scifi store now, but in my old town I went to the same one from 1994 - 2011 pretty much most days.

It had two really nice female managers, one from 2000-2005 or so and the other from then to now.
They were both really cool gothy/punky women who went to rock gigs and other things I went too and I was always stopping them to chat about Neil Gaiman and sci fi and I probably had big crushes on them both. They were both really nice and always made the store a great atmosphere.

from 1994 - 1999, it was ran by a 35 ish year old guy and his wife. It was a very different place. Aside from comics, it was mainly based around merch from old cult films like Russ Meyer and the Steed/Peel Avengers. It was very sexual and sold lots of fetish magazines and books, stuff about S+M and Burlesque everywhere. It had a much older and male-dominated clientele than from 2000- on when it became more cool and more about anime and modern sci fi.

The only really bad experience I had in it was when "Blair Witch Project" came out on VHS, I hadn't seen it, just heard on the radio it was the best horror ever and was traumatising audiences, so I went in and asked for it, and they all laughed at me and said it was panto.

It was great though, even in the creepy days I could go in and chat about how bad Batman and Robin had been and stuff like that.

[Tupiaz]

If I'm reading your post correctly, your seller missed an opportunity for a sale. He/she could have sold this girl any number of comics that were in the same vein as Twin Peaks.

That is argument you can be made. However it is not really relevant for the topic.

She might have also liked the video game Deadly Premonition if the store sold games.

They do not.

Anyway, here is another story from my LCS. So the manager had gotten an email if they had a certain book (he didn't say by who or what the book it was). They hadn't. The manager then went and look for the book with the distributor. Got a good price for a handful of copies and a low shipping rate. He then sent an email to the person contacting him about the book to tell him that that the book he was seeking was being ordered (not because they had a binding agreement just to be friendly). The person then writes back something along the line of "Nice or good". The manager then finds out that the person who had sent the email was the author of the book. But his email had beens just so vague that it seem like he was interested in buying the book not interested in if the carried the book. He hadn't thought about crossing checking. The staff had a good laugh about and he was pretty convinced that he could sell the books so it wasn't so bad.

[GOLGO 13]

A now closed shop I went to had a character that had great ideas but poor execution. He was a big horror/gore hound and right around Haloween he string up the most realistic props of mutilated body parts outside the store. He'd splatter the front window with fake blood and bloody handprints. The looks on people faces as they walked by went from disgust to anger. Many an argument was had about the appropriateness of his display. But since he was legit nobody could stop him. Cops would come by and poke the body parts with their batons and walk away shaking their heads. This only spurred him on & he got more & more outrageous.

I stopped going to him when I got into other activites & reduced my pull list to only 2 books and he pretty much told me to piss off. The only thing that stopped him was the 90's bubble collapse. Crazy, crazy bastard.

[tombo]

The only really bad story I have is a store I've only been in twice in Northampton, UK. I have a friend who lives there and the comic store is on the way from the train station and his place so I stopped there on the way for a quick browse.
The young 20 ish guy behind the counter was really arrogant and rude. He wouldn't let me browse alone and kept asking me what I wanted and what I liked, when I told him I was just browsing for something new he said in a sneer "do you even read comics". I grew up with a Dad and Uncle reading silver age Marvel all my life. I'm just not socially good at being put on the spot like that.

[Tupiaz]

The only really bad story I have is a store I've only been in twice in Northampton, UK. I have a friend who lives there and the comic store is on the way from the train station and his place so I stopped there on the way for a quick browse.
The young 20 ish guy behind the counter was really arrogant and rude. He wouldn't let me browse alone and kept asking me what I wanted and what I liked, when I told him I was just browsing for something new he said in a sneer "do you even read comics". I grew up with a Dad and Uncle reading silver age Marvel all my life. I'm just not socially good at being put on the spot like that.

I prefer when salesperson are in the back ground and don't follow you with mistrust. They can asked people if they want help but should also let people browse the store.

A now closed shop I went to had a character that had great ideas but poor execution. He was a big horror/gore hound and right around Haloween he string up the most realistic props of mutilated body parts outside the store. He'd splatter the front window with fake blood and bloody handprints. The looks on people faces as they walked by went from disgust to anger. Many an argument was had about the appropriateness of his display. But since he was legit nobody could stop him. Cops would come by and poke the body parts with their batons and walk away shaking their heads. This only spurred him on & he got more & more outrageous.

I stopped going to him when I got into other activites & reduced my pull list to only 2 books and he pretty much told me to piss off. The only thing that stopped him was the 90's bubble collapse. Crazy, crazy bastard.

Ahahaha I would have loved to she the faces on the police officers when then where in the shop. sounds like you have some other good stories?

This story goes back around 10 years. I found Amazing Spider-man 14 the first appearence of the Green Goblin in a very good condition as you can see in the picture below:

ASM 14.jpg

Price converted to USD about 4 bucks. Is there a downside to this? Yes, it is a Danish version (it was sent to subscribers so it is a rarity in Denmark usually sold for around 5 bucks). I was well aware of this when I brought and it was listed as a Danish comic so no fault play by the store. However it had a nice surprise inside.

ASM 14.2.jpg

Signed by Stan Lee himself. No, I don't have a certificate there it is real. But since Stan Lee was in Denmark in the mid 90's around the same time the comic was released. I assume the store didn't know about this at all.

[quinnzel]

I absolutely love my LCS and they have the best service. The owner is a super, super nice guy who's incredibly easy to talk to and everything about the whole experience is just great. I started going there regularly over the Summer, and within a couple visits he knew my face and recognized me every time. The shop is clean, organized, and you can find just about anything you can think of. All of their back issues are organized alphabetically in big drawers that stretch all the way from one wall to the next, and everything is bagged and boarded for you already (and they don't charge extra for that perk). As a plus, you automatically get a 10% discount on any and all graphic novels you buy, either trade paperbacks or hardcovers.

Today I went in to pick up the new stuff I wanted, as I do every Wednesday. My brother meets me when the shop opens right before his first class of the day, and we divide and conquer. Our stack was pretty big today, as it usually is every week. We paid for our stuff, and then I turned around and walked back into the shop because I decided to grab a Savage She-Hulk #1 I spotted in the back issues that I just couldn't pass up. I went through the line again, handed it to the owner to pay, and he hands it right back to me and says, "No, that's yours. Take it. You guys have bought enough stuff in here today." And I walked out with a bagged and boarded #1 I was never expecting to get when I walked in that morning.

This is why I will always keep going back to my LCS and will recommend them to anyone and everyone in my area who is looking for a comic shop until the day I die.