Wednesday, March 27, 2024

My Comic Book Journey, North Floyd

    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?
    Oh, a cliffhanger!  What a great place to end this post this week. Tune in next week as I start on northwest Pike county and see if this question gets answered.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

My Comic Book Journey, South and Central Floyd

    This week starts an epic series of posts about my history with comic books, where I've found and bought them.  The fun starts close to home with some of the first places I ever got my comics.  Entries in black are no longer in business.  Entries in red are still in business, but no longer sell comics.  Although there won't be any today, entries in blue mean businesses that are still open and sell comics of some sort, even if there aren't any that I would buy.  Checks like this ✓ mean that I have bought at least on comic there.  If I miss any locations, it means that I never went in them and never knew they had comics, or I simply forgot.  On occasion, I might bring up a location out of the established order, but I will inform you if I am skipping somewhere.  I have forgotten the names of some locations, but I will try to identify them the best I can. Now, onto the list.
  • Osborne Drug Store, Bypro, ✓:  This is where I got my first comic books.  Okay, my mom got them, but I was frequently there to pick them out.  I also got some magazines as well.  Mostly puzzles. At first, all I got were funny animal books, mostly Disney.  By the mid-70s, the books were mostly reprints of older stories, but they were new to me as I had never read the originals.  I collected them just long enough that some of the stories were beginning to repeat when the publisher, Whitman I believe, stopped printing them.  This left me in a lurch.  I finally moved on to the "scary" superhero titles, even though I might not have been emotionally ready.  My first series was The New Teen Titans.  DC is still publishing a title starring the same seven heroes, now in their 20s, which shows how popular the property has been. I would go on with a few more series.  However, by the early 80s, it was getting hard for the owner to find someone to keep the place open.  The store ultimately closed, leaving me without a steady source for my comics.  While there were rumors that someone would open something at the store, nothing ever happened.  A few years ago, the store, as well as the other buildings and houses around it, was torn down for a power substation to be put up. A sad end for such a dear place for me.
  • Hall's Community Market, original owners, Bypro:  I would sometimes go with my mother shopping at the local grocery stores.  This was mostly on weekends when we had more time to go around.  However, we would sometimes stop at Hall's after she came in from work, after we went to pick up my comics.  Some time around when the store was starting to close, I remember seeing some comics there.  I can't remember if it was actual books or just a collector's pack with two or more in them.  Never bought anything there.  This was just before I was stopping going out with my mom to shop.  I was self-conscious about being seen by my classmates and embarrassed, so I just stopped doing it.  The market is still open, with new owners, which quite an accomplishment.  It probably doesn't sell comics.  There were other markets we went to, at Bypro, Melvin, and Bevinsville, but none of them had comics.  Maybe that last one, but we went there so infrequently that I am not sure.  If they did, I don't remember buying any there.
  • Ben Franklin Five and Dime, Bypro, ✓:  I got a few things here.  I had my first professional photo taken as a baby.  I got my first large Transformer from here, Skywarp. (Someone had put it on layaway for Christmas and didn't pick it up.  My mom got it for my birthday soon after.) And I got some comic books here.  The drug store wasn't always open when I went there, and they didn't always have new Disney comics that I liked.  One day, I went here and spotted some Disneys that I didn't usually get.  I don't know how long they had been there, as we didn't shop there too often. I also can't remember if they were single issues or a pack, but I wound up with comics that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  The Five and Dime closed when I was still fairly young, and a Dollar General took its place.  They would later build a larger shop next to Hall's where they are still are to this day. The original site was supposed to be re-opened as something else, but nothing came of those plans.  [I didn't go into many Dollar Generals when I was young.  There weren't as many around.  However, I don't recall seeing any comic books or packs back then, although I could be wrong.  The ones I've been to the last few years don't even have a real selection of magazines.]
  • Family Drug (current name), Bypro:  Back in the mid-90s, a relative called saying that the pharmacy she worked at would soon be selling comic books, and if they were any they could stock for me.  I had to inform her that I was getting my comics somewhere else then.  A little later, I had to pick up a prescription for my mom and saw the comics there, still for sale.  They stopped selling them sometime later.  The pharmacy currently goes by Family Drug, I don't remember the original name, but it is still open.
  • IGA, Wheelwright, ✓:  During the time when Osborne was trying to stay open, an IGA finally came to Wheelwright.  It may have started out as something else; I can't be sure. One weekend when me and my mom went up there, I saw a spinner rack with comic books.  With the drug store on the verge of closing, this could have been helpful.  I can only remember picking up one title ever from here, although it may have been more.  Either the store closed or stopped selling comics, or I may have just stopped wanting to go out, but I don't think I was able to pick up any more than that.  After it closed, the space became a few other things, including a church. [The McDowell store that became an IGA also had magazines in a tucked away spot, but I can't remember if it had comics.  I just didn't go there that much.  The original building was torn down after the 2003 flood, but a new one was build in much the same place.  It doesn't sell magazines.]
  • Unknown business at Price, ✓:  There was this establishment at Price, about across the road where my best friend from grade school lived and where a small service mart is now.  It sold comics as a sideline.  I think it was supposed to be a restaurant, as I remember sitting at a table for ten to fifteen minutes or more, looking at some of the other comics that I didn't want to get.  I don't remember the food.  Either the order was cancelled or it was so mediocre I don't remember eating it.  It might not even have been for me.  Anyway, we never stopped there again, and the place closed sometime after.  I believe the building it was in is still vacant.
  • Unidentified pharmacy, Martin, ✓:  This store was at the lights at the intersection of 122 and Route 80. We would sometimes stop here on the way back from Prestonsburg just to check on my comics.  It had a small selection of magazines as well that I would sometimes go through and pick one out.  I mostly got digests here, as opposed to regular comic books for some reason.  The pharmacy would close and be torn down as other establishments, such as a Speedway, were put up.  There was a department store nearby, a Maloney's I think, that had toys and albums, but I can't remember any comics or magazines there.  It would close and become a furniture store before being torn down as well. [The store that is now an IGA did have magazines at one time, and probably comics too.  I can't be sure where or when.  It doesn't have either now.  There was also a supermarket on Main Street in Marin as well.  Don't recall what it was, as we only stopped there a few times.  It may have changed names a few times.  One evening, we stopped there and I may have gotten a comic.  Can't be sure, but it feels right, maybe.  The last opportunity I had to go in before in closed, I decided to stay in the car instead.  I was looking at some comics I had gotten in P-Burg.  I wish I had gone in.  I've always liked looking at different stores, although groceries would take me awhile to get interested in.]
    With this hint, we are now in north Floyd.  Next week, we start in P-Burg and make our way through the rest of Floyd County for a big reveal.  See you then.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Where Have All the Comic Books Gone

