Comic Ink's on "Amazing Spider-Man" Cover This Week

Jim and Derek Strachan and the store they bought almost a year ago will star alongside a superhero on the cover of “Amazing Spider-Man,” to be released Wednesday. The father-and-son owners of Comic Ink in Dublin will be featured in a photo of the storefront with the hero, who kicks off a new story arc in the issue.

Comic Ink is one of about 100 comic shops across the nation taking part in the special promotion that allows each participating store their own cover with Spider-Man, Derek said.

"It was a cool opportunity to put the store on a comic book cover," he said.

Comic Ink also will be celebrating its first anniversary under Strachan ownership on Aug. 15.  Jim recalled his son coming to him with the idea to buy the business from the previous owner, who was considering retirement: “Derek said there’s this great opportunity to buy the comic shop and keep it going."

The digital age is changing the face of comics, Derek said, and the shop plans to offer digital copies for 99 cents soon along with traditional comic books. That way, enjoyment of the medium can spread online and onto digital readers.

“Comics are a lot more diverse now, there’s a lot more than superheroes,” said Derek, adding that most TV shows have a comic spin-off.

And for Jim, buying the business with his son has given them the chance to catch up with where the comics industry is going.

“I went to C2E2 and it was really great,” Jim said of the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo in spring. “I enjoyed it because it was a learning experience.”

Derek spent several days last week at San Diego’s Comic-Con, another pop-culture event that draws more than 100,000 people. There, Derek said, excitement about comics is about the books themselves and their characters who appear on the silver screen.

This summer has seen several new successful film franchises born out of comic book characters.  This past weekend “Captain America: The First Avenger”  was released. In June, it was “Green Lantern,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and “X-Men: First Class.”  The month before that was “Thor.”

Next year could be even bigger, Derek said, with the release of more blockbusters: the end of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films, a restart of the onscreen Spider-Man franchise, and the first Avengers movie, which ties together characters from Iron Man, Thor and other Marvel films.

But a lot of fans still appreciate the classics, Derek said, and Comic Ink has tried to reintroduce old characters to a new generation of comic fans.

“We’ve made the shop a lot more kid-friendly,” he said. “A lot of the stuff from when I was a kid, like Archie, has grown up and is still going.”