Comic Depot opened six years ago along a fairly rural stretch of Route 9N north of Saratoga Springs, NY, and I’ve had a pull list there for nearly as long as they’ve existed. Although my list is small, I rely on the shop for special orders (mostly hardcovers and trades), supplies like bags and boards, and good conversation with the owner, Darren Carrara. Darren recently closed his original location and is focusing his efforts on an expanded site in the Wilton Mall, located in a retail-heavy part of the Saratoga area that is bound to bring him more foot traffic. I took the change as an opportunity to pick his brain about comics retailing in upstate New York and get a feel for his approach to operating the store. — Alan David Doane

Tell me a little bit about how you became interested in comics, and how that led to you opening up your own store.

I have always been a fan of super heroes.  When I was young I remember reading my brothers Conans and Incredible Hulk comics.  But as I grew up I grew away from comics. 

I became reacquainted with comics again in college.  A friend of mine had been an avid collector and our talks about comics sparked my interests again and I found a local shop and began to pick up a few titles.

This same local shop was where I picked up my first large collection of comics.  I was in the store one day and the owner was yelling at someone on the phone about how they screwed up his order, of course this was Diamond.  This was the last straw for him, he asked if I wanted all of the comics in his store?  You bet I did!  He was asking a very reasonable price, so I picked up over 100 long boxes of mostly ’80s and ’90s stuff.  Right place at the right time!

My now wife and then girlfriend, Kristi, and I lugged around this huge collection from Potsdam, NY to Boston, MA.  Then over to Saratoga Springs, NY.  Where it sat for a couple more years till I opened up the Comic Depot!

Comic Depot’s first location was located just a couple of miles outside Saratoga Springs, New York, a summer destination due to its famous racecourse and lively downtown scene. The shop was on a fairly rural stretch of road, in a strip mall that also housed a convenience store, a pizza shop (where I’ve spent a lot of money feeding my family after picking up my comics over the past few years!) and other assorted shops. Tell me how you picked this site, and what benefits and drawbacks you think it had.

My biggest concern was monetary.  I opened up during a retail and real estate boom; retail space was, in my mind, very expensive.  So we had to find a location that was out of the way, to make it more affordable.  It also had to be short term in case it didn’t work out.  And there were a few other stores in the area and I didn’t want to step on their feet.  So we narrowed in on Greenfield, just a few minutes outside of Saratoga Springs.

The best and worst part of Greenfield was the location, very rural.  You had to drive to the store, there was almost no one who could walk there.  But that was also great, it made us a destination store.  Almost no one wandered in who wasn’t into comics and gaming.   It was perfect for our Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, parents could feel comfortable leaving their children for tournaments cause there was nowhere for them to wander off to.

You know my taste in comics is pretty far afield of the typical “comics fan.” I’m not in the store enough to get a sense of how many other customers you have who focus, like me, more on alternative and artcomics than on the weekly superhero fix. Can you thumbnail your clientele for me in terms of what percentage you think are superhero fans versus the rest of what is going on in comics?

I would say 50% are straight up super hero fans, they only get superhero stuff.  And that is the same group who is like to only pick up Marvel or DC comics not both.  Maybe 5% (sorry Alan) are into art comics.  Maybe 10% are collecting everything Stephen King, or stop in to get Amory Wars, or any Rob Zombie book.  So the rest are more of the equal opportunity crowd, they read what is good, like Walking Dead!

How about male/female? What’s the percentage there?

Less than 5% are women, but that number is growing.

What are the best-selling titles you carry?

Amazing Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Walking Dead, lots of X-Titles, Return of Bruce Wayne (mini), Stephen King (Dark Tower, Stand, American Vampire), most of the new Avengers titles.

How do you see the rise of the graphic novel in terms of sales of floppy, single issues? Do you think they both have their place?

