Below is tomorrow’s news release from the publisher about the expanded paperback edition of my book, which is coming out in May. The Previews order code is MAR191929 and it is also available to the book trade.
About a year ago, as the publisher planned a paperback edition, I suggested writing a new epilogue and expanding several other parts. I wanted to do it because so much had happened in the comics business since I finished writing the hardcover.
There are new stores, new homes for some great old stores (including Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find in North Carolina, pictured above), and yet another near-death experience for the industry.
PRESS RELEASE
Athens, Ohio—Award-winning journalist Dan Gearino expands on his 2017 book, Comic Shop: The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture, with a revised paperback edition coming in May from Swallow Press, the trade imprint of Ohio University Press.
In a new epilogue, Gearino tells how comics retailers fared in 2017 and 2018, a time when shops struggled to stay afloat at the same time that comics reached new heights as an art form, with landmark works such as My Favorite Thing in Monsters.
“Comics retailers are survivors, somehow making their way in a market that really shouldn’t work, but often does,” said Gearino, a journalist based in Columbus, Ohio. “With an unusual business model, and an eccentric cast of characters, this is a story unlike any other.”
Also new in the paperback edition:
- An expanded look at the market of the early 2000s, including the David-and-Goliath story of how retailer Brian Hibbs sued Marvel Comics.
- Updated profiles of two storied comics shops–The Beguiling in Toronto and Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find in Charlotte–that went through major changes and lived to tell about it. This is part of an expanded profile section that includes several shops new in this edition, including Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor.
Comic Shop shows how the comic shop business model turned out to be a boon for many cartoonists, helping up-and-coming creators find their audiences, from Wendy and Richard Pini’s ElfQuest in the 1970s to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim in the 2000s.
Gearino alternates between the present-day landscape of the best shops in the United States and Canada, and the origins of the business in the early 1970s.
Comic Shop is based on more than one hundred interviews, including innovative retailers such as Peter Birkemoe at The Beguiling in Toronto, and Diamond Comic Distributors’ founder and owner Steve Geppi.
Also included are profiles of more than 40 notable shops in the United States and Canada, showing the many flavors of an iconoclastic business.
Comic Shop is 300 pages with 74 illustrations. To request a review copy, contact Samara Rafert, Publicist & Exhibits Manager, rafert@ohio.edu.
Dan Gearino 