Thanks to my amazing husband, I'm a pretty new (but still pretty big!) comic fan. That being said, I had a mission in the month of July:
- Fill in the empty spots in my collection and get some story arcs I've missed out on before I knew I was a fan.
- Find some comics my husband has been looking for as a surprise for his birthday.
- Have a kick-ass three day vacation with my husband to visit one of our favorite comic shops.
In order to accomplish this mission, I had to make a few stops. Over the course of July, my husband and I visited 8 comic shops to check out the goods they had. Each one of them was different and had their own strengths and weaknesses. So I decided to share those with you all, in case there are any other CT dwellers looking for a decent shop.
- Newbury Comics- Manchester, CT- In the Shoppes at Buckland Hills Mall- This first shop is our regular shop, that has our pull-list and a 20% off discount for box-holders(the MAJOR reason we pick up our comics here). Honestly, for calling themselves Newbury COMICS most of the store is CD's and other geeky/hipster merchandise, and has a couple small shelves in the back for comics, TP's and HC's. They usually have everything current that we are looking for and a decent amount of variants. Since it's in a mall, the place has tons of employees on and they are mostly all helpful if we can't find something. They carry some collecting supplies such as bags, boards, long and short boxes and dividers. Definitely not the place for back issues, which is a little in convenient for my purposes of this month, but they do the trick for us as an everyday comic shop. Also, one other quick issue I have with this shop is that their new comics don't come in until after 5pm on Wednesday. For someone who can sometimes have Wednesday off from work and gets VERY excited for when Wednesday comes, it REALLY sucks to have to wait until after 5pm to pick up some fresh ink.
- Buried Under Comics- Manchester, CT- The shop is the second closest to us and like I said above, one of the only reasons we don't regularly pick up our comics there is that we get 20% off at Newbury. Here though, they have a decent amount of back issues, but you have to do some digging. Not unlike I've found at other shops, customer service isn't superb. I was able to find some goodies here to fill in my collection, but when hubby asked about a few titles he was looking for we didn't get much help. Also, a big point in my book is that their back issues are usually boarded. Still a great resource and a good place to maybe find what you're looking for.
- Matt's Cards & Comics- Enfield, CT- We kind of fell upon this shop one night in search of another, which unfortunately no longer carried comics. And boy did we hit the jackpot!! This shop is pretty big, but has a lot of tight corners and little rooms, but it is PACKED!! They had tons of back issues, but again, you really have to dig for them. They weren't necessarily in the best of order, A's were near the R's, long boxes were stacked on top of each other without shelving. Luckily, I'm a pretty strong lady because I really had to move some heavy long boxes around to find what I was looking for. One big gripe I have with this store is they don't board the back issues. In the words of Brodie from Mallrats, "These should have boards in them. Bloody savage." They carried tons of current issues too. If you are looking for older games, busts, action figures, etc. this is a great place to find those maybe harder to find ones. Probably not one I would regularly visit, but if I was really having a hard time finding a particular back issue, I would definitely carve out a decent amount of time to go digging at this shop.
- Heroes & Hitters- Rocky Hill, CT- I've been driving all over the state for my job recently, so when this shop was on the way back home, I decided to stop by and see what they had. Hubby wasn't with me for this one, which was good because I could finally pick up some back issues he's been wanting and got them home before he did and get them wrapped for his birthday! This place had a decent amount of back issues. I wouldn't say tons (especially after being to Matt's), but I LOVED the way they were organized. While I love the old long box, I loved the built-ins they have for rummaging through the back issues. It was much easier to flip through and find what I was looking for. I came home with a good stack of back issues and the woman (SO EXCITING TO SEE A WOMAN WORKING AT THIS SHOP!) was very helping in trying to find some issues of Avengers Academy that were evading me, and even though she was unable to get them, I really appreciate her taking the time to check on it, because I'm not sure that many shops take the time to do that. If you live near this shop, they do offer free subscription and 10% off if you are collecting at least 10 ongoing series. If we lived close by, I'd consider this shop to be our everyday shop. *Oh and if you haven't gotten the hint yet, I have a big issues with back issues not being boarded. Luckily, this place boards 'em. :)
Check back for the next four shops that we visited on our AWESOME COMIC BOOK BIRTHDAY WEEKEND in the next blog post.
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