Daily Crosshatch photo
Rocketship the 5 year old comic book store at 208 Smith Street closed for good today. Owner Alex Cox made a simple business decision according to The Daily Crosshatch:
“Our lease came up,” Cox tells me, “and we realized that we were either going to do this another five to 10 years, at which point it becomes a CAREER, in big letters, or not sign on again and do something different. That’s basically it. Of course, there are a thousand variables in there, all of which would be very boring and involved. In the end, the store was great to do for five years, but not something we wanted to be doing until we retired. So it was time to move on.”
Were you a regular at Rocketship? Are comics still relevant?
(via NYP and Brownstoner)
The whole “we’re an indie & art GRAPHIC NOVEL store” didn’t really endear me; good comics are good comics whether they have a dude in a cape or not.
Comics? Relevant? Check the movie listings.
I loved this place. It’s a real shame to see it go.
mordicai, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Yes, the specialized in collections instead of single issues, but they had a *ton* of superhero stuff (nearly half the store).
What a shame. Another local hang-out bites the dust.
Yes that was store with a soul, an original place.
Will be missed
So sad to see this place go. Rocketship was a great source for local comics and graphic novels. Sad!
terrible. that place was awesome.
Poor customer service, snobby cashiers, snooty attitude, poor organization that made it hard to find anything, not too much of a surprise it had to go. I don’t believe the story about the lease.
@Kyle, I don’t think you are talking about the same store as everybody else. I’m not a big reader of comics, but went in there a few times over the years. Not a single one of your complaints matched the experiences I had. GFY.
I was there the night JASON stopped by to sign his books. It was amazing. I’ve always had a nice experience in the shop. Sad to see it go.
That sucks. A nice clean place to look at comics that didn’t feature the obese, tattoo’d cliche employees or total disarray of St Marks Comics. It was a nice alternative. Sorry that they didn’t feel it was worth doing anymore. Nice that they can just change course. How do I do that?