The Forbidden Planet shop in Bristol, UK, reopened in early December, a year after it was severely damaged by a fire, and there was a line at the door when the store opened, the BBC reports. "The store doesn't just have customers – it has a fanbase of its own – and they are over the moon that it is returning," said FP COO Andrew Sumner.

Main Street Comics and Games of Marshall, NC, was hit hard by flooding during Hurricane Helene earlier this year (see “Shop Talk, October 2024”). The store lost all but 2% of its inventory, owner Kyle Clark told local station WLOS, and their insurance company told them that the flood damage wasn’t covered. Nevertheless, he persisted. A post on the store’s Facebook says they will reopen in April 2025, and in the meantime, Clark and his wife and co-owner Avia Perez are sponsoring weekly game nights at a local community center; the couple also opened up their home for gaming parties for children after the hurricane. A GoFundMe has been set up to help.

Monarch Comics of South Toledo, OH, was severely damaged by a fire in the shopping area where it was located, but the store is making a comeback, the Toledo Blade reports. The store will reopen in a temporary location nearby, and community members have been helping with the cleanup. One bit of luck (or good management): “A lot of our back-issue comic books were all bagged and boarded. A surprising amount of those we've been able to dry off and save,” owner Ed Katschke said. “It will remain to see what happens during the actual cleanup process, whether they survive or not, but we've got high hopes.” A GoFundMe has been set up for this store as well.

For Dark Star Comics in Providence, RI, the disaster wasn’t flood or fire but the closure of the nearby Washington Bridge. “I thought, ‘Well, there goes my business,’” co-owner James Fernandez told WPRI; Fernandez and his brother had opened the store just the day before the bridge was closed without warning. The brothers missed the deadline for local grants and decided against a Small Business Association loan, but they have managed to keep the store going for the past year with a combination of online and brick-and-mortar sales. “My customers found their way here,” Fernandez said. “If they see something they want, this crowd will go out and find it.”

After problems at the Harrisonburg, WV, game shop Gamer Oasis drove away customers and employees, three new venues opened up, the Daily News-Record reports: A comic shop and a restaurant both started carrying tabletop game products, and a new store, Watchtower Games, opened its doors in early December. The Daily News-Recordshowed up for opening day and noted that within half an hour of the store’s launch, people were already sitting down and playing games.

Oklahoma State University profiles fourth-generation alum Pete Sprague, who graduated in 2023 and opened up Sparky’s Comic Shop in Catoosa, OK, in April 2024. Sprague runs the business together with his father Donald, who gave him his first comic (Marvel Adventures), and the two started planning the business before Pete graduated. The younger Sprague has some interesting observations on the unique challenges and joys of running a comic shop, and shares a fascinating description of the one comic book he would save in a fire, Secret Wars #8: “We have a really special copy that has a Mark Jewelers insert. A Mark Jewelers insert is simply an ad in the centerfold selling jewelry. Mark Jewelers variants are very scarce when compared to regular copies of books. They were targeted toward men who were off at war in an effort to get them to buy engagement rings for their girlfriends.”

Quick Links

• Minneapolis station KTSP profiles Roseville’s Comic Book College, the oldest comic book store in Minnesota, and its current owner, Tim Lohn, who bought the business in 2003.

• St. Louis Magazine has a guide to all the comic shops in town.

• John DeVore fondly remembers the comic shop of his youth and muses about Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and the evolution of the industry in an essay at Level.

• Wichita by EB pays a visit to the comic, game, and card shop Wizard’s Alley in Wichita, KS.

• The Feisty Goblin game store of New Kensington, PA, is moving to a new, larger space in January, and it’s joining forces with the video game business Retrograde Gaming and Collectibles, which will be part of the new store, TribLive reports.