Mars Attacks Fan Opens a Comic Book Store in the Eighties
Lodi, California’s Lodi News-Sentinel newspaper shares with us this January 11, 1988 story in which Doug Blevins explains why he has opened a comic book store in town. Out of curiosity I searched the web and soon found the Comic Grapevine Facebook page; the store’s still open!
The setup of the 1988 article has me wondering if the Comic Grapevine is backing the Topps Mars Attacks Kickstarter project. From the article we learn:
Doug Blevins was about 6 years old when he began collecting bubblegum cards called “Mars Attacks.”
And that’s just the article’s opening sentence! After a bit of a backstory/history lesson on the Mars Attacks trading cards the article segues nicely into (the then) present (and focus of the story) with:
Doug Blevins is still collecting the largely forgotten “Mars Attacks” cards 27 years after their initial release. Only now, Blevins is selling them to other collectors (at $10 apiece) at the Comic Grapevine, the store he owns with his wife, Ruth.
This is a great story and it has me wanting to find out: Is the Comic Grapevine still owned by Doug Blevins? If it is, does Blevins know about the Mars Attacks Kickstarter project and is he a supporter? Just how many decades can one person support a trading card series?
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- Help me, Obi-Wan: I’m addicted to Star Wars Card Trader (rjbailey.wordpress.com)