When they first opened they seemed very legit and prices were on point and seemed like a great place to start a subscription. This was around the time of DCs convergence arc for time reference. I visited a few times after but since moved away from the area. Fast forward to today, I was up that way visiting friends and decided to stop in with my son, I thought it was great that they had a Lego table for him and other kids to use while I browsed around. I had a list of books I wanted to get, the employee seemed to know squat about comics but that was ok, I've been to other comic stores like that so not a big deal.
Then I noticed they had certain books that were variants and one in particular that was a 1 per store variant, that day I was in 2 other comic shops and both other shops were asking $20 for the same
Comic. these guys wanted $50 which is way over priced, I shrugged it off and noticed 3 long boxes with assorted comics, most were ruined/damaged due to spine cracks but what was more disturbing was the prices on 1:1 DC variants.....
See when you order from diamond as a owner of a comic store you can buy 25 issues of one book and get the 1 in 25 variant and so on, well DC decided to do a thing where you can order cover A or cover B aka 1:1, as many as you'd like and did away with the 1:25, 1:50 and so on. For some reason all the B covers were marked at $20 or more....again trying to get one over on the unsuspecting consumer?
Yes I'd say so. Again I shrugged it off and figured whatever. Then the straw that broke the camels back............
all along the walls in certain areas were these pink slips, I didn't notice it at first but I Walked over to read it, it read "don't not read comics, it's considered stealing". I've never ever seen anything like this in my life as a comic reader and collector, never. One of the best parts about going into a comic store is seeing a cool cover on a comic you've never heard of and opening it up to see the art work and so on, then chances are you'll buy it and even sub to it, it's not like I could have asked the clueless clerk what newer or older books I might like if I spouted off a few artist and writers.
This was extremely off putting, so I put the few books I was going to buy back and walked over and got my son when I noticed another one except this one was big and on plain paper, imagine if he would have picked up a book, would he have been scolded by the clerk?
At this point I felt very unwelcome and promptly left. I left and got together with my comic group online and asked if they've ever been to this store, my friends in the group said yes and each had a story of things they noticed that turned them sour. One claimed they price gouge some of their limited run pop figures which in my mind was fine but the person claimed that the same pop could be purchase online for 1/2 the cost from a bunch of sellers. His example was a suicide squad batman marked at $50 while online was getting $15 from more then 10 sellers.
In the end I would recommended you shop smart and do your research before going in and throwing $ down. The ridiculous "don't read comics, it's considered stealing" signs and the 1:1 dc cover price gouge was extremely off putting and made me feel uneasy and unwelcome because I had my child with me in a store where I slowly felt like they thought they had gold on the shelves. read more