Mark Crowther writes…
Your report of Tales of My Father #3 reminded me of something I was surprised by during my recent trip to California. You mentioned going to comic book shops near Highland Avenue. I was surprised by how few comic shops there are cities in the USA. I noticed that as well on a previous visit to Florida.. I think we have more shops in Dublin than in a typical large US city.
I didn't get around to visiting Golden Apple Comics, but did manage to visit Current Comics in Monterey and Isotope in San Francisco. I assume that, back in the day, there were many more shops in L.A. Am I correct to assume that?
We're talking about different kinds of comic book shops here. Fifty years ago — the period in which that story was set — there were four shops in the Hollywood area that could be called "comic book shops." They were Cherokee Books, Argosy Books, Collectors Book Shop and Bond Street Books. These were stores that sold old, used books — some rare, some just cheap — but had opened departments to sell old, second-hand comics. None of them sold current issues. None of them sold toys or posters or games or any current product like you find in most of today's comic book shops.
What we now know as a "comic book shop" is something that emerged a bit later on. Most of the ones I knew were started by comic fans, in some cases to sell underground comics or to sell old comics without the part of the business that involved non-comic books. Those stores especially flourished when the "Direct Market" sprung up, allowing comic store dealers to order and then sell current comics from the major publishers.
There's a very long story there but basically, comic books had previously been distributed by national magazine distributors who sold Time and Newsweek and Playboy and hundreds of other magazines (including comic books) to regional distributors who in turn supplied them on a returnable basis to newsstands, liquor stores, markets and so on. In the sixties, I bought my new comics by going to such stores and my old ones by going to second-hand book shops. The Direct Market provided an alternate means of distribution and that's how your favorite comic book shops get the current comics they sell.
I'm really not up on how many such shops there are in Los Angeles. Whatever comics I get these days, I either order by mail or publishers send them to me. The only store in L.A. I think I've set foot in in the last decade was Meltdown over on Sunset Boulevard, which closed last year. Even then, I was only there for signings and because Leonard Maltin used to record his podcast there. So I'm not the guy to ask about comic shops in L.A. I also don't know of very many second-hand book stores these days.
