Emerging within mostly specialty shops in the 1960s, comics developed a relevance since then into their own legitimate shops solely for the item. The first “store” (though usually debatable within the community) could have technically been Robert Bell’s store in Queens since he had a small section specifically for comics.

As for modern day, most comic book stores sell the usual:

• Comics
• Funko Pops
• Posters
• Manga
• Collectibles
• DVDs

In general, the average comic book store tends to sway as a merchandise store to ensure the highest profits in relation to the graphic novels they’re selling. I honestly don’t mind this, as during the class of 2027 trip in Salem, I briefly visited the Harrison’s Comics shop.

The only thing I bought, besides a Superman: The Movie Lois Lane Funko Pop, was a “slabbed” comic of Superman #129 second volume issue.

“Slabbed” comics are those comics that are delicately placed in a protective plastic pocket in front of a thin cardboard piece. It’s meant to protect much older comics from deteriorating or possibly even ripping on accident.

I would say this issue was great, it was definitely nerve-racking to take it out and turn each page since the paper was so delicate from aging. Though it was worth it in the end, since the plot was a good read.

Because of the great time I had in Salem’s comic book store, it made me realize—how do we not have one?

Especially with the rapidly dying rates of third spaces for teenagers, you would think we’d have something, right? Not really, when you remember that most of Ludlow’s teenagers were actively hanging out at places like Spirit Halloween out of any other place.

And yet, do we have any other places to hang out? Again—not really?

The closest comic book store in the area is Wilbraham, HasBeen Collectible Toys & Comics. I personally think they should just label themselves Hasbeen Collectible Toys With Few Comics more than anything.

When you open their website to see what kind of lineup they have, the highest amount of comics shown is 22…for Marvel alone. Obviously—they have the other mainstream companies like DC, IDW, and Image Comics. Though for one of the companies, IDW, there’s literally zero comics to show for it.

This is just me nitpicking at their website design alone, though the trip to the store is such a short time. If you’re willing to risk it, then I would say ‘go for it!’ The photos given for the store aren’t half bad and clearly show they do have many comics to choose from. I’m just not sure why they only post some and not the rest on the website.

I know that seems like an impossible task, yet I think they could have literally just said: “Come to the store!” rather than posting specific issues between the four different comic distributors.

Of course, if you’re looking to buy actual books along with comics—I would say to go with Holyoke’s Barnes & Nobles. It’s located in the upstairs section on the left, next to the manga.

Fair warning: it will probably cost an arm or leg, maybe even your soul, too, depending on how many comic novels you grab. Mind the phrasing, novels. They’re comics that put multiple issues into one large comic for individuals not wanting to spend the time looking for each individual comic that would make up a specific series within a larger franchise.

Barnes & Nobles does not have actual comics; keep that in mind if you just want a short and sweet issue alone.

Wall of Comics

Now—when I said we didn’t have a comic book store, like, very explicitly said that even in the title of this article…I was slightly exaggerating.

We do have a comic book “store”, it’s even right next to Big Y! Hell, the background picture of the article is one of their photos of what they have too. 

No, yeah, it’s a literal wall of comics. It’s one of the walls inside of the PLAYNOW! store. If the title isn’t ringing any bells, it’s the only store in the small strip with both vibrant and all capital letters that stick out compared to the stores around it.

It’s messy (not literally), unorganized, and overall a coordinated person’s worst nightmare.

And yet…it’s not that bad.

Obviously, a whole store would have been good, yet this is all we got. The options they had were decent, repetitive, of course, but that’s because probably no one knows about it and doesn’t go there to get anything.

By repetitive—I mean that they had many copies of the same issue under each other. Like, if you were to grab one, a pile of the same issue would be right under it. The boxes under the wall didn’t repeat, though. They actually contained a familiar type of comic that I mentioned earlier for Harrison Comics, slabbed issues.

Overall, I can’t make fun of this store as much as I hoped since it does in fact serve its purpose: it sells comics. Though I don’t think the average teenager is going to plan out their group’s next hangout spot in a child’s toy store for the painfully small section of comics they have. Again, it doesn’t hurt to hope that one day (soon please) a comic-enthusiast will buy out a vacant spot to transform it into a legitimate comic book shop.