Family Comics and Cards, Winter Park FL

So It's been a minute since I've reviewed a store so I thought I'd go with a "Gem". So Some friends of mine and I make trips about twice a month to some comic shops because there are none in our area. A lot of times we head through Orlando and hit a couple of the same spots, our favorites. Just yesterday we decided we'd try out some new places. Some of them I'll hold off till later to tell you about so that I can get a better feel of them, but for this one I think I've got a good enough idea for now. So as we're cruisin', we know which places we're going to, but I hit up some reviews on the good old iphone. So out of Google, Yahoo, and Yelp all of the reviews seemed pretty positive, except one. There was one on google, a three of five star review, that was still reassuring that this was a good shop, but mentioned that it was a bit messy. My buddy reassured me "Dude, that guy probably just got them on a wrong day or something. It'll be fine."

So this place is in a great neighborhood. I mean the location is great! There are all kinds of antique shops, clothing stores, small privately owned diners. I was starting to get my hopes up. There's no sign from the road where this place is, but thanks to the GPS on my phone we eventually found it. It's upstairs almost right above a nice little deli. As we walk up there is no hours sign in the window and absolutely no advertisements that'd tell you this was a comic shop other than an old timey sign above the door displaying the name. Through the front windows you can see boxes strewn about and books just stacked up. As we walked in the door there's a small couch on the right that maybe two, three max, people could sit on, and a small hallway leading in from the doorway. Now when I say "hallway" I want you to understand that it's not a literal hallway, it's just that there is so much stuff on the right and left sides of this opening that it created a hallway. I mean there was just so much stuff... and not really in a good way. My friends were looking for specific back issues, one of Wolverine, and the other was looking for The Walking Dead. He took the two of them into a back room off to the right. One of my friends pretty much had to shimmy down between stuff to get to that room it's so cluttered. The back room was apparently organized much nicer, I stayed in the front room, but there was still a total lack of room. One friend had to lean against boxes of stuff, while the other two practically climbed over him to get to the rest of the selection. While I was in the front room I could have taken any damn thing I pleased. I obviously didn't, and I know a lot of people wouldn't, but who's to say that not everyone will. I feel bad for this guy and his store, because what happens the one day he gets a pair of assholes who take him in the back room and while the other takes as much shit as he can carry... I just think it's a little ridiculous when clutter actually affects how you do business. While I was in the front room I did have a look around, and he does have a really nice selection. There were a lot of Trades, Graphic Novels, and Hardbacks that I don't see at a lot of other stores, and my friends did find what they were looking for, but it just doesn't seem worth it to me if you can't get to anything yourself. It's one thing to kind of not be able to find something in a store, once you've looked, and asking someone to help, and an entirely different thing that you would be unable to browse at all and had to ask him to go get it for you. I just don't understand what all the clutter was... As he was cashing them out he checked in a price guide, because he didn't have them marked, and he actually gave them a pretty good deal on their books.

So I guess in summary, my associates told me that if you're a "Collector" then it was a pretty sweet store, because they did have a lot of stuff at a good price. Since I'm not a "Collector", and I usually just buy the TPBs, or a few Hardbacks if I really like the Series, I guess that having a large stock isn't that impressive to me. I mean yeah if you've got a few issues that're worth a lot of money, that's one thing, but to have so much that isn't really worth more than a couple of bucks apiece... it just seems a little silly. I guess what I'm saying is that presentation and customer service is a big thing to sacrifice for having a wide selection. The actual space itself was really nice and could be cleaned up to be a nice store. I mean if you have to rent a storage space and store all your other shit in there for an online store or something. Just get it out of the way so people can hang out and shop... Please don't take this as me tearing down the store and talking shit, because I'm not. If the owner ever cleans up his store and sends me an invitation back, then I'd be more than happy to go there and spend my money, but until then, there are just to many stores with a better experience... If you want to check this store out for yourself, you can visit them here:

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And As always, Thanks!
James