Category: Comic Books

I remember reading this item in early 2008, about a new comic book shop that was opening up.

He wants to draw a different crowd

James Welborn, 34, thinks the average comics shop still feels like a “man cave . . . a smelly hole where a bunch of kids sit around and play Magic cards.”

As he prepared to open Hub Comics, he put a sign in the window promising a different kind of establishment: “a comics shop for NPR listeners.”

Creating Hub Comics has been an act of love. “When I got my first job, I spent probably every dime on comics,” Welborn said, recalling that he would take an hourlong bus ride to a shop in Las Vegas.

Now a software engineer at Akamai, Welborn hopes Hub Comics can become his full-time job, but would be happy if it simply breaks even.

The thing is, the “man cave with kids playing Magic cards” formula is how a lot of shops have survived, and as a business plan “act of love” and “simply break even” sounded shaky to me, but Welborn had a day job that presumably paid well. Hub Comics is a short walk from where my friend Morris lives and I went there a couple of times. The place seemed to have a good combination of location, selection, and atmosphere. I bought a few things and put my name on their mailing list. Then last year there was trouble.

Hub Comics struggles to survive

Hub Comics owner James Welborn sounded the bat alarm in an open letter dated Oct. 13 announcing a plan to raise “basic survival revenue,” including the option to buy “comic credit” and a nine-day sale.

Eric and I went there and dropped more than a hundred bucks, and we returned again after another “emergency sale” mailing was received. When Free Comic Book Day came up this year it seemed that Hub Comics would stay in business, but a couple of weeks ago the manager sent a message saying that Welborn had been seriously injured and was in the hospital. He didn’t say what sort of injury.

James Welborn, comics store owner, dead at 37

Emergency personnel discovered Mr. Welborn in his Summit Avenue home May 16. Police have been investigating circumstances of the death, which included a note on a bathroom door warning of poisonous gas.

I’m running a road race in Boston tomorrow, and I’m planning to see Morris after that. I’ll walk down to Hub Comics and see if the store is still open.

It’s going to be a super-hero summer! (Especially if you consider Harry Potter to be a super-hero.) The buzz from Europe, where the Thor movie is already out, is that it’s a great, fun ride.

That’s good, because so far Jack Kirby’s creations for Marvel Comic haven’t translated to the big screen as well as the less cosmic characters Spider-Man and Iron Man. Captain America was one of Jack’s first, co-created with Joe Simon. As with Thor, I wasn’t too optimistic about the project until I saw the trailer, which looks very promising.

And there’s another X-Men movie coming too. The X-Men are also from the mind of Kirby, but the movies are based quite a bit on later incarnations of the mutant team.

http://youtu.be/0Yq7Za1JnZg

When I was a kid in the 60’s, Marvel’s summer special double-size, 25-cent comic books were a big deal. We’ve come along way from those days!

DC is represented this summer by Green Lantern, but this trailer leaves me feeling more uncertain about this movie’s prospects than Marvel’s offerings.

http://youtu.be/pHmMh0yikQ0

http://youtu.be/1uVu1S7wEOk

Jackie Cooper is gone. After being the biggest child star in the 30’s before Shirley Temple, Cooper managed to have a solid, successful career. To relatively younger audiences, he’s best known for being Perry White in the Christopher Reeve run of Superman movies. I knew him first for his memorable appearances in Our Gang, with June Marlowe as Miss Crabtree.