The “pet shop” location in 1996. Unbeknownst to most customers, the previous tenants from the pet shop let their domestic mice loose and they had babies with the wild mice, so over the few years in this spot we had calico oddly friendly mice hanging out.
Scott Lovejoy, Andy Cirinesi, and Mike Boyle lug our new counter into place.
Wide shot of the shop where you can see Pete Johnson taking care of another happy customer. Dig that groovy blood red paint job in the back!
In 1997 we moved across the parking lot and plastered the old store windows with signs and arrows pointing directly at our new spot. This, of course, led to mass confusion with many people asking us why the store went out of business.
Pete Johnson waits for dial-up to connect as Megan Lovejoy enters the store for another day as the “floor artist.” Named so for always sitting on the floor making drawings.
Fast forward a few years to 2007 when our online business skyrocketed. There were days like this when every horizontal surface of the store was covered in shipping boxes. Time to start looking for more room!
Pete Johnson drowns in the volume of boxes going out to happy fans at Christmas.
What, you’ve never seen a van drive through the front of a store before? You must have lead a sheltered life. The driver says he had a leg spasm just as he put the van in gear, but we think he was just excited about our 2 for 1 back issue sale.
View from the outside after the debris was cleaned up. It’s a very freeing feeling to not have a front wall in your retail store space.
In 2007 we stepped up in size to the “pharmacy” location, so named for the pharmacy and grocery store that used to be there. As every item of food in the shop was always expired by a year or two, we were fairly certain it was a front.
Wow, look at all that space! Even so, we would quickly fill it up…
The battle between warehousing and processing space vs. retail shopping space will be our constant companion for the next decade. Here, Mike Boyle works on sorting through a new comic book collection.
Megan Lovejoy poses next to her 50 foot “joker on the roof”, based on Heath Ledger’s performance in the Batman film. We were very proud of our “Google Earth” easter egg, if you looked at our store location from above!
2009 brought a new location, this time a 13,000 sq. ft. warehouse! Now…how long will it take us to fill up this space too?
Our winning entry for Dark Horse’s “Read Comics” promotion in 2010.
In 2011 we added live auction events to our showroom. These events were an instant hit with our fans and became a big avenue of growth for the company.
Look at all those back issues!
2017’s improved retail space on Plymouth Road in Livonia.
More auctions and bigger collections, onward and upward!
