CROSS COUNTRY CLASSICS

3,000 miles from 31st Street, Silver Age Comics drops vintage deals on con-goers.

BY JIM DANDENEAU AND PHOTOGRAPH BY NICK MORGULIS

WHEN YOU THINK of San Diego Comic-Con, you think of Hall H, huge announcements, a beautiful city locked in permanent summer and filled for a week with cosplayers and industry folks. You don’t think of a small shop at the end of the Ditmars Boulevard N/W subway station in Astoria, Queens, walls lined with books surrounding an island of longboxes. And yet… “In 1991, I went as an attendee,” says Gus Poulakas, owner of Silver Age Comics and a San Diego Comic-Con exhibitor. “San Diego is such a great city [and SDCC], it’s the show of shows, so in 1999, I just decided to, you know, do San Diego.”

Silver Age’s modest retail space belies one of the key facets of their business: Poulakas is one of the biggest vintage comics dealers in New York and maybe on the entire East Coast. To SDCC attendees, that’s what helps him stand out. “There’s a more diverse pool of buyers [at San Diego],” Poulakas says. “I’ll sell lots of oddball things besides the mainstream—some Harveys, some Archies, Charlton, Gold Keys, Classics Illustrated. That stuff does better at that show.”

You would think that trekking across the country with enough comics to set up one of the biggest booths on the convention floor would be a bit of a production, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but when the shop owner has been doing it for 25 years, he develops a rhythm and relationships that make it simpler. “Nowadays, I just truck pool with other East Coast dealers, and we truck it cross country,” he tells us. “It takes a while for the stuff to get back, so I don’t need to rush home. [The books get there] a little early, I stay a little later… It’s kind of like a working vacation. It’s just a beautiful city.”

Doing this for 25 years means that Poulakas has built up a local network on the other coast, too. “I used to fly a guy out there,” he says, “but at some point, I started hiring my friends who were local to San Diego. [Now] I get to see some of my dealer friends and, you know, we eat and drink, and it’s a good time.”

Being primarily a vintage dealer (at least at shows) means Silver Age is less prone to the wild swings of the pop culture marketplace. You won’t find anything Spider-Verse or Flashpointey in the Silver Age booth. “I just picked up a large Big Five war collection [the five major war comics put out by DC—G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Star Spangled War Stories, Our Army at War, and AllAmerican Men of War],” Poulakas says.

When he brings books like this, he tends to draw hunters rather than browsers. “It’s nice to see people with their want list and they’re not just necessarily looking at your wall and seeing what big book you have or what key you have… to try to fill in their runs.”

It sounds complicated, but ultimately what keeps Poulakas going across the country is that it’s less stressful than his hometown show. “When you get to San Diego, it goes really smoothly because the stuff gets there before you, you get to chill out, and you get there, and then stuff leaves, and you hang out while your stuff gets shipped across country,” he says. Hopefully, he sticks around for another 25 shows full of good vibes.

Silver Age Comics is located in booth #1106 on the show floor or at 22-55 31st Street #208, Astoria, NY, 11105. If your shop does something fun and unexpected tweet us @denofgeekus.