Periodical comics made the leap from convenience store spinner racks to trade paperback collections at bookstore chains in the 1980s. And while the transition did present some initial challenges to booksellers—in those early days, it wasn’t uncommon to see superhero titles shelved next to Garfield in the “humor section”—the move proved both lucrative and permanent. Today, comics can be found wherever books are sold, with big-box retailers devoting considerable real estate to graphic novels. How do smaller specialty shops compete?
“Community is essential to the business,” says Jenn Haines, owner of The Dragon, an Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award–winning shop in Guelph, Ontario. “Generally, people who read comics have found themselves not quite fitting in.” But fans can find community, she adds, by browsing the shelves.
According to the latest ICv2 industry report, of the $1.87 billion in comics and graphic novel sales in 2023, 61% are from book channels, while 36% are via the direct market, which comprises approximately 3,000 specialty comics retailers. Indications are that specialty shops’ share rose in 2024, which was “a pretty good year in comic stores,” reports Milton Griepp, president of ICv2, which did not release full figures by press time.
According to Haines, her store’s annual sales have been generally consistent over the past five years. The Dragon’s overall 2024 sales, which includes games and toys, were up 3% over 2023, with sales of comics and graphic novels increasing 5%.
Community is the value proposition, says Atom Freeman, owner of comic industry consulting firm Prana: Direct Market Solutions. Comics shops “have not only survived but remain stable in times when bricks-and-mortar retail everywhere is falling apart,” Freeman notes. “Any store that has thrived over the last 20 years has done so because they focus in on the people, the staff and the customers, and events.”
Let’s get together
Eitan Manhoff, owner of Oakland, Calif.’s Cape and Cowl, another Eisner Spirit of Retailing awardee, points out that the fellowship of comics shops competes with the ease and economics of internet retailing. “Everything we sell can be bought online,” Manhoff says, “often for cheaper.” So, through efforts like turning the store’s annual participation in Free Comic Book Day into a food drive and the creation of the single-day Cape and Cowl Con, Manhoff has cultivated a space where comics fans from all walks of life can come together. Stores must create “a place where people want to be and be a part of, or there’s really no reason for them to come,” he says.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, de-emphasizing the transactional can pay off. Gina Dawson and Tom Marquet run Philadelphia’s Partners and Son so readers feel welcome to “come to hang out and talk comics—even if they’re not shopping,” Marquet says. For in-store events that involve the neighborhood’s numerous self-published cartoonists, the artists keep 100% of their sales. But often enough, according to Dawson, “those events bring a crowd” who add other profitable items to their orders. In addition to organizing the annual Philly Comics Expo and co-curating the Philly Comics Now exhibition at Drexel University, Partners and Son hosted 42 store events in 2024, and saw its sales increase by 29% over 2023.
IRL experiences are built into the design of L.A.’s Revenge Of, in Eagle Rock, which is part comics shop, part pinball parlor, and part dry bar. “We like to call it a nerd bodega,” says Jeff Eyser, co-owner and creative director. The slickly designed shop also makes great use of its outdoor space, taking over a spacious parking lot for events, including an annual Comic Creators Block Party, co-organized with actor and comics writer Patton Oswalt. The free, daylong affair brought in an estimated 600 locals and featured more than 60 comics creators from around the country, panel discussions, live podcasts, DJs, and food.
Revenge Of has also embraced the good old-fashioned book club. “We do a Spawn book club—it started as a joke and we’re still doing it,” Eyser says. “We’re on issue 100 now.” The store also hosts a graphic novel club advertised as “for gals and non-binary pals,” which Eyser counts as a big success. Recent club picks include Rain, Eight Billion Genies, and The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
Book clubs are also a staple of Montreal’s Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, which primarily stocks English-language books and where the gatherings have helped turn the store into a community hub. A comic book company that also runs a unique full-service bookstore, D&Q hosts a range of prose book clubs in addition to its graphic novel club. “Montreal can be an isolating city to move to—even if you’re perfectly fluent in French,” says president and publisher Peggy Burns. She notes the store builds bonds with the high concentration of cartoonists in Montreal. “You can come in and sell us your comic book, you can come in and sell us your zine—not many bookstores do that.”
