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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Presidential and vice-presidential candidates Adran Gibbs and Prince Ohene-Nyako win with 84.1 percent of the vote, defeating Otto Wimer and Donald Duechting. For more coverage, visit oudaily.com.
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Comic books are displayed inside Speeding Bullet comic book store Oct. 26. The store hosts events like comic book signings, movie nights and concerts.
COMIC CORNERSTONES Local comic, gaming stores become Norman staples, see rise in readership as genre gains more traction
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n an age when comic heroes have moved from paper to the big screen, local comic book stores have continued to grow and thrive as new customers are drawn into the worlds found among the pages. Norman has two local shops dedicated to selling comics : Speeding Bullet Comics, a traditional comic store w ith a large selection of both new and old comics, located on Porter Avenue; and Wizard’s Asylum, a combined comic and gaming store located on West Main Street. Both stores rely on the continuous growth of the comic book industry to draw in customers. Dan Nash, store manager at Speeding Bullet Comics, has worked in the store for 15 years. Nash said he started reading comics as a kid and never stopped. He said there are various genres of comics, not just ones about superheroes. There are science-fiction comics, satirical graphic novels and more. “It’s real-life adventures. It’s fantasy,” Nash said. “There’s something out there can interest just about anybody.” Nash said Speeding Bullet Comics recently celebrated its 20th anniversary in July. “We’ve enjoyed being a staple here in town for quite a while,” Nash said. The store also hosts community events to draw new customers to the store, Nash said. The store is always trying something new, from comic book signings to movie nights and concerts. The store also attends local conventions and sells comics to promote the store and reading in general. “Our main focus is to spread literacy and hopefully bring in a new generation of comic book readers,” Nash said. According to Nash, the store has not experienced any financial hardship in recent years. He said the store has a dedicated
SAM TONKINS • @SAMANTHATONKINS group of customers but also gains new customers e ver y month. Nash said the increase in comic-based superhero movies has had a positive impact on the store. “I have quite a few customers come in with their children, and they say that they saw the movie and that they want to read up on the characters,” Nash said. Additionally, the comic industry has grown significantly over the years, Nash said.
“It’s real-life adventures. It’s fantasy. There’s something out there can interest just about anybody.” DAN NASH, STORE MANAGER AT SPEEDING BULLET COMICS
“When I was a kid, both the big companies — Marvel and DC — they both had in the range of 20 to 30 comics that came out each month, and it has only quadrupled,” Nash said. According to Comichron, a website that tracks comic sales, the comic book industry has continuously made over $1 billion in profit annually each of the last three years. In January 2018 alone, the site documents the release of more than 500 different comic titles, compared to 48 documented in 1960. James Zeigler, OU associate professor of English, teaches a class on graphic novels at OU. He said comic book classes are becoming the norm at universities. “Every English department at a flagship school like OU in the country has got a regular comic book class, and that’s been true for 10 or more years,” Zeigler
said. He said OU’s class approaches comics as a piece of literature, just like any other English class. The syllabus is full of a variety of different comics and shows the complex nature of the genre. “There are a lot of really smart, difficult, impressive, challenging graphic novels that have been published,” Zeigler said. Zeigler said the comic book industry is still growing and adapting. “The genre called the graphic novel is really a contemporary concern, so to be teaching that and studying that, it’s kind of like we are watching a literary form come into its own, come into its maturity. It’s happening now,” Zeigler said. “It’s as if we are watching the form develop resources in the same way that stage plays came into their own in Shakespeare’s day.” Bryan Alcorn, owner of Wizard’s Asylum, opened the doors to his store in 1999, and said it has continued to grow and develop since then. Alcorn said he discovered his love of comic books at a young age. “When I was a kid, they were in 7-Elevens and stuff,” Alcorn said. “One day, I just bought an ‘X-Men’ book that the cover stood out to me. I just bought it and read it and started buying them every minute after that.” After Alcorn graduated from OU in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, he decided to try to turn his passion into a living. “I graduated when I was like 21,” Alcorn said. “I figured that I would try this and see if it’ll work, and if it doesn’t, I’m young enough. I can go get a real job. But it’s worked out.” Alcorn said when the store first opened, it relied heavily on the Pokémon craze of the early 2000s in order to stay open. Now, the store features a variety of products and has had no
financial trouble in recent years. In addition to selling comics, Wizard’s Asylum sells a variety of role-playing games, including “Magic: The Gathering” and “Dungeons and Dragons.” The store also hosts several weekly tournaments where people in the community can come together and play these games. Alcorn said comics and gaming go together, and that many people who like comics also like gaming. He said that both activities focus on the imagination. “I really like fantasy and stories and stuff like that,” Alcorn said. “It’s what drew me to D&D, and the same with the comics — just the worlds they create and stuff, it’s something that I like to delve into.” Joe Laufersweiler has been a full-time employee at Wizard’s Asylum for the past three years, but before that, he was a regular customer. He said he is more interested in the gaming side of the store, and many of his friends are store regulars. “A lot of my off nights I’ll
spend up here anyway, playing the games that I sell to people,” Laufersweiler said. He said both comics and gaming are often a social activity, particularly gaming. “ It ’s re a l l y e a s y t o i n t ro duce yourself to new people,” Laufersweiler said. “It’s like, well, we have two people here for a game and we need two more, so let’s ask some people we don’t know.” With two comic book stores in town, it seems that the competition would be fierce. However, Alcorn said this is not really the case, and that they often send customers to each other. “We both sell comics, so obviously there’s some competition there, but (with Speeding Bullet Comics, it’s) a different type,” Alcorn said. “They are more of the old-school with lots of back issues. We do a lot of the gaming. We really do our own things.” Sam Tonkins
samantha.tonkins@ou.edu
AUSTIN CARRIERE/THE DAILY
A row of comic books are displayed inside Speeding Bullet comic book store Oct. 26. The store celebrated its 20th anniversary in July.