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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s . . . the new St. Mark’s Comics — but in Industry City.
The legendary store, which shuttered in February 2019 after 36 years in the East Village, recently reopened in a more roomy and modern space in Brooklyn. The store will feature everything that the old location had — as well as a wider selection of vintage toys and even more comic books.
Co-owner Mitch Cutler bought the comics store in 1984 at just 19. He said he worked 90 hours a week selling books, appraising comics and consulting for publishers and manufacturers.
“I started reading comics as a little kid, and I got a job at a comic shop when I was 15, and then you’re off to the races,” Cutler, 56, told The Post.
St. Mark’s Comics gained worldwide acclaim as one of the country’s premier comic book shops. The store was featured in an episode of “Sex in the City” and still attracts plenty of film enthusiasts and tourists. St. Mark’s Comics also got a shoutout in “Friends” as the place where Phoebe — back in her hardscrabble days — mugged a young Ross when he came to sell his copy of “Science Boy.”
Cutler, a Bronx native, had his “Danny Glover moment” — or the realization that he was burned out — in the months prior to the store’s closing. That, combined with the changing landscape of the East Village even before the pandemic, led him to shutter the store and move to some online sales — after a much-needed two-month break.
“I was exhausted, and then a bunch of the other shops on St. Mark’s went out, and the entire corner of St. Mark’s and Third Avenue was bought and shut down, so that they could put up a giant office building,” said Cutler.
Upon closing the store and selling all its merchandise, Cutler noted that support was through the roof, and people proposed deals for a new location right away, although “none of them turned out to be the right thing.”
According to Cutler, Industry City was a perfect fit. He also entered into a formal partnership with Nick Giangarra, who had been a general manager at the store for years. He said Giangarra had deep contacts in the toy industry and brought both digital and technology experience — all of which, Cutler thought, could bring the latest incarnation of the shop to the next level.
At the new spot at 51 35th St., which had its grand opening on July 30, Cutler hopes to expand inventory beyond the thousands of books already on shelves. Just last week, the store was in talks to acquire a 10,000-book collection, and it bought an assortment of vintage steel cars from the 1930s through the ’70s. Cutler wants to fill up the interior since the space is “enormous, beautiful and clean.”
“One of the beauties of walking in is you never know what you’ll see,” said Cutler. “The stock changes literally every day, because we buy collections literally every day.”
Most of the current merchandise consists of books from the last 30 to 40 years, but Cutler hopes to become more established in the arena of Silver and Golden Age comic books from the 1930s through the ’60s — which are his great passion. The store also has a selection of imported Japanese toys and GI Joe sets in their original boxes.
“Every single guy of a particular age who walks in and sees these original play sets in their original boxes says, ‘I had that as a kid,’ ” he said.
According to Cutler, talking to customers and guiding them through the merchandise has become a “hallmark” of the store — and he’ll go to great lengths to maintain that service.
“There’s a lady who came in much later than she planned on because her international flight landed late, and [my staff] called me at home at 11:30, just as they were locking up, and said, ‘Hey, this lady is here to buy those vintage Spider-Man [comics] for her boyfriend,’ ” Cutler said.
“I got back out on the train in the pouring rain to make sure that she got her books.”
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