Socked by virus, comic book industry tries to draw next page

The pandemic has transformed Christina Blanch, owner of Aw Yeah Comics, into a nightly TV host.

Nine times a week, Blanch leads a livestream from the store she lives above in Muncie, Indiana, to sell some comics and interact with regulars. She holds up issues one by one, usually for $5 or $10, and takes down addresses from buyers. It’s a way to get by but helps keep the shop’s community spirit alive. The show has a warm, thank-God-we-have-each-other feel to it. Sometimes Blanch sips a Modelo or vents about a difficult day. She calls it “What We Do in the Comic Shop.”

Long a repository for tales of world-threatening cataclysms and doomsday dystopias, the comic shop in the coronavirus era finds itself drawn into a fight for its very survival. The crisis, felt across retailers, poses a particular threat to comic book shops, a pop-culture institution that has, through pluck and passion, held out through digital upheaval while remaining stubbornly resistant to corporate ownership.

Even as the pandemic era takes on the appearance of a comic – desolate urban centers, masks everywhere – the ink-and-paper industry is at a standstill that some believe jeopardizes its future, casting doubt on how many shops will make it through and what might befall the gathering places of proud nerds, geeks and readers everywhere.

It won’t go – insert “POW!” bubble – without a fight.

“I’ve put so much into this shop. I’m going to go down swinging if I’m going to go down,” said Blanch, who also writes comic books and graphic novels. “This place is important to people. What are you going to do but keep going?”

Saturday would have been Free Comic Book Day, an annual nationwide event intended to bring diehards and newbies alike into stores. Instead, stores are closed nationwide, and new print issues haven’t been released since late March, when the industry’s primary distributor, Diamond Comic Distributors, shut down.

Normally, some 6 million extra comics are distributed for the day, and around 1.2 million people flock to stores. For some shops, it dwarfs even Comic-Con, the annual San Diego convention (also canceled ). Joe Field, owner of Flying Color Comics in Concord, California, who came up with the holiday, calls it “the single biggest retail day in the comic book industry.”

The stoppage comes as the industry – despite being a pipeline to massive billion-dollar blockbusters – isn’t in great financial health.