I take pride in my store....obviously. But I work in a bit of a vacuum. I don't get to see other stores, except through pictures, very often. I rarely get away, and when we are in other towns, it's hard to get my wife to go with me. She always jokes that I'll announce before I go in, "I don't think I'll tell them I own a shop." And then almost immediately proclaim, "I own a comic shop, too!"

While I was away on the coast, we had a visit from Brett Warnock of Top Shelf publishers. I think of Top Shelf as one of the 'prestige' publishers, along with Fantagraphics and Alternative Press and Oni Press, putting out high quality independent comics and graphic novels. BLANKETS by Craig Thompson, and LOST GIRLS, by Alan Moore are a couple of their titles.

So I checked their website, and found the following review of my store.



• Was on a four-day holiday this last weekend in Bend, and i made time to visit what i believe to be their only real comics shop, Pegasus Books, owned and operated by Duncan McGeary. To be honest, for a small town comics shop, i wasn't holding my breath for anything spectacular. Oh how very wrong i was. This is a truly excellent comics shop, and one that actually competes with the best that Portland has to offer.

While it's a little cramped, the space is used wisely, and the layout couldn't be better. The first section you see when you walk in the door, is real-world genre art and reference books for Fantasy, Film-Noir, Crime Fiction, Sci-fi, etc. But what makes this section brilliant is how he segues these genres into the like-minded material available in comics. So the horror section becomes the horror comics section.

Also right there at the front of the shop is the kid's section. A no-brainer, i think, but i'm amazed at how many comics shops give kids (only the freaking FUTURE of the industry), short shrift.

I was really impressed, and showed my enthusiasm by dropping some serious dough there, picking up the following: the new issue of Wizard; a Marvel Adventures Avengers ashcan, written by rising start Jeff Parker; the out-of-print Thor: Vikings, by Garth Ennis (which i read while The Kid was napping, and LOVED it!!); also by Garth Ennis, the first tpb of Boys, with art by Darick Robertson; a totally impossible to find Spanish language collection in the Todo Max series, El Canto Del Gallo, by world class cartoonist (and super nice guy) Max; and finally, an art book called The Paperback Art of James Avanti.

The paperback artist field is one i'm relatively new to (having only recently "discovered" the incredible Robert McGinnis), and this book is outstanding. Commercial artists like Avanti and McGinnis should be as widely recognized as stalwarts like Rockwell, and maybe, with rich books like these, someday it may happen.

Anyway, if you find yourself in Bend, Oregon for a little R&R, yuo could do worse than to visit this fine store, at 105 Minnesota Avenue. Duncan also writes a fun blog.



I was really pleased that he got my attempt to blend mainstream material with comic material.

When I was on the coast, I visited Amazing Stories in Astoria. A clean, bright, orderly shop, half games, half comics. Mostly limited to the front of the catelog, Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse. I tried to talk to the owner, and he was friendly enough, but not very revealing.

I'm a glutton for talk about my business, and I'm usually disappointed by how rarely owners want to talk. Linda says, "They're taking care of customers...." But I think, if the customer is a regular, they could say something along the lines of, "I rarely get a chance to talk business, so just let me know when you're ready, but meanwhile I'm going to pump this guy for info." Anyway, that's what I do. Sometimes the things I learn will help my business for years and years, which is worth missing a small sale here and there. But I think it's more the nature of small business owners to reveal as little as possible.

I think I've got a good store. Better than good. A diamond in the desert. I get plenty of compliments from tourists, to which I joke, "Tell the locals. They don't know what they got." Which is true, in a way. There is a benefit from being around for 27 years; we've accumulated more than your average store, even in big cities.

Anyway, I rarely get visits from professionals. I had a visit from one of the guys on the Game Industry Forum, and I had a impression he actually didn't even like my store, possibly because he was expected a 'game' store -- and games are a sideline.

I had one visit from one of the guys from the Comic Book Industry Alliance, and I waited for him to post a reaction, but he never did.

I've never been visited by a rep from Diamond; or most of my other suppliers. Bend is a destination area, not a place people just pass through and check the comic shop.

But that reaction, "Hey, this is a way more complete store than I expected," is what I'm shooting for.