This week, I move onto northern Floyd county, although some might say I had already started covering this area last week. Here is where the comments start including additional locations. A lot of additional locations. You'll see why. Entries in black means that the store is no longer operating. Red is for stores still open, but no longer selling comics. Blue is for those stores still selling comics of some type, even if I would no longer buy them for some reason. Checkmarks indicate that I actually bought at least one comic there. Time to begin.
- Walmart, Prestonsburg, ✓: Back in the late 80s and 90s, during the comic book explosion, one could probably buy comics here. I don't think I did, although I did buy my first ever CD here (Paula Abdul, remixes. Don't ask.). No, I'm talking something more recent. In the late 2010s, Walmart and DC partnered up for some exclusive comic books to help promote DC properties to fans of the movies and television series. While most of the stories in these giants were reprints, some were new stories being serialized to make the comics more interesting for collectors. I got my first two here, as well as many more. By the early 2020s, the deal ended. Both before and afterwards, though, Walmart had collector packs, mostly Marvels, which I usually never would get. The store's magazine section has shrunk considerably since the last remodel, going from two racks in the front in the 90s, to one large rack in the back through the 2000s, to one smallish rack today. There are a few slots, some hidden, by the registers, but the selection isn't as it once was.
- Winn-Dixie, Prestonsburg: I didn't get to shop here as much as I liked. I remember starting on my longest running bodybuilding magazine here, Muscle and Fitness, as well as getting my first marshmallow Peeps since I was a kid here, just as Peeps were getting ready to explore new flavors and shapes. I believe they had some comic books here as well; I just don't remember buying any, although I could have. The store closed in the late 90s. Part of the space has since become a Save-a-Lot. [Other supermarkets in the area that have since closed might also have had comic books. The A & P may have had a rack, but I was very young when it closed and it was so very long ago. It has been government office space for a very long time. Piggly Wiggly could have had comics too, but I can't remember enough to be sure. The space later became a Family Dollar, which closed just last year. The store that was Food Lyon last, I just don't know. I can't even be sure what its previous name was, if it had one. I do know that by the early 90s, it had a small magazine section, but no comics, and those were gone by the end of the decade. It closed in the early 2000s, I guess. The spot was still empty the last time I checked.]
- Readmore Book Store, Prestonsburg, ✓: This was the major place where I got my comics after the Osborne drug store closed. Actually, my mother picked more of them up than I did. I actually got a lot of magazines here too. I don't remember getting any books here though. I probably did. I continued to stop here occasionally even after I found a different spot to get most of my comics. They stopped getting comics in the early 2000s or so. That was also about the time I opened my store and stopped checking in there. I would stop every now and then to check on magazines, but I tried not to look too much, as I was now a competitor. The last time I stopped in there, they had cut back on magazines so much, from about four fully filled racks down to less than half full rack. I found out just this morning that they had closed recently. I feel sad for that, but now there is only one book store in the region. I'll give you three guesses who it is, and the first two don't count.
- Food City, Prestonsburg, previous location, ✓: I always had a few misgivings about Food City's location near where Readmore was. Sure, I shopped there, but it always felt a little cramped. Back in the 90s or so, they had comics, besides a relatively small magazine rack. And, on at least one occasion, I got a comic there that Readmore didn't have. Hard to believe, but it was true. I guess that management thought the store was too small as well, as they built a much larger store near the college. They then expanded that one a little more too so that they could put in a Starbucks, and a few other things. Food City had stopped selling comics well before the move. I feel that the current location is too big, especially since they don't have that much bigger a variety of products as a regular-sized location. The magazine selection is fairly small, with just one medium rack and a few at the registers. The old location is now a Super Dollar Food Center, the company's value brand location. [There was also a Rite-Aid at that shopping center as well. I don't remember it ever having comics, just a small selection of magazines. It became a Walgreens a few years ago. More on it further down.]
- Unknown eBay store, downtown Prestonsburg: Now, this one is a little tricky, as I never went into this place to shop. No. We went to this place only to check out the storefront. The eBay store was getting ready to move, and we were looking into the site as a place to move our store. I was listening while the storeowner was talking to everyone else. This was how I found out about his comic book subscription service, similar to the one I get my comics through. I believe the store is still open, and selling new comics, but I am unsure where it is currently located. We ultimately passed on the site, as we wouldn't have been able to do any real remodeling to suit are esthetic. [The was once at least one other bookstore downtown, but it never had comics or magazines, and I was somewhat rude to the owner on my way out the only day I went in. I hate that. One other place downtown that I think had comics was the Sundry Store. I never went in there that often, but I think I got comics the only real time I remember going to this location. Both store closed decades ago.]
- Unknown drug store near Heck's, possibly was a Rite-Aid at the time, ✓: Technically, this place was the first one where I starting getting comics after Osborne's closed, but it was only for about a year or so. My mom would stop here as it was closer to where she worked. For some reason, most of the times when I got to stop here, there were no new comics. I guess I was between shipments. The one time I did get comics here, I made us wait almost twenty minutes until they finished inventory and put them out. My mom got real mad at that. I also got some toys here, and a mass market paperback collection of comic books. The only time I ever saw any in this format. The store was definitely a Rite-Aid by the early 90s, but I can't be sure if it was that at the time I got my comic books there when I was a kid. By this time, they no longer had comics. A few years ago both Prestonsburg locations became Walgreens. Last year, both closed when a new singular location opened closed to the main downtown. [Speaking of Heck's, I can't remember if they had comics or not. They most likely had collector packs if anything. One of the last time I went there, I got my second watch just before I started high school. I ripped the plastic bands off at the end of the year, but I don't remember why. I don't think I had outgrown them. I did keep the watch until the early 2000s when the second battery finally died, and I couldn't find anyone that could replace it. Heck's closed sometime after that, and the site is now a furniture store. On the south side of town, there was a Maloney's. I can't remember buying, or even seeing, comics there, although I did get an Uncle Scrooge board game when I was a kid. They may have had them and magazines too, but I barely went there, so I cannot confirm. The building was torn down years after the store closed.]
- Unknown comic book store, first at Coal Run, then Harold, finally Banner, ✓: I wish I could remember the name of this place, considering how important this place was to me. Back in early 1989, my mother heard about a new comic book store opening in Coal Run. It took a few tries before we found it, but it always seemed closed. Finally, on the Saturday afternoon of the day I took the ACT, we went on into Pikeville, and the store was open! It turned out the they were closed on Mondays, the day we mostly checked in on them. I couldn't believe the sheer number of comics they had. So many that had vanished from the regular newsstands, as this was a direct market store. I would soon start up my first subscription to make sure I was getting all of my comics. This was my go-to place for comic the rest of high school and my first few years of college. Sure, there were hiccups each time the store moved, each time I had to find secondary locations, but I usually managed. The move to Harold made trips to Pikeville a little longer, but not impossible. When the store moved to a trailer just off Highway 23 at Banner, my mom insisted that she would be the one to pick them up most of the time. I did get in trouble for driving down there from college, even though I was only a little late getting home, in my opinion. The last time I went there, I knew something was wrong. The door was wide open. As I carefully stepped in, I noticed that the store was empty. No comics, no shelves, no displays, not even the counter. The only things left were some posters on the walls. I quickly left. I can't remember if they sent out a letter to subscribers about what to do, like they did previously. Now, I was in a predicament. Where was I getting my comics now?