Comic Shop Review: Velocity Comics Richmond, VA

Travelling to Richmond for work I had the privilege to stop in at Velocity Comics on W Broad St in Richmond. Close to VCU campus this well stocked shop was a pleasure to visit. 

A clean, well lighted place.

Clean and  well lit the Velocity Comics is an easy store to shop in. The new comics are well ordered and there are a good number of recent back issues still on the wall if you are missing a title here and there. The ordering is a little confusing. There is the usual Marvel, DC, & "Independents" division of books, but the idie publishers are also divided, or at least Image is, but Dark Horse and some others aren't. Finding books from those sections took a little extra time, but that is just more time for me to look at usually missed indy books so that is ok with me.

New comics also have their own place on the back wall, but that was a little oddly stocked too. Some new books like say, Secret Wars main title had all of the current issues out there, but others like, Batman had only the most recent while the previous months were in order with the other DC recent back issues.  I'm used to comic shops having their own ordering system, and lord knows publishers relaunching multiple #1's of similarly titled books have not made things easier, but a comics neophyte or causal shopper may be confused by this.

One thing not confusing at Velocity is the number of trades available, and not the standard fare of Marvel & DC reprints, but legit original content graphic novels. I'm not a big OGN buyer, but I have my likes, Charles Burns stuff, Matt Kindt's books usually catch my attention, and the recent Hip Hop Family Tree books have made it to my shelves.

Velocity had this stuff and more, lots more. Good books, ones that this capes and tights comic fan is sometimes embarrassed that he doesn't know more about. I was struck by the variety of books on display and just scanning them lots of titles caught my eye. If my wallet was bigger I would have lugged many more books home that day.

 Also if I hadn't gotten into conversation with the affable store owner, Patrick, I would have browsed around even more. Despite being in the middle of Tuesday's new comic sorting, Patrick and his partner took the time to help me find things, and entertained my sometimes odd questions about the shop and business. Good customer service is very much appreciated. As a matter of fact I got not only good customer service, I got a couple of really good favors.

First, I have been looking for a first print of Secret Wars 2 for a while, but I don't want to pay more than $10. Patrick told me he had a copy, if I came back the next day he'd have it. Later that night while checking my purchases against my pull list I found I had doubled up on a couple of titles. The next day when I went back by Velocity, not only did Patrick have a first print of Secret Wars #2 which he sold to me at cover, despite being a variant, he also let me swap out my three doubles for the correct issues!!! All that for a non-regular customer.

Velocity is a great store. Clean, well lit, & very well run. The focus is on comics, and the variety is very good. Not a huge back issue stock, but there were dollar bins, which is always good. The new books are well treated and the shelves are well stocked. You can tell Patrick not only likes comics, but likes running a comic book store. I'll be back again next time I'm in Richmond.