Power Comics has set up shop and hung its shingle at 328 Main St. in Conway’s downtown historic district.
The new store is better, brighter and much bigger — 12,000 square feet on two floors — than the old 1,600-square-foot location in a strip mall along Highway 501.
Power Comics owner Brian Nesbitt bought the former Amanda’s Collection bridal store. The bridal business is being sold and has moved temporarily to a location in the Coastal Centre next to Belk in Conway.
“We were outgrowing the (old location). To keep expanding, we needed more room,” explained Power Comics clerk Tiffany Dresser.
Inventory now fills the ground floor, and Nesbitt was on the phone ordering more display cases on Dec. 11, a few days after making the move.
The plan, he said, is to eventually expand the display area onto the second floor, accessed by a wide stairway aligned with the front entrance in the century-old building.
“We’re a work in progress,” Nesbitt explained.
Dresser said the new location should also boost in-store sales. There weren’t a lot of window shoppers at the strip mall, but the downtown location attracts foot traffic from tourists, shoppers and diners.
It’s adding to the holiday rush which includes online sales. “We’re really busy at the holidays,” she said.
If you’re not crazy about comic books — if you think DC stands for direct current and Marvel is a way of admiring something — you still might like Power Comics. It’s not your father’s comic book store.
“Graphic novels, hot toys, manga, statues,” said Dresser, who has worked for the business since it opened in 2015, and is behind the counter ticking off the inventory.
She explained that hot toys are high-quality “fancy, expensive action figures” for collectors. Manga refers to Japanese graphic novels — essentially anime in print — that read from right to left on the page.
Statues are large, highly detailed renditions of comic book characters for hard-core collectors. They sell for $150 and up — way up. There’s also a bargain bin where everything costs a dollar.
And yes, there are comic books. Hundreds of titles and thousands of copies of comic books.
The new releases are racked along a wall inside the entrance, and change weekly. Back issues fill dozens of boxes on tables; valuable vintage comics are safely ensconced under glass in the counter.
Subscribers can have new releases of their chosen titles placed in their own box behind the counter.
Power Comics not only sells comic books and collectibles, it buys them.
“We’re way more fair than Pawn Stars,” Dresser said.