Chicago’s Howling Pages similarly takes an artist-forward approach to stocking and finds that prioritizing shelf space for local cartoonists pays dividends. “The consignment work that we do puts local creators out there ahead of the mainstream,” says owner Alain Park. This helps the community “feel like the store is theirs.” The shop is located in Portage Park, an area, Park says, that is home to many working artists who have started families and want to avoid relocating to the suburbs. Howling Pages hosts a family-friendly Young Howlers Club for kids (which recently gathered to read Big Jim Begins—the latest in the bestselling Dog Man series). And Drink, Draw & Duplicate events pull in 15–20 artists each month; participants even run off prints on the store’s own Risograph machine—a staple of indie comic making.
Building store loyalty alongside community spirit, Four Color Fantasies in Winchester, Va., hosts an annual charity auction of “comic book cover sketches,” which feature original artwork donated by pros like Matt Kindt and Jim Mahfood side by side with drawings by six-year-old locals. “I love every single cover,” says store manager Erik Jones, who adds that the event brings in new faces, including fans who can’t afford to travel to national comic cons to collect original sketches. The auction has grown in submissions and in dollars raised each year since it began in 2019. “We crossed $40,000 total last year,” Jones adds, “which is insane.”
Building local to national
While each shop has its own trending titles, Marvel’s Ultimate and DC’s Absolute lines led the national sales uptick in 2024, according to Griepp at ICv2. “The big reason was the big two woke up—both of ’em—after a few years of lagging sales,” he notes. Each of these series launched alternate universes, giving creators like Scott Snyder and Jonathan Hickman blank canvases to reimagine some of the most beloved characters in superhero comics.
“One of my rules of thumb about sales trends is most of the time it’s what’s between the covers,” Griepp says. “So with these new series, DC and Marvel are creating comics that people wanted.”
The new lines have been “humongous injections into the comics industry,” Haines says, noting that stores often subsist on single issue sales.
At Four Color Fantasies, Jones says single-issue sales bolstered the store’s bottom line, which dipped slightly in 2024. “We took a big chance on Absolute Batman and it’s sold three times as much as the regular Batman,” he adds. “A lot of teenagers are coming in again, which is awesome.”
The surprise indie hit of the year was IDW’s cutesy horror series Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath. “It just kind of came out of nowhere,” Griepp says, “and blew up like crazy.”
“We kept selling out of the singles,” says Jones, who predicts that the collected trade edition—a “clever graphic novel debut that cozies up to the darkness lurking beneath everyday life,” per PW’s review—will prove a perennial seller.
Personalized recommendations drive these sales, with retailers taking comics “off the shelf and putting them in the customer’s hands to flip through,” Haines says. “The majority of handselling is going to come down to whether or not they like the art.”
Distribution and other drama
Shoring up community support will become even more crucial into 2025. Retailers are anxious about the impact of political tumult and tariffs, on the market. “When people are insecure in the political climate, they shop less,” Haines says.
And in January, Diamond Comics, which once held a near monopoly on comics distribution in the U.S., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Comics retailers should have little trouble obtaining titles from the biggest publishers: Marvel, DC, Image, and IDW are currently distributed in the direct market by Penguin Random House and Lunar Distribution. But the future of distribution for many smaller independent publishers is at risk.
“Companies below the top 10 are in danger,” Griepp warns. “If Diamond cannot survive, their path to the market becomes much more difficult.”
Despite the ups and downs of the industry, comics retailers are a community of their own—one that has proven resilient. “We all have the tools to adapt,” Haines says. “We all went through a pandemic together. We all went through a distribution diversification together. We all know how to survive. We survive by talking to each other.”
Jason Mojica is editor of the Hey Kids Comics Zine, host of the Buy This Comic! podcast, and senior producer at 2Way.
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