Since my story today is about comics, I’m going to skip my plug. As a primer, I will say that the book that got me hooked on comics as a kid was Infinity Gauntlet #4. Before then, I was a very casual collector, stopping by a shop occasionally, grabbing some comics off of spinners. When I saw Iron Man’s head get torn off and Thor smashed into tiny pieces and Wolverine turned to putty, I marched right to a comic shop and started a pull-list because I wasn’t going to miss shit like that again. That phase of my life only lasted a few years, however, as I left comics, became a casual reader again in Boston, left comics and am a casual read today. Thank God for trades and graphic novels.

Growing up there were five comic shops that I could have called home. The first one was METRO COMICS in Brooklyn Heights. Metro Comics was probably my favorite store but it was about two miles away and too far of hike for my weeklies. There was a comic shop on Seventh Avenue with a name that escapes me that was even farther than Metro Comics that I went too a few times in Junior High School when taking this dope forensics class at John Jay High School.

The other three comic shops were all within easy walking distance. THE DUGOUT was on Smith Street, before Smith Street was all trendy, and I really had no desire to ever go there. Most of my friends went there, however, but the guy that owned the shop overcharged for everything and focused way too much on baseball cards and collectors items. He was a prospector through and through and I’ll never forget the time I went in there and he had X-Force #1 behind the counter and marked up to five dollars the week it came out. Scumbag.

While my friends were going to The Dugout I set up shop in this place on Kane and Henry Street that I honestly don’t think even had a name. It was everything you’d expect from a comic shop. Small, a little dingy, the owner ran the place and taught karate at night. Stereotypical joint. It was nice, I loved going there for my weeklies and talking with the owner who rarely said a word but listened with that blank stare that as an adult I can tell was a sure sign of eventual suicide.

And then Mannix moved into the neighborhood. Mannix was a shop that had no name, it was a small shop with all black walls, hardly any lights, hardly any back-issues, owned by this guy whose last name was Mannix and run by Mannix’s brother (I believe), Joe. You never saw Mannix, he would occasionally enter the shop briskly and enter the back room. As a kid, Mannix was a cool shop. It was mysterious, they had arcade games, the guy who ran it was in his thirties, acted like a kid and was always eating Philly Cheese Steaks.

Rumors started spreading early, however, that the place was a mafia front. Almost every place in Carroll Gardens was at some point called a mafia front because almost every place in Carroll Gardens was run by Italians. But this place was different. When the rumors started circulating it sort of made sense to a lot of us. It was just dark. There lack of back-issues was indicative of the fact that they didn’t have any comics going into the business. Mannix himself had no clue, obviously didn’t read books and always went into the backroom. The arcade game sort of breaks the “get them in and get them out” mentality you get with a mafia front but at the same time, it helps to get them in and make them look legitimate. Especially when they had Terminator 2 Pinball.

So, we started believing the rumors. So did our parents and they became weary about us going there which basically made it an even cooler place to shop. We’d stick around longer, hoping the cop would raid the place while we were there or, if we were really lucky, we’d witness a shootout, Mannix coming out of the backroom and face to face with a Tommy Gun, his blood spraying all over the Gold-Cover Deathmate #1 Variants, falling over and pulling the shelf of Chromium Cover Bloodshot goodness with him.

Nothing cool ever happened and I can’t say I have proof they were a mafia front. The shop only lasted a year. By the time they closed down the joint on Kane and Henry closed down as well, I think the owner wanted to put more time into his karate classes. Or he killed himself, whatever. There was no way in hell I was going to go to the Dugout and have that asshole push STARTING LINEUP figures on me. So, I gave up comics for a while. Returned to them in Boston because Comicopia was close to my place, gave them up again when I moved and now, well, now I like them. Obviously. Big Planet Comics, Georgetown, in case you’re wondering.

But I’ll never find a shop as cool as Mannix again. Just picturing a bunch of mafiosa guys in the back, figuring out how many XO-Manowar #0’s they should get and how to get there hands on more Death of Superman books is, quite possibly, the very definition of a perfect image.

Next week I’m going back to the swords and devoting the week to my mom’s side of the family. It will be just like the week devoted to my pop’s side of the family except with five times the arrests, three times the heart attacks and six times the lawsuits!