Since I'm not listed here as one of the managers and not reviled lol I'll add to this thread that I just discovered.
First, as a customer, everyone that has been spoken about in this thread has been nice to me, even Jim Bain although you really had to strike up an interesting conversation in order to see it.
My first experiences of discovering comics was in the late 70's in Petitcodiac at Bruce's Store (Bruce Leaman) where they had two of the classic comic spinner racks and comics were only 25 cents (imagine!). They quickly jumped to 30 and 35 cents and the meteoric price rise continued from there. It was a small store full of periodicals, candy, and pop.
My next experience was with United Book Store in the late 70's and into the early 80's, with two locations in Moncton on Mountain Rd and Lutz St. They used to buy bulk lots of comics from places that sold them off cheaply AND you could trade in comics toward their used comics. We went frequently as my father was an avid book reader (and even sometimes my comics lol). I don't Remember Chuck Devona from this time period but you could find comics that were older and nowhere else like Charlton. I often found what I considered real gems.
Next was Larry Lane's Comic Shoppe thati found on the second floor on Main. Somewhat a tiny hole in the wall lol consisting of two small rooms it was the first place I could have weekly comics put into my "file". Before Previews became widespread and popular they used to print their own monthly subscription form checklists with comic covers and little drawings in the margins. Larry was always nice but it was often the crew hanging around the store that were the elitist snobs making rude comments. I just about died when they closed up.
When I discovered WilKie's after The Comic Shoppe closed they had opened right next door on the second floor on Main to the left of the closed down TCS. Jim was the proprietor and I recognized him from the Wilkie's on Robie St. in Halifax, having traveled with my parents to Halifax in the early 80's. He could be abrupt but was okay enough & I didn't mind going there. He would watch you like a hawk though until he eventually trusted you. He despised those who would just go in to read and not buy, but really who could blame him as it was his living and this wasn't Chapters lol.
Then came Doorway to Fantasy which I'm not sure I entirely remember but when it turned to 1,000,000 Comics and he offered I believe a 15-20% discount I did jump ship to Egbert Rousselle's store. He did however paint it in gaudy red and black colors lol. It was on the next corner down from UBS.
Wilkie's moved down Main to the left of Reid's Newsstand, but when Reid's was bought out by UBS years later (and renamed Reads) they renovated and took out the wall between them and the now defunct Wilkie's. And yeah the walls were too white at Wilkie's, they needed more posters. I vaguely remember the girl who worked there after Jim.
I stopped collecting for a short while when I went to University but visited Larry Lane's Halleys Comics which was again, down from UBS mid-block. This is where the Death of Superman occurred as there was an article in the Transcript with a picture showing people lined up around the block to get their copy. This was the beginning of the "event" comics and multiple cover gimmicks that would eventually cause the downfall of the industry in the late 90's. I believe UBS thenow bought Halleys with Larry still managing for awhile but they let him go. Halleys then moved into about 1/3 of the UBS store.
It was at UBS I got my first "real" job circa 1994 behind the counter. working in a comic shop was my dream job (I guess it's been all downhill since lol). Within 6 months the Devona's (John, Jeff, Debbie and Mark Smith), who were nothing but nice to me, offered me the vacant manager's position in their Sant John UBS store where I was to open a new comic section. CHUCK was a very worldly lived person with great stories but could be irascible at times to customers, and come on, he knew nothing about the interiors of comics lol give him a break. And you know all those old used comics that used to line the bottom of the UBS racks? There was literally a TON of them on the second unused floor of the SJ building stacked about 14 feet high and avalanchING down. I spent days going through them!!!
I built the comic shop portion of the SJ UBS store basically from scratch and over the course of a year made it extremely successful. I had the competition on the ropes in SJ. I moved back to the Moncton store a year later
First, as a customer, everyone that has been spoken about in this thread has been nice to me, even Jim Bain although you really had to strike up an interesting conversation in order to see it.
My first experiences of discovering comics was in the late 70's in Petitcodiac at Bruce's Store (Bruce Leaman) where they had two of the classic comic spinner racks and comics were only 25 cents (imagine!). They quickly jumped to 30 and 35 cents and the meteoric price rise continued from there. It was a small store full of periodicals, candy, and pop.
