THE READER: Ode to a Comic Shop.
Watching the world through a four-colour filter, with Andrew Wheeler.

I've noticed that a new comic shop called B-Hive has opened very recently in London, in among a cluster of music shops just off New Oxford Street. It is now the fifth comic shop to open up in that area. Forbidden Planet and Mighty World of Comicana are just around the corner; Comics Showcase has reopened on Charing Cross Road; and Gosh is on Great Russell Street, just opposite the British Museum. It gives any comics reader in central London plenty of options, but even so, I'm not entirely sure there's enough trade to support five shops within ten minutes walk of each other.

Of these five, the one to which I pay allegiance on a weekly basis is Gosh. Gosh and I go back a long way. When I was a boy living on England's south coast, a visit to London always meant two things to me. The first was a visit to the British Museum, and its Anglo-Saxon burial hordes, Japanese feudal weapons, Tibetan Buddhist ceremonial bells, bronze Roman armour plates, sacrificial South American bloodsalvers, huge Egyptian temple scarabs, and statues of the gods of Ancient Greece. I would spend hours wandering through those huge, inspiring rooms. Then I would cross the street for the other thing I always loved about London. Gosh Comics.

At home in Hastings, I had first come to love comics through the British versions of American Marvel comics like Secret Wars, available from the news-stands. Then one day I was walking up Queen's Road towards the park, and I noticed some American comics hanging in the window of a second-hand bookshop called The Paperback Reader. It was a store that did a brisk trade in old romance novels, cold war thrillers and detective stories. It would buy or exchange old paperbacks, and also did a sideline in behind-the-counter pornography. And it also sold imported comics. Mills & Boon, Len Deighton, Playboy and CAPTAIN AMERICA, all side-by-side. An eclectic range. It was an unusual place for a ten-year-old boy to visit, but it was also the only comic shop in Hastings.

"Playboy and CAPTAIN AMERICA, side-by-side..."

What made Gosh so appealing to me was not just that it was part of London - though that was certainly part of it - but that it was a real comic shop. It was what I thought a comic shop should be. It was well kept, friendly, and everyone in there was there for the same thing. People of all ages, from all walks of life, were there with a shared interest. It was the difference between occupying a lonely existence at the Paperback Reader among the romance-junkies and the dirty old men, and going in to a comic shop, where I could buy comics among comic readers from people who were there to sell me comics.

When I finally did the inevitable and moved to London a little over a year ago, there was never any question about where I would go to buy my comics every week. A lot of people go to Forbidden Planet, which has a larger back catalogue, the buying power of a small chain, and occasional guest book signings by the woman who played the third android on the right in the bar scene of STAR TREK: VOYAGER'S seventh episode in the fourth season. Forbidden Planet is great if you're looking for a statuette of Emma Peel, or the complete set of 3x3 EYES videos, but it is often uncomfortably crowded, and the staff has no opportunity to engage their customers in conversation. It's a loud, busy, impersonal store, with about as much appeal as a supermarket.

For any true comic book fan, finding the right store is an important move. In no other entertainment form does the devotee make weekly pilgrimages to a single site. Film fans can visit cinemas or video rental stores, or just stay home and watch TV. Music fans have hundreds of music shops, live venues, and the radio to keep them happy. Anyone who religiously devours books is able to feed their habit from a hundred different locations in any city. Comic fans, however, tend to marry their stores, and for the most part they like to stay faithful. I had no intention of pledging my troth to a supermarket like Forbidden Planet. Gosh was my childhood ideal, so when I moved to London, I tool my custom to Gosh.

"For any true comic book fan, finding the right store is an important move."

The arrival of B-Hive is no threat to Forbidden Planet, which probably makes more from science-fiction merchandise than it does from comics, but I was worried that it might take some trade away from Gosh, where what little merchandise they have is tied to comics or newspaper cartoons. When I mentioned my fears to the staff at Gosh, they didn't seem worried. Gosh was able to ride out the recession and survive the vagaries of the nineties marketplace, because essentially, it existed outside of it. Gosh has cultivated a customer base with more intelligence and discernment than the average fanboy, and created an atmosphere that will ensure those customers stay loyal. They pay attention to individual tastes, make appropriate recommendations, and - without even being asked - will do what they can to make sure you never miss an issue. The owner even gave me his own copy of ASTRONAUTS IN TROUBLE #3 when I couldn't find a copy. That's why Gosh has nothing to worry about.

Recently, they changed the store around. The graphic novels used to be in the basement, and the back issues on the ground floor. Now the back issues are downstairs, and the first thing you see when you enter the store is shelves and spines. It makes it easier to look around and discover new things. CORTO MALTESE or GOLDFISH, GEMMA BOVARY or STUCK RUBBER BABY, even ASTERIX or LUTHER ARKWRIGHT. Gosh is like a 'proper' bookshop. Not like the Paperback Reader in Hastings, with the faint smell of mildew, but like a bookshop where people go to buy books from people who are there to sell them books. A place for people who take their entertainment seriously. At Gosh, they sell more copies of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN than they do of THE UNCANNY X-MEN. More importantly still, they don't sell any copies of Playboy.

All of this might sound like free advertising, but what the hell, it's my column. Gosh deserves the space, because it gets it right. More comic shops should try to emulate its style, by providing a good service and giving customers a shop they can be proud of. If they do, maybe I'll give them some free airtime too. For some, buying comics is a guilty pleasure. If you have the right shop, then it's just a pleasure.

Andrew Wheeler, January 2000.

Andrew Wheeler is Editorial Consultant of PopImage.

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