Comic Store Reviews Bellingham: The Comics Place

June 20, 10:05 AMSeattle Comic Books ExaminerSpencer Ellsworth

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Courtesy thecerebralowl.blogspot.com

This is the first in a series of intermittent reviews of comic stores in the Seattle and surrounding area.

This promises to be a challenge. Just check out this list to see how many nerd havens lurk around the Emerald City. Most folks who have been downtown or to Pike's Place have run into Zanadu Comics or Golden Apple, but in the suburbs, or the outlying areas of Seattle, it might be a bit harder to get your fix. So I'm starting at the very tip-top of Western Washington, in the college town of Bellingham, which boasts THREE comic stores for its sixty thousand inhabitants.

The Comics Place is the most visible of the triumvirate, with its enormous sign smack in the middle of downtown on Holly and Bay. This is rather funny, as the store itself is tucked in the upstairs of a dingy little art gallery, but the sign and the many "Comics Place Upstairs" signs on the door make it so it is impossible to miss what would otherwise be a buried treasure.

The first impression one gets in the store is cleanliness. No mean feat, Comics Place. With stacks and stacks of back issues and a good supply of 25 cent boxes, it's easy for a store to get cluttered, but the Comics Place has all their back issue boxes neatly stacked and a wall of trade paperbacks neatly shelved.

The staff there on that day was incredibly friendly. He  went absolutely electric recommending comics, walking around the store, yanking them off the shelves and excitedly turning to his favorite splash pages to show off whatever awesome art had been created that month that did it for him. He also threw in a fifteen percent discount just for the heck of it, and said that the discounts go even higher for subscribers.

The only bad thing about The Comics Place is the lack of room they have to truly stock up their collection of trade paperbacks. However, with those discounts, it is well worth asking them to order in the comics you want, and with that service, The Comics Place is a portal to newer and more exciting reading experiences. I give it a five out of five.