Twenty years ago last weekend, DC Comics killed Superman in what would, for many readers, be the event to end all events.The burgeoning speculator market of the 1990s grabbed hold of the Super-mania that came during and after that story, and among other things, a number of new comic book retailers opened up, suddenly confident that they could make a living off the millions of fans streaming into their local stores looking for black-bagged gold.One such retailer was Arlene Spizman, the owner of The Comic Shop in Oswego, New York. Spizman turned her antique shop into a comic book store in October 1992 after seeing interest in comics spike around the time the Death of Superman and other big gimmick stories were announced.Oswego is a smallish city in north-central New York, defined principally by cold weather and a state university. It is, however, isolated enough to from the rest of the area (the closest shopping outside of the city limits is about 15-30 minutes away) to support its own miniature economy, with two supermarkets, a comic book store, an independent cinema, a Wal-Mart and dozens of bars and restaurants catering to the college crowd.I was part of that crowd once, and Spizman’s store remains my all-time favorite comics retailer; once a year or so, when visiting Oswego County for the Sterling Renaissance Festival, I manage to swing by…and sometimes I get a double-dose of Arlene and her friendly staff when I run into one or more of them at the New York Comic Con. So this is hardly an unbiased examination of Arlene’s business…but it’s worth noting that a store started during the height of the speculator craze, and run by someone who didn’t know anything about comics at the time (the content OR the business), has managed to stay afloat in spite of changing times and tastes.
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