Comics and More: King of Prussia store closing/kiosk opening January 2011

This was kind of a sad Wednesday for me as my local comic shop will be closing its doors next week. King of Prussia, PA’s Comics and More isn’t closing for business per se, they’re just being displaced from the mall storefront that they’ve occupied for fifteen years. For the foreseeable future, the store will operate out of a mall kiosk until they can secure a new location.

This is all fallout from the closing of a Macy’s location after their purchase of Strawbridge and Clothier in 2006. Macy’s operated with two locations in the King of Prussia Mall until closing the former Strawbridge’s in 2007. The empty Macy’s location is between the comic shop (and a hallway full of other businesses) and a multilevel parking structure, all of which is scheduled for demolition and renovation. The difficult part for Comics and More is that the mall could not provide new location during the construction.

The confusing part of this to me is that this is happening despite the long history Comics and More has had with the King of Prussia Mall. I’ve been shopping at Comics and More for over fifteen years and they’ve been in the mall (in two different locations) for almost twenty. The store is a staple of the retail mecca and I can’t believe they wouldn’t want to keep that kind of tenant. I have high hopes that they’ll find a new home somewhere in the complex, but this transition is going to be difficult.

Comics and More King of Prussia is having a massive sale to clear the shelves and everything aside from new books is buy-one-get-one-free. All backissues under $10 are only $1, with backissues over $10 falling under the buy-one-get-one-free deal. If you’re in the area stop in, pick something up and support them as they move into this new phase of their existence (news of the sale even made it to Bleeding Cool‘s website and they’re not anywhere near local). Thinking back, the store was preparing to close a year ago, but this time it’s for real.

I’ll be there next week to get my books as always and scope out where exactly I’ll be going in the mall after that. It will be strange after going to that spot week after week to shop (and work at one time) for so long. If you’re a customer, be sure to update your pullist because comic books make for a difficult enough business to order and predict without this kind of transition. The Comics and More in Plymouth Meeting, PA will continue business as usual if anyone should want to transition to that location. I have to say, as difficult as it might be to operate a comic shop out of kiosk, the prospect of buying my books from a newsstand is pretty cool.