The sun’s beginning to set Saturday night over a strip mall in Madison. Other shops in the plaza may have changed over the years, but this spot has been a staple for local comic book fans since the ’80s.
A chorus of greetings comes from the staff at Comix City Too! as a new customer walks through the front door. Danny Hayes works here, and at this point in the day, he’s got the spiel down.
“On Free Comic Book Day, we offer seven free comics off our middle tables here,” he explains. “They’re the ones that are all labeled and covered, including little doodads and pick-ups.”
He’s not kidding. There are stacks upon stacks of comics on the tables. Even from the doorway, there’s clearly a wide variety — from the X-Men to Archie, from Avatar the Last Airbender to Sonic the Hedgehog.
Rachel Iacovone WPLN NewsThis is one of the four main tables covered in Free Comic Book Day issues at Comix City Too! Saturday.
“We were busy all day up until about 20 minutes ago,” says store owner Larry Miller. “Today for the comic book industry, this is our Black Friday.”
“Every time we do something like this, we always get new people that we start seeing every month or every couple of weeks. And a lot of people just haven’t had a chance to get out since, you know, the last couple of years, this annual event was rearranged or canceled due to the pandemic. So people are really excited to have it back.”
It’s more than just an event. Miller says customers are happy to have community back. The store doesn’t just carry comics, though there are a lot of those. It’s a 60/40 split with boardgames for groups — RPGs, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer, you name it.
Miller bought the shop in 2016 from the last owner, after working for him for years. And with it, he carried on its tried-and-true model.
“We really focus on our customer base and our community, and that’s what keeps us in business,” he says. “That’s one thing everybody’s missed.”
For Miller, creating a supportive community is the most important part of the job.
“The bad experience I had as a kid in the comic book store was, ‘Oh, I want to read this. Where do I begin?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, just over there somewhere, blah, blah, blah.’ We don’t want to repeat that,” he says.
That means fielding questions sometimes like, “Hey, where can I find the Walking Dead comic the made-for-tv character first appears in?” But Miller says he wouldn’t change that.
“You know, as much as the apps would like to be able to tell you and suggest to you what the next thing is, somebody like me, or anybody in a store that has a little bit of knowledge thereof, can lead you a lot better. And the artificial intelligence hasn’t gotten that good yet. One day maybe it will. But because we’re a community, you can’t do that online.”
And you definitely can’t go home without a Free Comic Book Day issue of Star Wars, and Avengers, and Legend of Korra, and Steven Universe, and Pokemon, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and…
Rachel Iacovone WPLN NewsDusk falls outside Comix City Too! at the end of Free Comic Book Day 2022.
For more about comics and graphic novels from the mouths of local illustrators and cartoonists, listen to the full episode of This Is Nashville here or wherever you get your podcasts.
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