MY FRIENDS BOOK STORE
I grew up in Brooklyn, born in 1961- yes, I am old- and have collected comics since I was about 9 years old and have been at it ever since. Like most comic collectors, I have sold and traded my collection over and over during the years and look back with joy and regret, wishing I could jump back into a time machine and pick up some books I had again and buy some others off the news stand that are now worth a ton of money. To be totally honest, I sold my collection once to buy a used car and most of the times after, always to raise money to take some girl on a trip and so on. All good causes. I do regret some, but I know looking backwards stops one from moving forward, so I try to limit it to these e mails-my way of getting closer to you guys and gals.
Since the beginning of my buying comics to read and collect, I have been obsessed with the condition of the books I bought. This obsession continues and over time I have learned that it wasn’t just me that wanted their comics this way. In the beginning, most of the comics I bought were hand me downs from my older brothers, barbershop reading, and candy store rack grabs. As I got older and started to earn money mowing lawns, cleaning garages and shoveling snow, I started to get a bit more money in my hand and eventually discovered using the yellow pages there was a used book store on Flatbush Newkirk avenue that had about a billion comics in it. For those under 30- the yellow pages was an actual book you hold in your hand that had all the business addresses of every store in Brooklyn. Anyway, the name of the business was MY FRIENDS BOOKSTORE. Anyone my age that can remember this place can wax poetic about it like I am about to do. So here we go, let me describe it to you since for the life of me I cannot find a single photo of the place, but for me, it was like winning a comic book lottery.
The peak of my collecting comics was from 1974-79- Most of my high school years. It was then I had a little bit of money from working many jobs that I would start buying back issues. I would visit My Friends Book Store every two weeks- take the bike ride through pretty shitty neighborhoods to get there and bring my bike inside the shop for safe keeping while I went through the back-issue bins of used comics. At the time, they were 10 for a buck and included every kind of comics, horror, superhero’s, westerns and all the books dated from the 60- to current, about mid 70’s. On the wall were shelves of back issues and complete runs of books like Fantastic Four, Superman and a ton of silver and golden age books that were in excellent condition. You had to ask them to take the box down to flip through them, or know exactly what you were looking for. The glass case they had in front held golden age gems marked anywhere from 10 bucks to a grand at times. It was here I bought my copy of Fantastic Four #1 for $60 bucks. Yeah, that cheap and they had multiple copies as well.
The owners were very nice to me and let me spend hours looking through the millions of books they had. Dottie and Rudy loved their comics and would tell be all about them wand what I was buying. I can still smell the aged paper smell of the shop on my mind. It was fanboy’s dream, but like all dreams, it had to end and one day while riding my bike down Flatbush avenue to give them my latest savings, I pulled up to the shop and the building that housed it was burned down to the ground. This was in 1978 and my heart was broken for perhaps the first time. I remember standing there just starring for about 20 minutes at the blackened storefront till a random guy on the street snapped me out of it and told me about the fire the day before. My place of dreams was gone forever.
I shifted my buying to getting mostly new books from the news stand and back issues at random comic conventions that would happen at local hotels around the city and mail order catalogues offered in ds in the back of comics. I posted some below so you can drool at the prices.
I guess the point of this is to really appreciate that you now have comic shops everywhere and you should appreciate them while you can, because you never know what the future holds.
Enjoy.
Jimmy Palmiotti
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This below is from 1974 and was given to you when you bought comics from this seller in Brooklyn with your comics. Give it a read and it might make your day.
