Where Did Buy Your Comics in the 1970s?

[Fuzzysnail]

Rexalls Drugs on the spinner racks. They squeaked like crazy and the clerk would always stare me down if I spun it around more than one full turn. So I spun it a lot, lol. Also 7-11, but I had to bike there. All the comics were always bent because they were bent forward to see behind them. I picked up a Conan 100 at my Barbershop. It was well worn and read by the time I got it.

[Confessional]

Was Woolco and a gas station for me, inter-mixed with the color-by-number sets, velvet black light posters, calendars, teenie mags… wild 70's!

At some point the local indy toy store (Liberty Plaza) that supplied my early Mego madness added a couple big spinner racks. War comics became very interesting to me then.

[drquest]

Grocery Stores mostly, I would also get those and my baseball cards at our local dime store, G. C. Murphy's. Man I wish that store was still there....

[rykerw1701]

I used to get my comics at an old-style newsroom store called Fisher's Newsroom, in bustling Albion, NY. A small little town between Buffalo and Rochester. I remember that place so well. Football cards, baseball cards, Wacky Packages, and candy you couldn't find anywhere else. Along the back wall there were popular magazines, newspapers, dirty magazines, and of course, comic books. The comics were all carefully fanned out on wooden shelves so you could clearly find the latest issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Ups, Fantastic Four, etc. all with "Still only 25 Cents!" on the covers.

Somehow, a newsroom in a small town like that made until 2016, when if finally sold its last cigar and copy of Detective Comics. But fond memories, and like many of us here, I still have most of the very same issues of comics I bought there decades ago.

[Blue Meanie]

When I was 4 or 5 years old I bought my first comics at a luncheonette that was across the parking lot from where we would drop my dad off at the train station (LIRR) Also at the stationary down the block from us. But by 1978 I was fortunate to have one of the earliest LCS in New York...The Batcave. I was a customer there for almost 30 years. He's still around...but I like to spread my money around a little. He doesn't get a lot of the independent books that I like and doesn't believe in "accessorizing" the store with comic related stuff like toys etc.

[Bruce Banner]

The go to places for comics in the 70s for me were the local drug store, the tobacconists and the several small local convenience stores.

[Megotastrophe]

I don't think I saw a comic book store til the mid 80s. I suppose there could have been a few in the 70s but they were like Sasquatches. Somebody at school would have a cousin's friend who saw one...

[Hector]

There were tons of comic book stores in Berkeley (and still are)...all next to the University of California. My go to comic book shop was the iconic but now defunct, Comics and Comix. In the 80s, the late Rory Root opened Comic Relief, who some say he was the inspiration for Matt Groening’s Comic Book Guy.

See the resemblance?







Cool comic book stores, fond memories.

[glimpy]

I used to buy them at a local liquor store down the street called "Stop n Go". And also at the Swap Meet.

[powersthatbe]

I had a pharmacy and a newsstand by my house but most of the books I got were from my aunts who would take me downtown on the weekends to the five and dime.they would buy me ten dollars worth of toys or a toy and ten dollars worth of comics(which added to a lot since comics then were 25-35 cents).

[Makernaut]

That’s exactly the kind of mall newsstand, at the bookstore, where I got my “Nam” comics. Seems that was a popular comic at the time. I recall that it was well written and drawn.

- Ian

I really enjoyed that book at the time. Didn't realize until later that Larry Hama was the editor.

[EmergencyIan]

Spinner racks at a couple of local drug stores, mostly. Walmart back in the late 70s had a lot of Charlton Comics in the toy department. Woolco had the bagged Whitman DC multi-packs and stuff like Gold Key, Dell, and the other comics that weren't DC/Marvel. I would occasionally get some at the grocery store or a convenience store.

The last comic book I remember getting before they had totally moved to comic book shops was at a strip mall news stand. This would have been about 1987-ish and it was a Marvel comic called "The 'Nam".

That’s exactly the kind of mall newsstand, at the bookstore, where I got my “Nam” comics. Seems that was a popular comic at the time. I recall that it was well written and drawn.

- Ian

[Makernaut]

Spinner racks at a couple of local drug stores, mostly. Walmart back in the late 70s had a lot of Charlton Comics in the toy department. Woolco had the bagged Whitman DC multi-packs and stuff like Gold Key, Dell, and the other comics that weren't DC/Marvel. I would occasionally get some at the grocery store or a convenience store.

The last comic book I remember getting before they had totally moved to comic book shops was at a strip mall news stand. This would have been about 1987-ish and it was a Marvel comic called "The 'Nam".

[Mikey]

Local mom and pop drugstore for new comics (on spinny rack) and local farmers market for older issues -- had homemade mystery 5 packs for super cheap.

[The Bat]

The local Drug store, Zayre(in multi-packs) and mail order from Mile High Comics.