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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 8:55am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Zanadu Comics, in business for over 42 years in Seattle and one of the best comic shops in the area, is closing at the end of January:

ARTICLE

Owner Perry Plush told me the downtown rents and diminishing sales finally took their toll.

If you're in the area and especially if you are a regular customer (I've been going there since '81), stop by and wish the best to Perry and his crew.
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Larry Gil
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 9:00am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Amazon wins again.
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David Miller
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 10:22am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

After my family moved to Seattle in 1988 my mother told me excitedly about the great comic book shop down the street from her work. I was a customer for 25 years until I moved to Califonria. My greatest purchase was the Russ Cochrane full color complete MAD hardcover, which they let me haggle $20 off. 

Bummer. 
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John Byrne
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 10:31am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Amazon wins again.

••

Amazon plus a crumbling marketplace.

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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Amazon wins in more ways than one:

A block away from Zanadu is the downtown Seattle Macy's (nee Bon Marche), a well-established department store that has filled the block for over a hundred years.

A couple of months ago they started a long-term lease of the top 5 floors of the 7-story building to Amazon, which is slowly taking over empty lots and buildings throughout town. Real estate rates are rising especially in the downtown core accordingly.


Edited by Andrew Hess on 17 November 2017 at 12:55pm
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Bill Mimbu
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I remember the old Zanadu Comics store when it was co-located on Union Street with The Paperback Exchange back in the early 80s (if I recall correctly, they had a JB Colossus sketch hanging above the register, which was from a Vancouver BC con).

I've also heard that my local comic shop is moving to a new location farther north due to rising costs, which seems to be a problem for a lot of the ones in the area... The only LCS that apparently seems to be doing okay is the one down the street from the Funko Headquarters in downtown Everett.


Edited by Bill Mimbu on 17 November 2017 at 1:35pm
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William Costello
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Where I live (in southwestern CT), I can't recall any new comic shops opening within the last, I think, ten years.

The ones I know of are still open, and I think commercial rents in this area of CT are stable. Seattle, like New York, Boston and other large urban areas are seeing commercial rents creeping up. Unless the sales rise to cover the increased rent, it's a zero sum game (unfortunately).

There's a new book by author Richard Florida I'd like to read called "The New Urban Crisis." The argument goes something like this (and I'll quote): "In recent years, the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida, one of the first scholars to anticipate this back-to-the-city movement in his groundbreaking The Rise of the Creative Class, demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentrification, unaffordability, segregation, and inequality. Meanwhile, many more cities still stagnate, and middle-class neighborhoods everywhere are disappearing. Our winner-take-all cities are just one manifestation of a profound crisis in today's urbanized knowledge economy"


I see this trend in NYC for sure; salaries are higher that the national average, but the cost of living (i.e. rent) is much higher, almost out of control. I don't see how a younger person starting out today can even save enough money to afford a down payment on a home, buy a car (without borrowing) or start funding their retirement unless they make "mega" money (I worry about this issue with our children.)

Given that trend, comic stores in places like Seattle? I don't see how they can make it.

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Michael Hogan
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Posted: 17 November 2017 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Whoa. I was just there — for the first time — this past Sunday!
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 21 November 2017 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Here's an interview with Zanadu's owner; what he has to say probably goes for the owner of your store too

Interview
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 22 November 2017 at 8:53am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

There was a really good shop in New Brunswick, NJ, that closed in 2000 because the landlords didn't want a comic book shop among their middlebrow clothes stores and so on. The remaining stories were college kid-bait, nothing special, and nearly all have long since closed, but whatever.

The owner was making his rent payments on time and in full, the place was clean and devoid of "good girl art" in the windows (or in view from the street) and yet.

Sometimes it's not the business that fails.

Sorry to hear Zanadu is closing. Sounds like a nice place.
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