Chicago Comics Best Comic Book Store in Second City

Chicago Comics, located at 3244 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60657 (www.chicagocomics.com), is the best comic book store in the Second City. It's about a 10 minute walk from Wrigley Field. It's close to Boystown. They have a great selection of back issues at competitive prices. In addition to comic books, there are action figures, statues, DVDs, magazines, and T-shirts, among other things. It's always clean. The staff's always polite. What more do you need?

Chicago Comics is in a hip part of Chicago as evidenced by its neighbors. Surrounded by head-shops, tobacco shops, sushi restaurants, tattoo parlors, and art galleries, the location adds credibility to collecting.

When you walk into the store, there's a small collection of kid-friendly comics to the right. If you're not familiar with the modern comic book, you may wrongly assume everything in the store is kid-friendly. It's not. There are sexually explicit comic books for heterosexuals and homosexuals.

The line-up of comic books on the left-side wall is all of the current books from just about every comic book publisher. DC Comics and Marvel definitely form the crux of the comic related items in the store but they don't represent everything. There are lots of independent comics. Even local artists are represented with self-published works.

Most of the action figures are on a table that sits in front of the cashier.

Behind the cashier, the more expensive back-issues of comic books are hung on the wall. Early Marvels and rare Silver Age DCs mainly.

Hung up all over the top of the store are comic book related T-shirts principally featuring DC and Marvel characters.

In the rear of the store are the more expensive and breakable collectibles such as porcelain statues; posters; the more sexually explicit books; and, of course, lots and lots of back-issues.

The store has a service for subscribers who want to be sure of receiving all the new books they want. New comic books arrive at the store - as they do at most all comic book stores - every Wednesday. On most legal holidays, new comics arrive a day late on Thursday. Some comic book stores offer a discount of 10%-20% for new comics purchased by subscribers. Unfortunately, this is the one thing Chicago Comics doesn't do (though I'm told they used to).

My experiences at Chicago Comics have been very positive. I've been a customer there for four years. Beforehand, I lived in suburban Maryland and shopped at the same store - Big Planet in Bethesda - for 15 years. After shopping at the same place for that long, I was a bit reticent about shopping at a new store. Given that I'm usually at the comic book store once a week for new comics like a good geek, the reliability and friendliness of the staff were paramount. I am a subscriber so most of my new books are in a folder waiting for me when I arrive. I can't remember the last time that they didn't have a new book in my folder that I wanted.

Chicago Comics is a great store - the greatest in Chicago. They'd be the greatest on Earth if they discounted new books for subscribers.

Chicago Comics is open Monday through Thursday from Noon to 8:00 PM; Friday from 10:00 PM; Saturday from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM; and Sunday from Noon to 6:00 PM.