Mason West Emerald
7-year-old gamer Spencer Latarsky looks for new Pokemon cards to add to his collection.
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■ Emerald City Comics offers
amusement to gamers,
collectors, anime fans and
entertainment-seekers alike
By Mason West
Oregon Daily Emerald
Eugene’s Emerald City Comics
has stayed alive for 28 years in an
industry that is constantly losing
customers.
Manager Stuart Bracken has been
there for 15 of those years and is al
most wholly responsible for the
store’s current survival. He has seen
the comic industry lose customers
to more technological advanced
media, and he has diversified his
store to keep it afloat.
Emerald City Comics carries card
games such as Magic: The Gather
ing and Pokemon. Bracken’s store
also specializes in Japanese comics
and animation, known as manga
and anime. Emerald City Comics
has the largest collection of anime
videos for rent in the state. The
videos account for more than
around $1,000 in revenue a month
from just $1.50 for a two-day rental.
Rachel Turpin discovered anime
about three months ago and now
goes to Emerald City three times a
week to rent videos.
“This is one of the best places I’ve
seen,” Turpin said.
On top of the store’s rentals and
merchandise, it hosts monthly
events open to the community. The
first Sunday of the month there are
game demos from 1 to 6 p.m. The
Willamette Valley Anime Society
meets from 7 to 9 p.m the second
and fourth Fridays of the month.
And Magic gamers can play in an
unofficial league every Monday
from 6 to 9 p.m. These events attract
some extra business, but they are
more of a service to the communi
ty
These services reflect Bracken’s
desire to see comics and the store’s
other goods as entertainment. He
blames the collectable mentality
that surrounds comics for their
downturn in popularity. Bracken
said publishers use fancy covers
and paper to entice readers into
thinking that an issue will be worth
something; issues will be released
with a “#1” on the cover for the
same reason. But all this glamour
only lasts so long before people be
come disinterested.
You start at 12 and
stop when you discover
cars or girls.
Stuart Bracken
manager
Emerald City Comics
“The life expectancy of a fan is
about five years,” Bracken said.
“You start at 12 and stop when you
discover cars or girls. ”
Bracken was quick to point out
some “#1” issues from Valiant
comics that were released seven
years ago. Two years after those
comics were bought for $2, they
were selling for more than $40.
Now he has them on display for $5 a
piece.
The only comics that are valu
able, Bracken said, are the comics
published before 1970, when they
were sold at the supermarket for a
quarter. Back then, people would
buy their comics and throw them
away after reading them or tear out
the ad pages. Consequently, there
aren’t many remaining in good con
dition.
The owner of Emerald City
Comics, Darrell Grimes, paid
$6,000 at auction for an issue of Ac
tion Comics “#1,” the first appear
ance of Superman. It’s currently
worth around $40,000.
But here is the oddest of odd cas
es. Brooke Woolfson, a comic col
lector, doesn’t do it for money. She
actually sold back a number of her
old issues at a nickel apiece just to
get extra cash to catch up on one
some missed issues of another
series.
“It’s really nice to have a hobby
that you can follow up on,” Woolf
son said. “It’s fun to go look for the
old back issues.”
Back issues are not always that
hard to find. Emerald City has col
lected more than 150,000 through
out the years.
One of the big risks of owning a
comic shop is that anything that
doesn’t sell is the store’s problem.
Bracken’s job is not unlike that of a
stock broker. He considers factors
about a comic, such as its publisher,
artist and writer, and makes a guess
as to how many he will need. The
only safety net he has is made of
more than 200 people who sub
scribe to at least three continuous ti
tles, but there is a lot of gambling in
volved, considering that each
month, Emerald City Comics car
ries more than 300 different comic
titles.
The risk is lessened by walk-in
customers generated from the prox
imity to the University. In addition,
the growing popularity of anime
creates a strong client base for the
store and creates crossover sales
with the manga comic books.
Emerald City Comics is located at
770 E. 13th, inside the Smith Fami
ly Bookstore building. The store is
open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day of
the week except Fridays, when it is
open until 7 p.m.
Emerald City Comics employee Wes Taylor surverys the establishment while pricing newly imported CDs from japan. The store also carries Japanese toys, cards, videos and posters that are hard to find.