They both have a place, the same as digital comics.  They are made for different people who all enjoy different aspects of comics.  Graphic Novels are awesome, you get to read a whole store or story arc in one sitting without waiting six or more months for floppies to come out.  They are also portable and lendable, and less expensive then their floppy counterparts.  But for collectors there is the floppy, the comic book.  Without the floppy the industry ends, in some way or another.   And floppies are also there for those of us too impatient to “wait for the trade.”



What comics are you reading now, and what titles do you consider your all time faves?

Love Walking Dead, love it!  The Sword by the Luna Brothers under the image imprint, awesome, sad it’s over.  Green Lantern, I love Hal Jordan and I loved Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night.  I do love Deadpool too, although I’m not a big fan of everything currently being published.  I like a lot of the stuff from Radical Publishing too, FVZA and Legends the Enchanted was cool.  Lots of good stuff from Avatar too, both past and present.  And Proof from Image, Mulder as Bigfoot=awesome.

All time faves?  Walking Dead, I have reread this more times than anything else.

You have a pretty big focus on role-playing games, tell me what you offer customers interested in that aspect, and how it’s worked out for you.

I have a bunch of RPG books, but most are vintage.  We do much more with Collectible Card Games, like Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!  One of our main focuses is tournaments for those games.  Also the board game market is starting to boom. 

You’ve been very active in the re-emerging Albany-area convention scene (and other, more distant shows as well). Tell me why you think it’s important to be at comic book shows, and what your approach is when you’re behind the booth at a show.

It is a great way to reach your target audience, the most effective marketing tool is to be in a room filled with local people who want to buy your product.  I think of a comic show as a giant Comic Depot advertisement, that’s the business side.

The fanboy side says: they are a ton of fun, no better way to get your geek on then to spend the day with hundreds of people who share your interests and passions.  Lots of great conversations, lots of awesome merchandise, creators, costumes, and at the end of the day if you made money and had that much fun, then what more could you ask for?



About a year ago you opened a second store in the Wilton Mall, just outside Saratoga Springs but much closer to the main regional highway, I-87 (“The Northway”). A few weeks ago you closed the original Greenfield Center shop and moved your entire operation into a second, larger spot in the mall, across from your former mall location. Tell me how your mall presence has evolved since it began, and what led you to decide to put all your eggs in the mall retailing basket, as it were.

Kristi and I wanted to try out a mall spot just for the holiday season.  Comic books are popular again, comic book movies are all over the place with no end in sight.  So we thought it would be a good idea to open up a second location for the holiday season.  But people seemed to really respond to having a comic shop in the mall.  All day long kids beg to come into the store, “Mom please, please” and the sounds of crying if they don’t come in, and grownups swearing out front, “Holy SH*T, it’s Castle Grayskull.  I had that as a kid!”

This location is great it is conveniently located just off of exit 15 of the Northway, which is closer for almost all of our regulars.  And the foot traffic is great.  Granted malls aren’t exactly what they used to be, but a hell of a lot more people walk through the mall than through Greenfield.  Avengers, Captain America, Green Lantern, Deadpool all coming out in the near future, it doesn’t hurt to be close to a movie theater.  And we even had some “movie premiere parties” at Ruby Tuesdays, they were kind enough to stay open an extra hour or two while eager fans such as myself had a beer or two and a complimentary slider while waiting for Iron Man 2 and Kick-Ass opening night.

What changes are you expecting to make with the new, bigger location?

More stuff!  We are always buying great collections of action figures, comics, RPG, Magic cards, posters and who knows what else.  But lots of cool different merchandise is one of the things people can expect to see.  We are also going to try to be better organized with our comic book back issues, that will be a work in progress for a while I’m sure.  The same great customer service!  Bigger and better tournaments for Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh!  More promotions, including sales and hopefully more “movie premieres.”

Photos provided by Darren Carrara. Previous retailer profiles: Modern Myths, Northampton, MA; Comickaze, San Diego, CA; Earthworld Comics, Albany, NY.