3 Comic Book Shop VLOG / 3 Completely Different Experiences 

I kinda like the messy shops bc I feel like alot of people aren't willing to dig thru everything so I'm excited to see what treasures I can find

GYAAAT!!! That second store was a disaster. As a person with one hoop earring, I feel like I can’t trust myself anymore lol. That first store was a dream come true.

Loved seeing my LCS, Comic Kings, I’m this video!!! They are the best…so friendly and willing to help answer any of your questions! Wouldn’t go anywhere else

Love when sets and miniseries are put together. I always grab those in a shop

Hey Sticky, we love Comic Kings in the 757 !!!!

That's my old hometown and back in the day Trilogy was my go-to-shop. Time really does change everything...except for the interior of Trilogy-it looks exactly how it did 30 years ago. I'm glad to see a thriving community that can support those different shops.

Second shop is like you're in someone's storage unit... Close and cramped. Great video...

Weird fixation on the guy's earring. Obviously the criticism of the layout is fair enough and prices too but I don't think there's any validity in making personal attacks on a person's appearance.

I actually like all those shops. The first one looked like a place I used to regular as a teen and would be where I go to if I was into new comics. The second looks fun place to go to once a month to search for things. And the third would be where I would go if I cant find some manga I want.

That second shop was overwhelming. I would not have had the energy to look through anything, and the shop did not seem that inviting from your video. Now that first shop was really nice, looks like a place I would go and do business.

Love the videos! When you talked about shops competing with online pricing in this one It made me think of my main comic bookstore that I go to. I live in Canada & few years ago they did a promotion over a holiday weekend where they sold Is all trades and omnibuses as the US price instead of the canadian price which is higher. It was so successful that they just decided to keep it. It's like that all the time now and that is now where I get my stuff for my collection for my shelves. I just picked up the Sandman Mystery Theater volume 1 compendium on Free Comic Book Day because they also did 10% off that day. I 100% agree that stores need to start doing more stuff like that.

That second store you went too would be great fun if it was a bargain place to shop. Discovering through piles is fun if you can actually find something for a good price, but judging by the low grade $600 raw Bizarro book that you can get graded at a better price doesn't show much promise.

So awesome! Beautiful storw

The second shop looks my room 😅

Comic Kings has been my Comic Shop since I moved to the area almost 30 years ago. Joey Sr. would give you the shirt off his back if he could - but instead he enjoys giving out new ones to regulars and subscribers (new store shirt designs created periodically). I Rarely miss a Wednesday new comic day. Joey Jr. is a fantastic information resource, he knows everything about just about everything, past or upcoming stuff. He reads everything and can make recommendations as well as keeping up genre TV and movies and is always ready to share his opinions on them. The store is well lit, clean, roomy, open 7 days a week and has a bathroom! I could spend the day if there was time. Can’t say enough good things. Makes the hobby of collecting comics more enjoyable for me!

I totally agree with you. I never understood why some comic shops sell raw books as if they were graded slabs.

The Darth Maul he pulled out in that second shop is the first comic appearance of Cad Bane, worth about 60 dollars from what I've seen. Bet theres some hidden gems if you dig through boxes for days 😂

Comic kings is amazing used to be my local comic store. Thanks for showing it! Those dollar bins got me started I always would take advatage off the 50 issue for $25 and they always restock weekly. Trilogy has always been messy "Great books but the amount of stuff over them just repels people away.

Comic shops like that second one 'Trilogy' typically fail - I've seen this so many times here in the Seattle area. Even well managed/ merchandised shops still fail for many diff reasons. Too many funko pops, too many statues that never sell, poor locations, grumpy staff, etc.

Thanks again for another Fantastic video. The first store was a place I definitely would shop. The second place was a complete dump. I liked the way you gave the owner a name, Earring Man. 😅

Man I usually don’t mind a messy store all that much but that second store was almost giving me mild anxiety/claustrophobia vibes the hell with a place like that

Been collecting for over 40 years and one thing I would have to kinda agree with owner, is sometimes NON slab keys with equal grading are worth more to serious collectors, simply because they can go through it or read it.

Oh yeah these are my favorite videos that you do keep up the good work and please keep on doing what you do to make me laugh I appreciate it😂

So glad you got to go into comic kings! That place is my LCS! Next time you have to hit up zenos in Chesapeake. That shop is the best! Joey is the owner of Comic Kings. His son was the one behind the register. He’s also extremely knowledgeable and super nice. They are family owned. Joey the owner always gives deals on the keys, he especially gives deals if you buy a bunch of back issues. I’ve been going to comic kings since I was a kid. Best comic store in Virginia. Period. I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks that of trilogy. The place is overpriced and disorganized. Local heroes is overpriced on their keys and never give out deals. I will say their new comic selection is nice, especially if you miss a new issue. It’s also nice too because you have video game heaven and Stella’s cafe right next to it and a dope video game bar next to it called pixels. Glad you stopped at comic kings though! Excellent video!

