So, You Want to Get Comics from a Comic Book Store?
If you are interested in comic books, or comic book fandom, you probably know by now that there are a lot of ways to access and read the comics you enjoy! Some of the most common ways to get comics are from your local library, online, or from major booksellers. If you are interested in reading single issues collected together into hardcovers or trade paperbacks, these are great options! But if youâre interested in reading comics in single issues, you will need a comic book store. This guide intends to demystify and explain how they work so that you can get comics with confidence. (Disclaimer, I live in the US, and this advice will ultimately be US centric. International comic fans, please chime in below with any advice/knowledge you have!)
Okay, but why make a post about comic stores?
Well, comic book stores are similar to, yet slightly different from, a bookstore such as Barnes and Noble. They have their own jargon, quirks, and practices! If youâre coming in completely blind, itâs understandable to feel a little bit unsure of how it all works. Thatâs what this guide aims to address.
The building block of comics as an industry, hobby, and fandom is the single issue. These are sometimes called âfloppiesâ by fans, and they are the sequential story at its core unit. This guide is largely going to be concerned with floppies, because as mentioned above, there are a lot of ways to get collected editions. Your local comic storeâor LCSâis going to be your best way to get singles.
Wait, why would I want to read single issues in the first place?
Well, the primary reason is timing. Comic issues are typically released on a monthly basis, though some might be released slightly faster/slower than a once-monthly rate. Before a collection can be put together and sold, a certain amount of single issues must be publishedâif the series is an ongoing title (meaning without a clear end in mind) this typically is between 6-12 issues. If the series is a limited series or a miniseries, a collection may not be put out until the entire series is over. The exact time between final issue publication and collection publication varies, but itâs safe to assume youâre going to wait at least a month or two, if not longer.
The secondary reason is, alas, market forces at work. Comic publishers look at sales numbers to determine how well a book is doing and, consequently, how long they should continue publishing it. For better or worse, the movement of single issues is one of comic publishersâ most watched metrics. If there is a character you want to see more of, or a writer or author that you want to support, purchasing single issues is the most direct way to do that, short of just mailing a creative a personal check.
Okay, youâve made your argument. So what do I need to know?
Weâll start with actually finding your LCS! The best way to do that is to go into your search engine of choice and search âcomic book store near meâ or âcomic store [CITY]â or the like. You can also use an online locator tool such as the one by League of Comic Geeks. As a heads up though, not every online locator indexes every single comic storeâmy local store is missing from the LoCG locator, for example. To find the one that best suits you, you may need to search one or two places. Thatâs why I recommend starting with a search engine.
Once you have found a store, you can make your way there! Here is where I disclaim that every comic store is going to be laid out slightly differently inside, so what I describe below is somewhat limited. However, no matter where you go, there are likely to be two or three distinct âzonesâ you will want to distinguish. First is the New Comics Zone. This is pretty straightforward: here is where the newest comics will be laid out to purchase. You can walk up to this section, browse briefly, and then take whatever you select up to the front desk and pay. The second is the Old Comics Zone. What your LCS defines as âoldâ will vary per store; these comics may be referred to as âback issues,â and this zone might even be split into subsections. But generally, this zone would be where you browse comics that arenât being actively published. Different LCS have their own ways of handling collected editionsâin my store they have their own zone towards the back, past the current and older comics, organized alphabetically by title.
It is entirely possible to stop reading this guide right here. You have found a comic store, you have your basic knowledge about the New Comics Zone, and you know that if all else fails, you can just walk up to the desk and ask for assistance. Everybody cheer!
But wait, thereâs more?
Of course thereâs more! Thereâs always more!
As mentioned previously, comics are generally released on a monthly basis. Depending on who is doing the publishing, the exact release date varies, but the majority of singles are released on Wednesdays. A specific book will come out on a specific week of the month, so that one publisher isnât putting out their entire monthâs worth of comics out at the beginning.
The other thing to discuss at this point is that a comic store will only order as many copies of a given comic as they think they are able to sell. The margins in this business are pretty thin! Generally, comic stores have to submit their orders to publishers around a month in advance. After that, comic stores may be able to order more⊠but depending on demand, they may not be able to get additional copies from the publisher unless the comic goes back for a second printing to actually create more inventory. So if the comic youâre interested in comes into the store on the first week of the month, but youâre not able to get there until the end of the month, you might be in trouble if the title is very popular and the store didnât order many copies.
Depending on your schedule, you may be able to go to the comic book store every Wednesday to browse the New Comics Zone and get your new titles as soon as they are put up on shelves. If so, awesome! I know that my schedule is not like that, and I imagine many others are in the same boat. So to make sure that you are able to get the comics you want, most comics stores let you set up whatâs called a âpull list.â
Itâs a bit of comic jargon, but itâs exactly what it sounds like: a pull list is a list of the titles you want the comic store to pull aside for you. There are a lot of benefits to a pull list! It lets you, the customer, know that youâre going to have a copy of every issue of a series that youâre interested in reading. You control when you pick up your comics, at a time convenient for your schedule. If thereâs a specific cover variant youâre interested in, you can often request that particular cover be pulled for you. Some LCS will offer discounts to people with large pull listsâif you have 10+ titles a month, for example, you may get 10% off your total monthly order. Pull lists are good for the comic stores, too, because it lets them more accurately judge how many of a comic to order from publishers to meet demand.
Setting one up is also generally easy: just talk to the folks at the front desk! They will only need a few pieces of information to get a list set up for you. First is your name. When you come in to the comic store after you list has started, you will just tell them your name and they will give you all the comics they have pulled for you. Easy peasy! The second thing they will need from you is some sort of contact information. My LCS has my email address. This way, if you go a long time without picking anything up (my LCS sets that cutoff at two months) they can reach out and remind you that you have comics waiting for you. Third, depending on the store, they may ask for a deposit. This is so if you completely ghost them, after their âno-showâ policy passes they recoup some of the money on the titles they have held for you. Finally, they need to know what comics to pull for you!
If you walk in knowing what you want to pull, then youâre all set! But if you donât know whatâs currently coming out, and you want to keep an eye on future releases too, you want to become familiar with solicitations. Before a comic is officially published, it is âsolicited,â usually a month or two in advance. A solicitation will have the name of the comic, the creative team, a brief description, and the release date. Solicitations can drip out at any time, but major publishers usually publish a roundup of all their solicitations once per month. You can read these online, but LCS will often have printed solicitations that you can flip through or take for free. As an important note, it is possible for something to be solicited and then not actually go through to publication. Itâs also possible for a title to be announced but not yet be solicited. But as a general rule, use solicitations as your forecast for what stories are on the horizon.
It can be for now. The fun thing about comics (for comics fans) is that thereâs always more to talk about and more depth to plumb! But since this guide is for orienting the uninitiated, weâre going to cut it off right about here after a few final thoughts.
Earlier, I mentioned a tool called League of Comic Geeks. Itâs kind of like the Storygraph or Letterboxd of the comic world. You can build a pull list on their site to have ready to take into your LCS, and some stores even let you sync your LoCG list to their system. They have release calendars that you can browse through, as well as a space to read upcoming solicitations. And of course, they have organizational tools to log your reading and collecting, in addition to social features like forums and creator AMAs. This is not an advertisement for themâI managed my pull list for ages with a spreadsheet. There are countless ways to manage your comics; other people have other ways of doing things, and I would love to hear about them below!
Thatâs where Iâll end things, actually. Comics is, at its best, a community! So if others have insight into the experience of a LCS, and what the process is like going from 0 comics knowledge to having a pull list, please chime in below! The more the merrier. Happy reading!
