John Freeman in the Market Hall;
Les Lamont in the Market Hall;
Les Lamont in the Assembly Room;
Mark and Lucy of First Age Comics in the Assembly Room;
Mark and Lucy in the First Age Comics shop.
Change and continuity -
Market Hall: John, Les;
Assembly Room: Les, First Age;
Shop: First Age.
The Crises in Comics have been the Market Hall burning down and the Assembly Room threatened with closure. Since the shop opened only two weeks ago, we now look forward to many more years before there is another Crisis or change of personnel.
Addendum: Not mentioned above but mentioned by correspondents (see below) -
Pete Pinto's Interstellar Master Traders (sf, fantasy, games, comics);
(another) Paul's comic shop of four years near Lancaster Bus Station.
Also had Peter Pinto selling comics in Single Step and his own book shop.
ReplyDeleteDisleyland,
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you! I take your point about ppint. However, he's an sf guy selling comics, not a comics guy, so I think that my summary still stands as a history of specialist comics retailing?
Paul.
True but he was the first to bring American comics to Lancaster .
ReplyDeleteBefore John in the Market Hall?
ReplyDeleteYou neglected to mention the shop that existed for at least four years by the bus station run by the guy named Paul. No one I have spoken to can actually remember what the shop was called I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteMatthew,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this addition. One other thing I didn't mention was the (short?) period in the late 1990's when Les, having left the Assembly Room, sold (to those who knew about it) from home. I left this out because I wanted to concentrate on public venues. I think we have covered everything now?
Paul.
Disleyland and Matthew,
ReplyDeleteI have added an addendum to the post.
Paul.
@Matthew
ReplyDeleteDo you remember which years Paul's shop covered?
He was located in what is now a sandwich shop near the bus station from at least 1993 to 1997. I remember his business started to slow down when Marvel went to their own distribution method that year and he refused to stock them. After that I've no idea what happened to him although there are rumours.
ReplyDeletePaul, if you are out there, please tell us what you are doing now!
ReplyDeleteVery informative. Thanks, Matthew.
ReplyDeleteI asked my brother the year Single Step were selling comics and he thought it was around 1976 . This was when Single Step was located where Miss Mundane used to be and is noe the New Albert. We were both quite young at the time my bro was about 14 so I would be 9 or 10 , they stopped selling then to us, as the other woman who also worked there thought we were too young.
ReplyDeleteDisleyland,
ReplyDeleteWe lived in Ridge St 1974-1979. Single Step was in Miss Mundane during the early part of that period. it had moved to its present location by late '76.
Paul.