My next experience was with United Book Store in the late 70's and into the early 80's, with two locations in Moncton on Mountain Rd and Lutz St. They used to buy bulk lots of comics from places that sold them off cheaply AND you could trade in comics toward their used comics. We went frequently as my father was an avid book reader (and even sometimes my comics lol). I don't Remember Chuck Devona from this time period but you could find comics that were older and nowhere else like Charlton. I often found what I considered real gems.
Next was Larry Lane's Comic Shoppe thati found on the second floor on Main. Somewhat a tiny hole in the wall lol consisting of two small rooms it was the first place I could have weekly comics put into my "file". Before Previews became widespread and popular they used to print their own monthly subscription form checklists with comic covers and little drawings in the margins. Larry was always nice but it was often the crew hanging around the store that were the elitist snobs making rude comments. I just about died when they closed up.
When I discovered WilKie's after The Comic Shoppe closed they had opened right next door on the second floor on Main to the left of the closed down TCS. Jim was the proprietor and I recognized him from the Wilkie's on Robie St. in Halifax, having traveled with my parents to Halifax in the early 80's. He could be abrupt but was okay enough & I didn't mind going there. He would watch you like a hawk though until he eventually trusted you. He despised those who would just go in to read and not buy, but really who could blame him as it was his living and this wasn't Chapters lol.
Then came Doorway to Fantasy which I'm not sure I entirely remember but when it turned to 1,000,000 Comics and he offered I believe a 15-20% discount I did jump ship to Egbert Rousselle's store. He did however paint it in gaudy red and black colors lol. It was on the next corner down from UBS.
Wilkie's moved down Main to the left of Reid's Newsstand, but when Reid's was bought out by UBS years later (and renamed Reads) they renovated and took out the wall between them and the now defunct Wilkie's. And yeah the walls were too white at Wilkie's, they needed more posters. I vaguely remember the girl who worked there after Jim.
I stopped collecting for a short while when I went to University but visited Larry Lane's Halleys Comics which was again, down from UBS mid-block. This is where the Death of Superman occurred as there was an article in the Transcript with a picture showing people lined up around the block to get their copy. This was the beginning of the "event" comics and multiple cover gimmicks that would eventually cause the downfall of the industry in the late 90's. I believe UBS thenow bought Halleys with Larry still managing for awhile but they let him go. Halleys then moved into about 1/3 of the UBS store.
It was at UBS I got my first "real" job circa 1994 behind the counter. working in a comic shop was my dream job (I guess it's been all downhill since lol). Within 6 months the Devona's (John, Jeff, Debbie and Mark Smith), who were nothing but nice to me, offered me the vacant manager's position in their Sant John UBS store where I was to open a new comic section. CHUCK was a very worldly lived person with great stories but could be irascible at times to customers, and come on, he knew nothing about the interiors of comics lol give him a break. And you know all those old used comics that used to line the bottom of the UBS racks? There was literally a TON of them on the second unused floor of the SJ building stacked about 14 feet high and avalanchING down. I spent days going through them!!!
I built the comic shop portion of the SJ UBS store basically from scratch and over the course of a year made it extremely successful. I had the competition on the ropes in SJ. I moved back to the Moncton store a year later but was no longer in much of a managerial position so much as a clerk behind the counter. Therevwas a guy working there then that was the EPITOMY of The Simpsons Comic Book Guy!!! I did however meet the love of my life working there too. Someone might remember her, hot, stacked, lots of beautiful hair, always dressed in black.
After I left I believe Mike Roberts took over Halleys. We had worked there together already. Nice guy. That was when the comic market went bust. I stopped collecting then except for some collectibles and action figures over the years.
I did have some brief experiences with trying to get back into collecting with Remi at Comic Hunter down on the corner of Main and Lutz and then again with Rob at Gamezilla, but my spare income and the escalating prices of comics increasingly did not match up and I embarrassingly canceled my weekly file with each leaving comics behind. Both were great guys.
I've since been back to both stores in the 2010's and Remi at CH and now Craig at GZ have been very accommodating in my quest for even more expensive collectibles.
Everyone I've ever dealt with have really been interesting people and characters, gay or not (which shouldn't really matter IMO), and sure they werent ALL blessed with good customer service skills, but i know i had a BLAST both in front of and behind the counter. In retrospect I have (almost) nothing but fond nostalgic recollections of my history of association with the comic book medium.
