St. Mark's Comics was a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The company opened its first store, at 11 St. Mark's Place, in 1983. For a period, the store had two other locations, one in

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

and one in

Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, an ...

. In late January 2019, St. Mark's Comics announced it would be going out of business at the end of February 2019. On July 30, 2021, St. Mark's Comics re-opened at a new location in Industry City, Brooklyn. The store's St. Mark's Place location was noted for its

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

sensibility and cluttered, over-stuffed decor, and for employing female staff members long before that became the norm in the comics retailing industry. In addition to comics, graphic novels, and manga, St. Mark's Comics sold

trading cards A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other ...

action figures An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually market ...

, toys, T-shirts, and other pop culture collectibles.Pereira, Ivan; Meghan Giannotta
"East Village staple St. Mark's Comics closing after 36 years: The comic shop will hold a closeout sale through February"
''

AM New York ''AM New York Metro'' is a free newspaper, free daily newspaper that is published in New York City by Schneps Media. According to the company, the average Friday circulation in September 2013 was 335,900. When launched on October 10, 2003, ''AM New ...

'' (January 30, 2019).

History

St. Mark's Comics was founded in 1983, and acquired a year later by Mitch CutlerMcBain, Amelia
"New York Institution St. Mark’s Comics Closing After 36 Years,"
''

WNBC WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo station WN ...

''.(January 30, 2019). when he was still in his teens. Cutler founded a second location at 148 Montague Street in

in 1988. That location closed in 2012. The store had another location at 150 Chambers Street in lower Manhattan that closed in 2004 in part due to the after-effects of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. A fire damaged the St. Mark's location and some of its inventory in 2011, but the store was able to recover. In October 2017, St. Mark's Comics launched a

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the be ...

campaign to keep the store open, but it only raised $1,201. On January 29, 2019, Cutler announced that St. Mark's Comics would be closing at the end of February. MacDonald, Heidi
"St. Marks Comics is closing after 36 years – UPDATED with statement"
''

Comics Beat Heidi MacDonald (born November 15) is a writer and editor in the field of comic books based in New York City. She runs the comics industry news blog '' The Beat''. Career MacDonald is a former editor for DC Comics' Vertigo imprint and '' Disney ...

'' (January 29, 2019). Reasons cited by Cutler included 90-hour works weeks, higher rents and a changing marketplace. The announcement prompted tributes from comics creators including

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...

Brian Michael Bendis Brian Michael Bendis (; born August 18, 1967) is an American comic book writer and artist. He has won five Eisner Awards for both his creator-owned work and his work on various Marvel Comics books.Bendis, Brian Michael and Oeming, Michael Avon, ' ...

, and

Dean Haspiel Dean Edmund Haspiel (born May 31, 1967 in New York City) is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his '' American Splendor ...

. On July 30, 2021, St. Mark's Comics re-opened at a new location in

Industry City Industry City (also Bush Terminal) is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the Upper New York Bay waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The northern portion, commonly cal ...

, Brooklyn.

In popular culture

Comics

In issue 12 of

Brian K. Vaughan Brian K. Vaughan (born July 17, 1976) is an American comic book and television writer, best known for the comic book series '' Y: The Last Man'', '' Ex Machina'', '' Runaways'', ''Pride of Baghdad'', ''Saga'', and '' Paper Girls''. Vaughan was a ...

's comics series '' Ex Machina'' #12, the main character, Mitchell Hundred, laments the closing of a beloved comic book store in

following the

, and a friend mentions some real-life comics shops that are still open, including St. Mark's Comics, Jim Hanley's Universe, and

Midtown Comics Midtown Comics is a New York City comic book retailer with three shops in Manhattan and an e-commerce website.Gustines, George Gene (May 8, 2019)"As Comic Book Industry Grows, Smaller Publishers Learn to Adapt" ''The New York Times''.Gustines, Ge ...

Television

*In the season 3 ''Sex and the City'' episode "Hot Child In The City" (2000),

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 1 ...

's character Carrie goes to get her shoe fixed on St. Mark's Place and ends up dating a man who works at a comic book store on the block. Part of the episode is filmed at the actual St. Mark's Comics."Tour the Top 25 'Sex and the City' Locations"
on Fodors.com *In the season 9 episode of ''Friends'' titled "

The One with the Mugging The ninth season of '' Friends'', an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, premiered on NBC on September 26, 2002. ''Friends'' was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. ...

" (2003), it is revealed that

Ross Ross or ROSS may refer to: People * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan * Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland Places * RoSS, the Republic of Sou ...

was mugged outside St. Mark's Comics as a child. He claims to have been there to buy

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book '' Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the ...

comic books, but his sister, Monica, intimates it was

Wonder Woman Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...

References

External links

* {{coord, 40.72945, -73.98899, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title Retail companies established in 1983 Shops in New York City Comics retailers Privately held companies based in New York (state) East Village, Manhattan