The first comic shop you went to, ive been there before.

He had to shimmy and straddle my little pony😂

Trilogy is close to my home but I don’t go there. I drive to Comic Kings where I have a pull box. Always a good experience there. Trilogy is like a junk shop and he doesn’t seem interested in selling that stuff.

When Sticky was at the 1st shop & I thought he said "Then they had mini series & sex!" I was like what the frak kind of shop is this!😂

I felt secondhand frustration with that middle shop. I don't believe I'll ever understand why they keep books stored inaccessibly if these store owners ever mean to sell them.

That was funny at the 2nd shop, the return of strap-on. Yeah I totally agree shops like that are distressing to go into and you have to wonder do they even want to make any money.

The 2nd shop while not to horrible and would be a fun time to dig in. Do usually fail for some of the reasons you pointed out. 1. Keeping key books high up so that your customers can only get a glimpse of them and having to get the owner to pull them down for you to look at. This is bad cause maybe you want to view multiple keys or even all of them, but nit buy any and thus the owner is pissed or to busy to do this. When if they were ground level you could just look them over and move on. 2. Pricing of books. Shops like this always have reason great key books cause they never sell them. They are over priced and refuse to change the price to the current market. Just like you mentioned him saying that raw books are valued the same as graded. Well he will never sell much with that mindset unless it’s someone who truly doesn’t know the diff. But again this is why his store has so many big keys in those cases. Cause he has a very low turn over rate.

What really is troubling about that store is...One day that owner is going to die... reaching for that top shelf

I've been to every store in both this video and your roanoke video. Nothing but nice people in all of them. Seems odd that you keep having bad experiences. Wonder what the common factor is?

That second shop you went to was a total mess. Some people like that for even their own collecting environment. So every time they dig into their collection it’s like an adventure. But for a retail store it’s a nightmare for customers. My opinion on this video is basically that every store is a direct reflection of the owners personality..

Struck gold with Comic kings i guess. Watching from Australia. Hard life hey even among comment section polarisation. i'm just amazed how much there is, since the dawn of comics. Man if ever find Marvel's'The Punisher' omnibuses type books in my life. Or commit to every 'Avenger' comic to date...no worries got few "New 52s" on DC's end.

I got to stop by that first shop when we went on vacation to VA and Washington DC. What a great place, bought some comics and MTG cards.

Strange Adventures #190 is an underappreciated silver-age book. Lucky for you, they were not snatched up before you arrived.

Wow you were in my neck of the woods! I go to Comic Kings and Trilogy every week! There's another shop about 25 mins north in Hampton across the bridge called Atomic Comics that you would have loved. Lots of cards & collected editions & well organized

Congrats on being nominated for the 2023 CBC Awards. I sure will give you my vote

excellent vid thank u

There's a shop here in San Diego (that shall remain nameless) that is WORSE than Trilogy! If anybody from San Diego see's my comment, you know which shop I'm talking about😛

I usually go to that same Trilogy shop once a year or so when I'm in the area. Its looked like that every time. He also told me omnibus and all graphic novels were retail price.

I made this round of stores back in Feb. I had a good time at Comic Kings but they were very low on the wall keys. Great store but I couldn't find a lot that day. Trilogy I got a lot of great books. It took a lot of digging and to be honest I didn't go thru the bins that had all of their Anima. The bins you were digging in was where I got everything. Definitely no deals but I found prices fair enough on a lot but overpriced on a lot.

You would think that discounting an Omni is the past to fast success, but if you knock 15% off a $100 Omni, you need to sell roughly twice as many Omnis to make the same $30 (based on Diamond's discounts to a small shop). So, if knocking 15% off only gets you 15% more sales, you will lose money against having sold with no discount. If knocking 15% off nets you 50% more sales, you would still lose money against what you would have earned if you sold one at full price. This math is only true of new items purchased at wholesale; back issues are entirely different beast.

Also Trilogy is a big mess I agree 😂 Its much better for NCBD than for back issues. They have a great selection of indy books and variant covers every week. Comic Kings is better for cards, back issues & collected editions

The first shop sounds allot like my LCS I go to here in TN they do allot of the same stuff which is great to see other shops care like mine does.

I’m actually shocked at the condition of that second store. How are you supposed to look through All those short boxes (of what I assume are back issues), when there’s a ton of stuff piled on top of them?? “There’s no hope in this”.. an apt description....

that trilogy shop is just like Future Dreams in Portland, OR

I used to love the lcs colosseum of comics till they started pulling books off the ncbd wall just to jack up prices to match as they say market value aka eBay. You been looking for a lex corp company colosseum of comics is one. There vf books and fine are 9.8 prices and the manager when I want to see a book asks me after I shop there every week and spend over 100 in new books if I’m going to buy a book if she takes it off the shelf and take it out of the bag and no it wasn’t a wall book it was a new book a 1:10 book.

