Indeed, one could argue superheroes have never been more popular, thanks to the movies and video games, while the dwindling comics audience has been cannibalized by too many “event” storylines aimed at collectors, not fans.Įven a city like London now sports two annual comic conventions, Forest City Comicon and London Comic Con, more proof comics are mainstream.
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He’ll have customers come in the store fresh from the multiplex who are confused because they don’t understand why the Hulk’s alter ego, Bruce Banner, is dead. “(Fixing) continuity would bring a lot of people back,” Morris added.
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There’s also a disconnect between the company’s comic universe and the cinematic one. “Give me one good Deadpool book,” Morris said. So where there was once a single monthly title starring self-reflective mutant antihero Deadpool, there are now four. “Marvel Comics has been doing a bunch of crap for the last five years,” he said. One of the biggest factors in the sales decline, Morris says, is the proliferation of needless, low-quality books the last few years from Marvel Comics especially. “(All three owners) all supported our venture into the indie comic-book industry too, carrying the books we created under our banner SillWill Studios.” “My sister, Alison Williams, and I have been regulars at the Comic Book Collector for almost 40 years! It was our first discovery that you could get all the comic books you love in one special store,” Williams said. He regrets it’s closing before what would be the Comic Book Collector’s 40th anniversary in 2019.Īmong the customers who passed through its doors were future graphic novelists Diana Tamblyn and A Jaye Williams. Steve Jewett sold it to Morris, a self-described “huge geek” in 2001. That was a time when most kids (it was kids who read comics, not thirtysomething and fortysomething men) bought their comics off spinner racks in places like Sherwood Forest Mall and Westown Plaza Mall, not specialty direct-market outlets like the Comic Book Collector became. The store, located on Dundas Street, opened in 1979, founded by Eddy Smet - who has been in the headlines the last few years for donating parts of his vast comic-book collection to Western University, and picking up awards for his service to the city’s geek community. The store’s third owner, Morris, 60, says he simply can’t afford to sink any more cash into the venture.
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“It’s not making any money,” Morris said. It wasn’t the summer construction east of Adelaide.
#Comic book collector movie#
It wasn’t the fact Marvel Comics has neglected its print products in favour of blockbuster movie adaptations featuring Wolverine, the Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man. It wasn’t the fierce competition in the Forest City that has forced owner Tim Morris to close down. The Comic Book Collector - the first comic store in London, and possibly one of the first in Canada, if not North America - is closing at the end of the month.