Corner-Store Comics!!

I used to love going to different corner stores when I was a kid... the early '80's was a time when you didn't have a comic shop in every town, they were a special trip for many suburban kids like me. But you had the corner store and its random assortment of titles... you never knew what they'd have, and each store had a different assortment depending on what the owner thought would sell. But there would usually be something cool, something I didn't expect to find or didn't know existed. Now there's Previews catalogues and Internet new release lists. But back then, you just showed up and discovered what they had.

...So imagine my surprise when I found out that my own local corner store, not three short blocks from my house, carries shrink-wrapped packs of comics from the 1980s, right there n the magazine stand. I don't know why. I don't know how. But there they are. Once it was a pack of Firestorm comics. Once it was a pack of Star Comics. Another time it was some Star Trek issues. And now, Thor comics and Power Man & Iron Fist books circa 1983. It's like I'm a kid again.., except this time I'm buying beer instead of a slushie (....but still buying candy!!... and if they had slushies, I'd still buy those too...). I have no idea where they get them from. I don't care. I just enjoy buying comics from my local corner store and reliving my glory days!

Blair Davis, PhD

Author & Editor

Blair Davis is an Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies in the College of Communication at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.