    Last week, I mentioned a recent trip to the Huntington Mall.  I commented about how many stores in that mall had gone out of business, particularly those that sold comic books.  I used comics for a few reasons, such as that was a product that had been found in the highest number of stores.  Well, I started going over every place that I had ever bought, or at least could have bought, a comic book throughout my entire life.  I stopped counting when I hit seventy.  The more I thought about it, the more places I remembered.  For comparison sake, I have only tried on and bought clothes in about forty spots.  That is about the same number I places I actually bought comics, as opposed to just saw them.  I will say that I've been buying clothes at the same few stores for the past decade or so.  I found my style and stuck to it.  I might need to change something up soon. I'm making a big deal about this because comics have had such a huge influence in my life. For instance, I learned how to read mostly from comic books when I was four.  Although the memory is hazy, I was trying to read an Eric Carle book to some students on the day I signed up for kindergarten.  This became a major part of my academic career.  My teachers thought I was gifted, but part of it was kind of fake due to comic books.  Therefore, I am going to be posting a list of every single place that has had comic books.  I had originally thought it would only take a week or two.  That is well before I realized how complicated this was going to turn out.  I could probably get the list done in about five weeks, if I didn't have a time limit on how long I take to write these posts or if I didn't care about how long they get.  Instead, I will probably take ten weeks or so to complete everything.  Stores that have gone out of business will be listed in standard black. Stores that are still open, but do not currently carry comic books, will be in red. Stores that still have comics will be in blue.  After so many years, I don't remember the names of many of these stores.  You try to remember the name of a store you only went to once forty years ago and has since closed.  I will try to give as much information as possible for people to try and identify these places, but I don't know if it will help.  I will be placing checks by stores where I know I bought at least one comic.  I will also comment on my history with the store, and what has happened to those stores that have closed.  I will mention other locations where I may have see and/or bought comics but I'm not as certain of in my commentary.  I will be doing so in a rough geographic circle, so that stores in the same area will be featured together.  If not for two floods, I would have probably well over ten thousand comics.  Instead, I'm only now reaching totals near what I have since just before the 2003 flood. I tried to finally organize my comics last January during the time the store was closed for snow.  Unfortunately, I had waited too long to do so.  I just didn't have the room to go through so many comics after twenty years of ignoring them.  I was only able to go through only a few dozen, and I just barely reorganized a few boxes to get rid of a torn one.  I hope everyone will follow me on this journey for the next few months.  There will be a few strange turns along the way, as well as some surprises.  Be prepared for almost anything.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Why Such a Dis-Mall Outlook?

