Subculture opens on comic book shop

Dave Cleveland and Joe Watts have about 20 years combined experience selling comic books. In July they opened their own shop, Subculture, at 3110-X, Sutton Boulevard.

They both have worked at the Fantasy Shop comic book store in Maplewood, and Cleveland said even then, he thought it would be cool to have his own store. “You see things you might want to do differently,” he said.

He said he’s pretty sure the impetus for finally going ahead with it was Watts saying, ‘OK, lets do this.’

“I was bored,” Watts said. “I called Dave after I took my motorcycle apart and got to a point where, well, I need something else to do, because everything was on hold (paint was drying) — one thing led to another, and a couple weeks later we were getting our Diamond account.” Diamond is the comic book publisher.

Watts makes mattresses at Mattresses Wholesale in Maplewood and was aware of an unused office space in the front of the business. He asked his boss about it and they got the OK to lease it.

Their angle is to focus on local artists as well as selling comics. Cleveland said when he worked at the Fantasy Shop, sometimes a customer asked what was playing on the radio. “Seemed like to me there was a natural connection between comics and pop art and pop music. St. Louis has a lot of solid bands and I always thought it would be cool to promote local music alongside.”

They carry posters for concerts at local venues, t-shirts, and other music-related merchandise. One thing in the shop is a lanyard Watt’s uncle made while in the VA hospital. He was recently released.

Cleveland said they know a lot of people involved in the creative process. “Joe has enough tattoos that you can tell that he has a pretty good relationship with tattoo artists.”

They don’t have room for back issues. Cleveland said he has more comics at home than the Maplewood Fantasy Shop has on display. They’d eventually like to move into a bigger space — hopefully in Maplewood. They said super heroes is the biggest comic book genre, but they also carry, “slice-of-life,” supernatural, horror, sci-fi, magical realism and all-ages fantasy.

Who would win in Superman vs. Batman?

“I would say 99 percent of the time it would be Superman,” Cleveland said. “Ever since Frank Miller wrote the Dark Knight Returns every Batman fan thinks he can just kick Superman’s a—. Who wins in a fight mostly depends on who the writer is and who they want to win.”

“Or if Batman remembered his Kryptonite,” Watts said.

“I’m not trying to short sell Batman short, but he’s not a super power person,” Cleveland said. “If Batman wins, it will be with the world’s biggest asterisk.”

Subculture is open Wednesday and Friday 6 – 10 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. They’re trying to expand their hours as time allows.

Get the 40 South News daily email newsletter.