Fly to Denver and do a walk through of Mile High comics. It might take you a few weeks to check out everything there.

👍👍👍👍

What do you use to film these videos? And what contraption do you use to hold the camera

If you are ever in Morganton NC look up Timmy Mac's comic's

I have slowed down in buying trade paperback graphic novels. Have you ever tried reselling them? How are the margins? I used to find really competitive prices for them in shops that would sell on average 3x less than the lowest price listed for sale online but haven’t been able to find nice trade paperbacks at the moment.

Trilogy has been around for a long time... love these types of shops but you gotta dig through the shop... you don't find buried treasure by complaining about it...

QED: What is the link between comic books and Heavy Metal? Everyone seems to love both!! Me too! 😂

Open your own store and then stay there as long as you want and take care of it as you wish.

I went to Comic Kings in Virginia Beach when I was in town for work about a year ago. Great store with friendly staff, but they didn't have as many good wall books back then. I searched the dollar bin, but found nothing of interest to me. I probably wouldn't go back. I would have loved to visit the Trilogy store. That's my kind of comic book shop when you're looking for a hard to find book and willing to pay a little extra if needed just because you can't find it anywhere else. Kind of like that Strange Adventures book. Never ever saw that in any comic books store before. The owner's an old time comic book guy and I'm sure he's like the Mile High Comics guy who doesn't care if he sells a book or not. That's his jam and so is wearing an earring. What an odd thing to comment on, btw. You don't trust a guy who wears an earring? OK. lol I could spend hours in that store. The last store is too modern for me. Full of Funko Pops and Manga and it's like a pedestrian shop with no character. Like you said, I can get books online cheaper, so why would I even go to that store even if I lived there? And I agree with that old dude about slabbed and graded books not having more value than a book that's slabbed and graded. I believe that a slabbed and graded book should only have the value increased by what it costs to mail and submit those books for grading and slabbing. Maybe If I have an ungraded and unslabbed book that I know is a 9.6 for example, I'm not letting that book go for less than a slabbed 9.6 graded book other than to deduct the cost incurred in slabbing and grading. I get that some people don't know how to grade a book, but that's not my concern. If you don't want to pay my price, I'm not selling. I guess I'm like that old dude who doesn't give a rat's ass what you think. lol

Also I have an affection for some dumps in the 757.....lol

Trilogy has been in buisness for over 30 years. If you’ve never been in there don’t assume anything, that shop is willing to make deals with all customers.

See yall on Wednesday at Kings.

😮Nice seeing you in my area Sticky. O and would of loved to destroy you in Magic the gathering.

My local shop Has 20 % off trades, manga, new comic stock, you would love it!

Messy shop had that EVS Batman#1 variant that I've been looking for. I wonder what the price was?

You should have went to Atomic Comics in Hampton, Va. It is similar to Comic Kings.

Strap on vs earring guy

What is the deal with the magic cards?

I just hate when they squeeze books in a box.

When I see "stuff" piled on short boxes, I don't bother thumbing through, I just leave with my money in my pocket.

I am tempted to go there and ask for those rafter books. So stupid

I love digging through unsorted piles. I DO however get into fights with guys at the counter that try to start calculating books worth that I just did the work finding, more often than not they back down and I get good deals …you wanna sell stuff for outrageous prices, that’s fine, but dig through this shit yourself and mark it as such, instead of letting customers do your work for you.

Second store was way too full of merchandise. Stuff was stacked on top of each other probably damaging stuff underneath. Would be fun to dig through if price was fair.

you are so toxic. i love you. hahahaha

The Collectors Lair store in Lynchburg isn't good either. I go there because my dad used to take me as a kid and it's a nice change of scenery, but it's sooooo packed, super unorganized, they change prices at the register. Not ideal but I'll at least give em a few bucks every once in a while

Trilogy is nothing like collector’s lair! You bought a book and made money deals!

Also, to be fair, I know people that listen to heavier stuff than Lamb of God that are the nicest people ever lol, just depends on the person honestly

you wanna know what hanging out at a shop and talking with friends and the owner does? creates impulse buys and discovery of new books

What…you didn’t get the TTA 13

I'm not a fan of bad attitudes or high prices, but I love a messy shop where you have to dig. Different strokes cause I'm not too interested in keys, to me every comic is a key. I also hate slabs. Coins sure, but a comic is meant to be read. Unless it's truly historical of course, but slabbed modern comics...? Nah! GTFO, IMHO

I thought the bra comment was funny lol

For what it's worth, I thought the bra joke was rather funny.

Overpriced