    Late last month, I went on my usual late-winter shopping trip. It started years ago as a birthday shopping trip in January, but I slowly moved it to late February to avoid the worst of the bad weather as well as to catch the Easter candy when it starts coming out.  As it was, I had to go on an alternate date, as there was snow in the forecast for both of the planned dates.  It turned out that there wasn't any accumulation on either of those days, but even the nuisance snow might have caused driving problems.  So, as I was driving to the Huntington Mall for the day, I began thinking about the forty-odd years I have been going there and how I could turn the experience into a blogcast post.  When I first started going to the mall, it was a whole day affair.  We would frequently not come back home until after seven in the evening.  Fortunately, it was summer those early trips, so it wasn't yet dark most of the times when we got back in.  By the time I was driving, we started going at least twice a year, ultimately settling on late winter and late summer as the best times to go.  The last few years, we had been getting back by 5:30 pm, and that is with extra stops along the way back.  That mall is so much less than when I started going soon after it opened.  Only one of the original anchor stores is still there.  Two if you count a rebranding.  A few of the food court stops are still the same. The cinema, which I never had the time to go to.  Maybe some other stores from back then are still there, but I'm sure they aren't in there original sites.  Anyway, this year, we only went to six stores in the mall, only buying stuff from two of them.  I was in line at a third store, but my traveling companion was getting cranky and didn't feel like waiting for me to get anything.  I had to put the emergency item back that was going to replace something that originally broke a few day previously.  We also stopped at two outlying store and bought some things, as well as eating at the local Burger King where I finally tried a Whopper with a mozzarella cheese stick and some marinara sauce.  I didn't get the proportions just right to make it taste the way I wanted it, but it was close.  Before you ask, as a storeowner, I am all for buying locally.  Almost everything we bought that time is not easily found locally any more. The exception was some Easter candy, but it is a crap shoot if certain products are found nay given year, and this year some of them turned up soon after the trip.  Anyway, I got to see the damage to the local Target that has made some national news markets.  We also made a quick trip to Barboursville to check out the Kroger.  It might be the biggest one I've ever been in, but aside from the frozen foods, it doesn't have that great a variety any more.  We stopped for gas and some groceries on the way back and the trip was done.  There are so few stores at the mall anymore that I like or really want to go to.  Some stores just weren't carrying what we were looking for, while others just didn't cater to our needs.  For example, there had been seven stores at that mall that I had bought comic books at over the decades.  All but one of them has closed.  The remaining store doesn't really sell individual comics any more, although some would argue otherwise.  (I picked comic books as this is a subject I frequently think about as a way to help me calm down to go to sleep.  Also, this was the highest number for a product I could reliably count to.  Clothing would only rate a four, six if you include rebranding.  I couldn't remember getting clothes at too many specialty stores there, as opposed to someplace else, such as Lexington.) I have already started looking into other place to go for a day-trip to shop to replace the second Huntington trip for the year, limiting the mall to once-a-year again to to catch up on the rarer products that no one else seems to keep.  I will hate it, but maybe somewhere new will bring back some of the wonder that has faded from this mall.