Dartmouth new home to Strange Adventures

Something strange moved into downtown Dartmouth last week.

Strange Adventures comic book shop opened its door at 101 Portland St. on Saturday.

This is the third location for the store, with a shop on Sackville Street in Halifax and another in Fredericton.

Store owner Cal Johnston, who lives in Dartmouth, said he thought it would be nice to have a place that he could walk to.

"When I first opened (back in 1992), it was just me and a lot of old comics and toys ... Now, the crew we've got in Halifax run things really well, and I kinda worked myself out of a job. I thought it was about time I tried a new one."

He said he thought Dartmouth was in need of a comic shop.

"I firmly believe every city in the world needs a few more comic book stores. Our biggest problem, that we hear from customers, is that they can't find comics, and making a trek into Halifax means you can get there once a month, maybe. We need to spread out and get more stores going. So, it's kind of like, if you build it they will come, hopefully."

The Dartmouth store will have plenty of vintage items, such as older comics and toys (G.I. Joe, dinky toys, Transformers), along with the new stuff.

"We'll start to alter what we're carrying, depending on what clientele we get. Because of its size, we don't have the entire selection we have in our Halifax or Fredericton store, but we certainly have access to it, so we can get you anything you are looking for. We hope to have a little bit of everything in here."

The store is 600 sq.-ft. and is about a third the size of the Halifax store.

When his shelves are fully stocked, Johnston expects there will be roughly 100,000 comics in the shop.

"We've got about 30,000 comics right now, and we've got more to come."

He said adding to the convenience of the downtown Dartmouth location on Portland Street is having the library, the ferry terminal, and bus terminal nearby.

"There's a lot of vibrancy to the downtown and lot of people walking by, so we hope to be a stop on their commute," he said. "A good portion of our clientele are kids, and we want them to be able to walk here."

A comic book fan since the age of five, Johnston said when it comes to his personal favourites, he follows specific authors rather than favourite characters.

"If you have a favourite character, in the hands of a bad writer, you don't like that character anymore. So I like to follow guys like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Robert Kirkman (Invincible)."

He said the message he wants to get across to people is simple: Read more comics.

"It doesn't matter where you get them, if you get them at your school, your library, your grocery store, my store, or anyone's store, I don't care ... just read more comics. Rising tide floats all boats."

The Dartmouth Strange Adventures comic book shop is open Thursday to Saturday from noon to 6 p.m.

lmckay@hfxnews.ca

sTRANGE FACTS

Some of Strange Adventures most popular comics include:

American Vampire (co-written by Scott Snyder and Stephen King)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (story continuation of the popular television series)

Bone (written by Jeff Smith)