The shelves are a disgrace!

[Lew Stringer]

Funnily enough I've just been into my local Smiths and the shelves were just being tidied up by an older member of staff. This time all the comic's logos were prominent, although the new Beano had been put behind BeanoMAX again.

There's still a lot of comics on the 6ft high top shelf though due to them stocking comics alphabetically, so Beano, BeanoMAX, Battle, Dandy, Commando, Classics Illustrated, Doctor Who Adventures, Disney Girl, and some others are all crammed into one shelf. No idea why they can't spread them out more, as the lower shelves have less titles, but perhaps once again it's due to how much publishers pay for space.

(For some reason The Simpsons is also on that top shelf. Perhaps they automatically think "Bart Simpson" so rack it with the 'B's.)

Lew

[Jonny Whizz]

(Tongue in cheek) There should be more comics with names beginning with letters later in the alphabet - Whizzer (& Chips) and also Topper weren't bad in this respect - but I'm sure the kids would buy a comic with an X, Y or Z in their name (Not counting Dandy XTREME), as long as they were decent comics of course!

[Digifiend]

On that logic, Jetix Magazine would be better off reverting to it's original name Wickid instead of rebranding as Nitro! After all, W is later in the alphabet than J or N.

[Old Freddy]

The stuff in shelves is often messy where I live. The other day, when I bought the Beano and the Dandy at Tesco, There was one or two Comics on the floor, The Thomas comic was placed so each copy was facing the wrong way! A copy of the dandy was actually leaning over the rack of Beano's, so it was in the wrong rack in the shelf. Since it was quite near the back it was probably placed there by a rather dim staff member.

[SOS]

as most comics are bagged these days they could stamp a hole in the top and hang them off pegs like other stuff in shops??

[Lew Stringer]

as most comics are bagged these days they could stamp a hole in the top and hang them off pegs like other stuff in shops??

That is in fact a brilliant idea. Problem is it would mean each title having its own space, rather than overlapping other comics as happens now. That'd mean shops wanting more money to display them, which I doubt publishers would / could afford.

But if that could be overcome, your suggestion is actually ideal as it'd make each comic stand out and the display would be tidier.

Lew (who remembers the days of comics being folded in half and pegged out on wire racks by the newsagent's door).

[Digifiend]

Heh, I've only seen them displayed like that in photographs. How times change. I've seen newspapers displayed that way though.

[Earl]

Being an OCD sort I often try and tidy the comics section in my local smiths if only for a few seconds (so no one notices)

[felneymike]

Actually i have seen a couple of pictures from the story-paper days when "comics" were bought from a bearded man standing in the street holding a bundle of assorted publications in one arm and pocketing your penny with the other. They must have been masters of juggling things about if they also wanted to display all the logos.

Of course, this must have produced a problem not encountered very often today - if you didn't buy something on the day it came out (or even if you did) it will have suffered exposure to rain/wind/direct sunlight for a consierable time.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

In the 'old days' ie: the 60s and 70s, comics were usually laid flat on a massive newsagent's counter.....you couldn't go wrong with that scenario. 'Gentlemen's magazines' were sometimes displayed on rotating displays, and often [high up] in shop windows. Everything in today's displays regarding comics and mags is sterile and inhuman: inevitable, as everything is geared to 'maximizing profits' etc.

It's not just comics that seem 'prepackaged' by soulless robots: in the old days, you could smell loose sweets in the shops, [no celophane] one of the overpowering memories of that era......I was over in Latin America earlier this year, and was pleasantly surprized to see their shops and newsagents had similar sights and smells of the old-style UK shops, joys which exist only in the memories of many in the UK today.

[philcom55]

In the 'old days' ie: the 60s and 70s, comics were usually laid flat on a massive newsagent's counter.....you couldn't go wrong with that scenario.

Ah yes! I can still remember my newsagent's trestle table groaning under the weight of about fifty pristine copies of TV Century 21 Number One - each with its own 'Free Top Secret Code Book' inside! I wonder how much they'd be worth today...?

- Phil Rushton

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Even to buy FIFTY back then would have set you back only 2 or 3 quid, Phil!

One of the benefits if time-travel ever becomes a reality, I'll wager......


----I also can't remember ever being able to look through a comic annual in the newsagentsof the 60s/70s......never once. The yearly books were mysterious objects of desire, seen only in tantalizing displays in newsagents windows, or high up on interior shelves. Y ou couldn't just pick them up and look through them as easily as you can today they just weren't accessible ...at least not in 'these 'ere parts'.......

[philcom55]

The yearly books were mysterious objects of desire, seen only in tantalizing displays in newsagents windows, or high up on interior shelves.

Yes! My newsagent had virtually all that year's Annuals displayed high on a shelf that ran right around the shop. I used to stand in a daze for hours at a time, looking upwards just as rapturously as visitors to the Vatican gaze at the roof of the Sistine Chapel!

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

I also can't remember ever being able to look through a comic annual in the newsagentsof the 60s/70s......never once. The yearly books were mysterious objects of desire, seen only in tantalizing displays in newsagents windows, or high up on interior shelves. Y ou couldn't just pick them up and look through them as easily as you can today they just weren't accessible

This was also true for the comics and story papers, certainly from the late Forties to the end of the Fifties, when I was buying mine. I'm sure it never ocurred to children to ask the newsagent if they could look at the comic before deciding whether or not to buy it. The decision as to whether you bought The Rover on your way to school or an ice lolly on your way home was taken before you got anywhere near the shop. If the comic won out, all you then did was hand over your twopence or threepence and come out with your comic. Broadly speaking, you knew what was in it anyway. The wide counter that ISPY refers to actually sloped towards the customer because that allowed him to see the newspapers and comics more easily. The comics, as he says, were laid flat, but it is worth remembering that once the publishers began to issue free gifts again after the war, the comics could not have been stacked as they are now because the gifts would have fallen out. The sloping shelf was the norm too for bookstalls on bus and railway stations. I think there is still at least one at Crewe. I find newsagents depressing these days. For the most part the counter is a tiny bit of plastic or formica, barely big enough to put your newspaper on to be scanned, at the base of a kind of cubby hole, a bit like a city centre kiosk selling little more than tobacco and newspapers. The opening is surrounded by items such as Doritos, large bottles of Coca Cola and chocolate bars etc., placed there by the management to tempt customers into making impulse buys. As for the smells in the old newsagents, ISPY, I can evoke them now if I try really hard. It is still possible to find shops selling sweets from those big jars, there's one in Falmouth and another up Steep Hill in Lincoln. They are popular so a comeback may be on the cards but the smell in the old newsagents wasn't just of sweets, it contained fresh pipe tobacco and that emanating from the masses of newsprint as well.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Erin More tobacco [hope I've spelt that properly!] smelt brilliant, I thought, Phoenix! A good point you made on the large newsagent's counter built so it tilted towards the customer: a good, simple but effective idea, all that is needed, really, unlike today's cynical marketing ploys [details available on request]......

I go to the cinema regularly, and I finally tumbled that the auditorium is designed so that the floor tilts slightly downwards towards the screen....so most punters can get a decent view of the film [the same basic idea as the sloping comics bench, but in reverse!]