Photo courtesy of Yelp.
Yesterday, I decided to take one of my customary strolls through the borough of Queens, home to StarWarp Concepts and teen monster hunter Pandotra Zwieback. After lacing up my walking boots, I headed off from the ’Warp offices in Sunnyside and wandered west, into neighboring Long Island City and Astoria. My feet eventually led me along 31st Street, in the shadow of the elevated train tracks for the N and Q lines, all the way down to the Ditmars-Astoria station, where I found Silver Age Comics, a comic book store tucked inside a micro-mall connected to the station.
Having never been in there before, I decided to check it out, and found it to be a pleasant place stocked with the latest comics and graphic novels; if I’d had any money to spend, I probably would have bought something (he said sheepishly). But then my eye went to a bookcase by the front door, filled with graphic novels and marked with a sign: Small Press. Hmmm… They couldn’t have anything of mine in stock, could they—like, maybe, the critically acclaimed graphic novel, Lorelei: Sects and the City, could they? I had to find out!
Turns out Sects wasn’t there, but they did have a copy of Lorelei: Building the Perfect Beast, Vol. 1, published by SWC in 2005 (our first graphic novel!). Written by me (of course) and illustrated by David C. Matthews (Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa, Satin Steele), it was a collection of the 1990s Lorelei series and covered the first half of her origin story (one of these days, I’ll have to consider finishing that up). Still, it’s always a pleasant surprise to find a StarWarp title in a comic shop—it shows that store owners really are aware of our efforts to turn out great projects. Thanks for the confidence booster, Silver Age!
Silver Age Comics is located at 22-55 31th Street, in Astoria—and FYI for Queens comic book fans: since the 2013 closure of Comic Book Heaven in Sunnyside, it’s now the only comic shop in all of Western Queens. Keep that in mind when you’re looking for your favorite Marvel and DC titles. For more information, visit the Silver Age Comics Facebook page.
