Who we are

Jeff

Ooooooh, you’d probably recognize Jeff if you’ve been in the store before. He’s one half of the dynamic duo formerly known as The Otter Boys... Or Jeff and Justin, to the uninitiated.  He started at The Comics Place back in 2013 and has watched the store grow from a tiny hole in the wall on Bay St all the way up to the booming mega-center that is our current Holly store.  Jeff’s loved comic books since the age of 4, when he inherited a big ole’ stack of coverless issues of the Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall. I’m sure ya’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

While still in love with characters dressed in primary colors, he particularly loves following creators into smaller/independent ventures through publications like Image Comics, Vertigo, and BOOM! He works pretty hard to find something he likes in all comics. But above all, he loves hearing from YOU! What do YOU like?! What DON’T you like?! Comics are what brought him here, but its building relationships with customers that has kept him around.

Likes: Grant Morrison, Jonathan Hickman, Jason Aaron, Frank Quitely, Chris Burnham… A lot… A lot of love in this heart.

Dislikes: Negativity



Django

Django was born with a cape. A cape that transforms into a hat. Any type of hat, in fact. This heroic hat gives him the strange and unusual ability to jump from project to project with at least a 35 percent success rate.

A fan of Batman, The Shadow, Whoopee cushions, and pinball, Django came aboard the Comics Place in late 2014.

Don't cross Django. I heard he's a great fighter and an even more wonderful lover.

He's probably got the issues if you wanna borrow them.

 


Roman

Huck Finn, Greek and Norse myths, Spidey Super Stories, Pink Panther, the JLA, and Batman in the Brave and the Bold are among my earliest reading memories!  The first superhero comic I clearly remember was a coverless Hawkman comic I spied in a box of thrash outside a Eugene, OR flea market as mom led me through the turnstiles.  I've never found out what issue it was (Showcase?  Hawkman?), but it was about two aliens frozen at the moment they were shooting each other with their blasters, and they'd get unfrozen occasionally and start blasting anew! Grudges, whattaya gonna do?  Like many of us comic fans, my folks encouraged any kind of reading, mom reading me anything I wanted to hear.  Later, I become a Literature major with a Film minor, still cherishing stories as integral to life! 

I first worked at the venerable Comics Place in 1992, while a WWU student, and keep boomeranging back into the fold; it's hard to stay away from home for long!  My comics specialties are Silver and Bronze Age, followed by Modern (post 1985, the grim era), Golden Age, Underground, some knowledge of Platinum Age (pre-Golden Age), the Pulps, and comic strips.  'Course, I enjoy most forms of the medium, Manga to Franco-Belgian, editorial cartoons to comic strips!  Donny Cates, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Saladin Ahmed, Kirby, Jason Aaron, Gail Simone, Zander Cannon, Jack Cole are some of my favorite past and present comic storytellers!

Games!  I really like story-telling games, like Once Upon a Time, Betrayal at the House on the Hill (favorite!), and D&D or Pathfinder.  Other faves are Tsuro, Geek Out!, Hive, Sheriff of Nottingham, Othello, Gloom, Trivial Pursuit.  Horror-themed games intrigue me, like all the Lovecraftian ones, but have only played Arkham Horror so far.  I'm not a big fan of Catan, Splendor - games of resource management, as Jeff quickly pointed out. Nope, that smacks of real life! Feh.

 


Colette

The one who looks like Jessica Jones. You know her. She’s probably recommended something violent and dark and awesome to you.

 

 

 

 


Braden

Hey! My name's Braden and I love comics! I grew up in the ‘90s watching cartoons like the Batman and X-Men animated series and they inform a lot of the characters I'm into today. The first comic I remember owning and reading is Knuckles the Echidna #4.

Likes: Representation in comcs, Steven Universe, McElroy brothers, RPGs, Pokemon, pinball, Pokemon pinball, cooperative board games.

Dislikes: Toxic masculinity, hyper competitiveness, sauces, nazis, existential crises before bed.

 


Ashton

Ashton, the youngest of the crew has only been reading comics for three years but despite this he has greatly increased his knowledge in the art of the graphic novel whether it be Marvel Comics or Koyama Press through persistent reading and constant positive energy towards the sequential arts he sells. Ashton prefers smaller press “weird-out” books but will eat near anything placed in his grasp.

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