One Comics Shop to Close; Others Stay in the Action

"It wasn't Galactus, Lex Luthor, or Dr. Doom that defeated us, but simple dollars and cents," wrote Big Monkey Comics owner Scipio Garling in a recent posting to the comic book store's Web site announcing that he will soon be closing the doors of his 14th Street NW shop for the last time. "The economy has adversely affected so many people, and we are the latest casualty."

During the era of Amazon.com, tales about the shuttering of the independent bookstore have been regular fare. If there are fewer articles published about the closing of the neighborhood comic book store, perhaps that's because there was already a smaller selection of such shops.

Or perhaps it's because those remaining stores are hanging in there. Big Monkey's biggest Washington area rivals are Big Planet Comics, a local chain with four locations, and Fantom Comics, in Union Station. Both stores say they are doing well.

Garling said his store, in the District's Logan Circle neighborhood, had tweaked its business with new aisles dedicated to kid-friendly content and with new approaches to guiding casual fans toward titles they might find interesting. The additions showed some promise, but Big Monkey still needed more business, he said.

"Things were getting better," Garling said, "but it simply wasn't going to be enough." The store's final day of business is Saturday. Garling and his partners operated the store at its 14th Street location for the past two years. The store was previously in Georgetown.

Local comic book store owners regarded Garling's Web posting with sympathy -- and a bit of mild annoyance.

"It's a sad thing to see it go," said Matt Klokel, co-owner of the four-year-old Fantom Comics. "But to blame the economy alone is doing a disservice to the remaining comic book stores. He seems to be saying that comic books are dead and it's just a matter of time before all comic book stores are closed. We have new customers coming in all the time."

During a tough economic time in which magazine sales have tumbled, comic book sales have been relatively flat. Marvel Entertainment, one of the two major publishers, recently reported that it brought in $57.5 million in comic sales for the first half of 2009, compared with $58.3 million the year before. Disney recently agreed to acquire Marvel in a deal worth $4 billion.

Although Fantom Comics closed a store in Tenleytown earlier this year, Klokel plans to open in the Pentagon City mall in October.

Klokel, who worked in a think tank before running comic book stores, said he did an analysis of his store's customer base and decided that it was a waste of resources to have two stores on Metro's Red Line. When the landlord at Fantom's now-closed Tenleytown location showed no interest in negotiating a lower rent, Klokel decided to pull out.

At Fantom's Union Station store this summer, Klokel said, business was up. Even in tight times, Washington tends to have a lot of well-educated folks armed with spending money, he said. In other words, he said, "it has everything you'd want for a comic book market."

Joel Pollack, the founder and primary owner of Big Planet Comics in Bethesda, agreed.

Pollack said that his store has survived at least three downturns. As the economy turned sour in its current recession, Pollack said, he ordered fewer comics, anticipating that sales would be down, only to scramble to replace those titles when the store ran out of stock.

"Our stores are doing really, really well right now," he said.