Colorado resident James Wear has been sentenced to nine years of community corrections, an alternative to incarceration, after pleading guilty to one count of theft and one count of criminal mischief relating to a break-in at Time Warp Comics in July 2024 (see “Suspect Arrested in Boulder Burglary”), Boulder’s 9News reports. Wear was arrested after he tried to sell some comis to the owner of another shop, and the owner realized they had been stolen from Time Warp the week before.
In other comic shop crimefighter news, Shannon Merritt, owner of 901 Comics, 901 Toys, and 901 Games in Memphis, TN, was talking to police about several break-ins at his stores when the suspect walked by and Merritt, a former Memphis police officer, nabbed him. After his stores were broken into, Merritt got a phone call from another local store saying that someone was trying to sell them merchandise they suspected was stolen from 901. They sent over a photo, and Merritt recognized the man as a past customer. Later that day, as he was talking to police, Merritt spotted the suspect walking by, grabbed him, and turned him in to the police. WREG has the full story.
Can’t go to the comic shop? Maybe the comic shop can come to you! Kenneth Simpson, owner of Kenny’s Comics in Odessa, TX, explains his Traveling Comic Shop concept to the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record ahead of a visit to that Arkansas resort town. “When I was growing up, comic book stores had a larger reach — they were in a lot of smaller towns, smaller cities,” Simpson said. “And that’s just not the case anymore for the last 20 or 30 years. So that’s the concept behind bringing a comic book store to a lot of the places I do now.” He makes a trip almost every Saturday, choosing areas with no brick-and-mortar comic shop and usually setting up shop in a hotel meeting room. Simpson offers a mix of old and new comics,
Maximum Comics of Las Vegas, NV, was robbed twice in just three weeks, part of what Sheriff Kevin McMahill told KVVU-TV is a wave of store thefts in the area. The thieves knew what they were looking for, said owner Brandon Dold, because they grabbed a handful of high-value Pokemon cards and a graded Pokemon game, but other inventory was damaged by broken glass.
Gotham City Limit in Jacksonville, FL, reopened its doors just a few days after a car crashed through the front window of the store, injuring an employee, taking out part of the storefront, and destroying about $30,000 worth of merchandise. The community rallied round after the accident, owner Ben Kingsbury told News4Jax, bringing shovels, trash bags, even flowers to help get the store back into shape. “To see people in the community care,” Kinsbury said, “not only care, but actively feel like they are a part of the shop, I can see the emotion that it elicits on them. It is the reason why I am able to keep going.” The store also held a fund-raiser on Instagram to assist the injured employee.
Jay Williams, owner of the newly opened WarWizard Games in Buena Vista, CO, tells the Chaffee County Times that he wants to introduce others to the world of offbeat games. Williams, who started out playing Avalon Hill’s Blitzkrieg in the 1970s, offers a wide range of games, from the well known to the obscure, and he hopes that offering some of the lesser-known ones for play at the store will broaden the audience.
A short-distance move made a big difference for Evanston Games and Café In Evanston, IL, co-owner Eli Klein told the Evanston Roundtable. “We were there for seven years … but I think literally every week, I got someone in saying, ‘Oh, when did you guys open? I had no idea you were here,’” Klein said of the old location. The new place is next to a cocktail bar that Klein also owns, which he hopes will increase traffic. “Game stores are historically not the most profitable enterprise; it’s a labor of love,” Klein said. “We’re trying to make up that difference by stapling synergistic revenue streams to it. It’s hard to do better than [having a] bar [next door].”
New England Comics is closing its store in Brookline, MA; the chain’s general manager, Tom Yee, told the Brookline News that the store has been losing money for some time and the owners of the chain had been subsidizing it. While customers are welcome to move their subscriptions to any of NEC’s four other stores, the closing will leave a gap in the neighborhood; as Michael Burstein, a sci-fi writer who has been shopping there for 29 years, told the News, “Taking away a store from the community, it really does affect the subculture.”
Steven Santana of My San Antonio takes a walking tour of the ginormous new Heroes & Fantasiescomics and collectibles, which is located in a former shoe warehouse and claims to be “the largest collectible shop in the state of Texas.” Despite its size, Santana writes, the store, which has been around since 1987, still has a local-comic-shop feel, complete with helpful employees.
Heading to Kansas City? NPR station KCUR offers a tour of KC comic shops.
Paradox Comics-n-Cards of Fargo, ND, will move to a new, larger location, Valley News Live reports. Store owner Richard Early says the move will double the size of store, as well as offering easier access and parking. In a nice bit of synergy, Orange Records, a neighbor of Paradox in its current space, will also move into the same building.
Horror writers Brian Keene and Mary SanGiovannia have opened Vortex Books & Comics in Columbia, PA, Lancaster Online reports.
At The Beat, Billy Henehan bids a fond farewell to Koch Comics Warehouse, a massive repository in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, that is so large, Henehan writes, “It is the only comic book store I ever shopped in that required a tutorial and a tour before beginning my hunt.”
The Cap City News profiles the Cheynne, WY, game shop Game Masters, which has a welcoming feel and a retro vibe.
Mayhem’s Bookstore and Board Game Café is set to open this summer in Lancaster, PA, Lancaster Online reports, with a selection of over 200 board games to play in-store, a coffee-shop menu of beverages, pastries, and snacks, and a selection of graphic novels. The store is owned by two brothers, Peter Milazzo and James Leavy, and their cousin, Rabye Dougherty. Leavy is a former comics retailer.
Source: ICV2
