Great moments in comic collecting, (moment 3 of 10)

As some of you know, I write for a fanzine called Pulp Legacy. My particular fanzine, called Momento Morti, is a mish-mash of reviews, original comics, random stories, etc. One feature I started years ago was called "Great Moments in Comic Collecting." I gave up on the series some five years ago, only to re-discover it recently.

This is moment # 3. Originally written and intended for the audience of Pulp Legacy APA.

My Mom takes me to Air Capitol Comics

It was early – very early – in my comic collecting career.

Up to this point, my comic collecting meant I regularly bought Spider-Man comics at the local grocery store. My mom would buy me the occasional box of comics she’d find at a garage sale, whether that be West Coast Avengers or Archie. My comic book reading was limited to the 20 titles offered at Dillons and the random stuff my mom would find and buy for me.

Then, one day, my mom comes home from work. She worked at Michael’s, a craft store in Wichita. I remember that I was eating a late lunch at my house on 717 E. Mulvane (where I lived from kindergarten through about fourth grade, this little house right by the junior high in Mulvane, Kan.) The drive to mom’s work from home was a good 30 minutes. She told me to get in the car that moment, there was something she had to show me.

I hopped right up and jumped in my mom’s Chrysler K car. At that age, my mom was always full of surprises for me, whether it be a new G.I. Joe or some Garbage Pail Kids. Maybe we were headed to Braum’s in Derby for some ice cream.

As we drove, it became increasingly clear that we were going to where my mom worked; the craft store. I’d been there plenty of times before, and they did have some cool stuff among the fabric and yarn. This was the place where my mom would get me my Garbage Pail Kids, after all. Also, they had a section devoted to models – airplanes, trains, sports cars, etc. – I was never, ever into that stuff (too right-brained for me), but it looked cool.

We pull into the Michael’s parking lot. It was the first, and largest, store in a big strip mall in east Wichita. Then we rolled on down past the place. There were probably 20 stores in this strip mall, but I never ventured this far down the strip, almost all the way to the other end. There was a road that split the mall, and the road, with its parking lot traffic, was my unofficial boundary. We were a few stores south of the imaginary Seth barrier.

Mom pulled into a parking spot. I looked out the window to see where we were. Radio Shack, maybe? Maybe for a remote controlled car?

That’s when I saw it – the sign. A big square, red background, white letters outlined in black. It read:

AIR CAPITOL
COMICS

I didn’t know what that meant, exactly. Did they have comic books? Or, like, Garfield books? If they had comic books, were they old ones or new ones? Could some place really exist and sustain itself by only selling comic books? Was this at all possible? Maybe it was some sort of art store where you could buy supplies to draw comics?

I do remember running into the store, my heart racing, wondering what I was about to find. As I ran to the door, I saw that the store front had something that looked comic book-y, but I wasn’t quite clear as to what it was.

I opened the door. There were bars on the inside of the glass door. That looked ominous to me. Was I even allowed in here? I was just a kid.

The entryway was narrow – only a few feet wide. But as soon as you stepped in the place, on the left-hand side, was a unique shelving system. There were wood bins that ran practically the length of the building, on a slant, that went up a good six feet in the air, containing stacks of comics. Comic books. This was… a comic book store.

I trotted a few feet into the store. That’s where the store opened up a bit. The place reeked of cigarette smoke. The guy behind the counter, a bearded hippie (I didn’t know what a hippie was at the time, he just looked dirty) gave me a cross look. I got the feeling that I wasn’t allowed in here… something about it just seemed… scary… to me. The bars on the door, the darkness, the character chain-smoking behind the counter … it didn’t seem like a place I should be.

My mom came in behind me. Her presence gave me the confidence that it was OK to explore.

I walked in and couldn’t quite take in all the comics at once. There seemed to be not just multiple issues of the same title, but multiple back issues of the same title. So I wasn't just limited to this month's Amazing Spider-Man -- I could also grab last month's! And there on the ground in front of me was a cardboard box full of comics. I looked down and grabbed one – G.I. Joe and the Transformers # 3. “Those just came in – the ink’s still wet on them!” the chain-smoker said.

REALLY? I thought to myself, too shy to say anything. Could I smudge it right then? Where did they print these comics that they could get them so fresh here?

I held on to the comic, partly because I was a fan of G.I. Joe, but also because I wanted to be the first person in the Wichita area – maybe in the world – to own a copy of G.I. Joe and the Transformers # 3.

That comic has a cover date of March 1987. I turned 10 in April of 1987.

I bought a handful of comics that day. Probably an issue of G.I. Joe Yearbook (something I probably never saw at the grocery store). Probably the current issue of G.I. Joe (which would have been # 57… I know I own that comic and it’s very familiar, but I don’t really remember picking it up that day.)

After that first trip, going to work with my mom was a joy, because that meant I could sneak down to “Air Cap” for at least a little bit. Eventually I learned every nook and cranny of that shop. On the left wall were the new comics. In the center bins were gaming guides for the D&D people. Behind those were regular back issues, and the guy seemingly had everything. In the very-very back of the shop were back issues of magazines, including Mad and Playboy. Behind the cash register were the really pricey books, including old Spider-Mans.

He always had a price gun out, and he always sealed the plastic poly-bags with some machine that melted the plastic together. With thousands of back issues in stock, I speculated that he circled the store in a clockwise direction, updating prices a box at a time. I figured that the boxes to the immediate right of the price gun were the most outdated prices, and therefore the best deals. So I bought a lot of Human Torch (1970s Johnny Storm) and The Joker before finding my way to Marvel Tales. (Oh, if only I had better foresight.)

It was at Air Cap that my mom and dad did most of my Christmas shopping. Air Cap was where I bought my first Overstreet Price Guide, my first back issues of Captain America, and so on.

Air Cap eventually went out of business (don’t they all?) By then, I had moved on to different stores. I was a customer at Prairie Dog Comics, which was a really good store, but really far from my house. Then I was a customer at Best of the Best Comics, which was only three minutes away from my house in the Wichita suburb of Derby. I eventually worked weekends at Best of the Best, which was this young comic collector’s dream.

There was another shitty comic shop in Derby I started shopping at when Best of the Best went out of business. It was my comic shop when I left for college, and they kept a pull list for me even though I could only get in there a few times a year. I was their customer until the day the guy made some racist comments in conversation (racist in general, not racist toward me). I never went back after that.

Best of the Best, Prairie Dog, Kwality Comics, The Shadow’s Sanctum, Agents of C.O.M.I.C.S. (that name just came to me as I was typing this list – Agents was where the racist prick worked), Astrokitty, Elite Comics…

It all started at Air Cap, my first comic store. Just likes kisses, you never forget your first.

Thanks for taking me there that day, Mom.