Cloud City Comics and Toys is located in ShoppingTown Mall — a complex that’s seen better days. Through the main entrance and up the elevator, the food court is empty, storefronts are boarded up. There’s a playground at the far end, a Chinese restaurant and then the comic book store to the left.

There’s nothing across or to its right it. But inside, business is steady. A yellow, neon Batman symbol illuminates the storefront window. A cardboard cutout of The Hulk greets visitors as they walk in.

Look up, there’s a panel of clouds, blue and white. This is Cloud City Comics and Toys, named after the Bespin floating city in “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back,” owner Jeff Watkins’ favorite movie.

 

This is only the entrance to Cloud City, which is a ten-minute drive from Syracuse University. The store features comics, cards and other collectables and is one of only a handful of comic book stores in the area. National Comic Book day is Sept. 25.

Standing behind the store counter are two men, Joshua Grutzik, the general manager, and Jake Chapin, subscription manager, or “nerd Sherpa,” as he calls himself with a chuckle. His brown-to-clear gradient glasses slip down his nose in rhythm with his laugh.

A few steps to his right, Grutzik takes stock of comic books new to the store, inputting titles into an iPad system.

“Don’t forget the dash between ‘Spider’ and ‘man’,” Chapin said.

Grutzik responds with a grunt and a shake of the head, because he always forgets, he said.

“It’s very important,” Chapin said as he nods at a customer across the counter. “It throws everything off if there’s no dash.”

“It takes moxie to work here,” Grutzik said, now sitting at a long, black table where “Magic: The Gathering” tournaments are played every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6 p.m.

 

A 30-year collector himself, both he and Watkins grew up around comic book culture. As a child, Grutzik’s mother’s best friend from high school was a collector and would babysit him and his brother. He read his first comic in 1984.

Some of the comics he owns now are from that collection, the one his mother alphabetized while she was in high school. He’s proud of his runs, the number of comics he found consecutively in a row: volume one of “Teen Titans,” “Aquaman” and “Batman,” to name a few.

“It’s American pop art,” Grutzik said. “It’s something that is solely American. Right along with, I guess, jazz and hamburgers. It’s just really an American thing, comic books are.”

Chapin, on the other hand, got into comic books later in life. His first two comic book purchases were “Batman” by Scott Snyder and “Thor” by Jason Aaron, back when he was a customer at Cloud City.

“They’re both beautifully written and beautifully drawn books,” he said. “It’s a merging of literature and art; a delicate balance of the art and the writing. They’re what really drew me into comic books.”

It’s this background knowledge that’s necessary for a comic book store employee, Grutzik said. The workers not only man the counter, they act as tournament hosts, liaisons and companions. They strive to fulfill the store motto, “We don’t have customers. We have friends.”

One friend is Adam Bretsch, who has been going to Cloud City since it opened seven years ago. He just got off work as an X-ray technician and is shuffling through a box on a table next to the toy section. In the case next to him are plastic Star Wars figures that anyone can play with, including the Millennium Falcon.

A Star Wars collector since he was a child, Bretsch’s most prized possessions are his 1977 original figurines that his mother bought him. Everything else, he looks for in the store.

Outside of Cloud City, Chapin and Grutzik’s knowledge of comic book culture runs deep. At conventions, Grutzik is known to be the most vocal man in the room, and as a substitute teacher, Chapin strives to help young readers.

“A lot of kids say ‘Oh, I don’t like to read, words are too much,’” he said. “But look, here’s a book that takes half of that away from me and I can just see the pictures and read the stories and that, that takes a step to future literacy.”

 

Back behind the counter, a zombie bust created by Greg Nicotero, the head make-up artist of AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead,’ named Walter sits on a shelf. It’s number 12 of 25 in the world, brought to the store by a friend who won it in a raffle. Grutzik slides books into small openings on a brown shelf that resembles a letterbox. A customer on the other side said one word: “more.”

“More,” Grutzik said. “You want more?”

“He wants more,” Chapin responds.

“So give him more,” Grutzik said with a swish of the arm.

Chapin pulls out another box of cards and places it on the counter.

“It’s like we’re all on this ship together,” Grutzik said. “We each have a part of the road ahead and we’ll constantly add new pieces to the puzzle. Here, we treat everyone as equals. At Cloud City, we don’t have customers, they’re all our friends.”

Published on September 23, 2015 at 10:42 pm

Contact: kasotelo@syr.edu