Way, waaaaay back in the very early 1980’s and after a period where I had -*gasp*- given up on comic books, I was in Jacksonville and in High School and reintroduced to the comic book world via a friend at the dorm I was living in.

This could have been around 1983 or 84 and the book that got me back into comics was The Saga of the Swamp Thing #16, the first issue featuring the artwork of Stephen Bissette and John Totleban.

Though I didn’t know it, at that point in time, the book was running on fumes.  Writer Martin Pasko started the series, the second featuring the character of Swamp Thing, an early favorite of mine in its original series created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson.  This new series was kicked off thanks to Wes Craven’s 1982 directed Swamp Thing movie.

But the team of Martin Pasko and Tom Yeates, both quite talented, didn’t set the comic book world on fire and by issue #16 Yeates was gone (though he did continue to do covers, including the one presented above), and Martin Pasko was on his way out too.

By issue #19/20, Martin Pasko was ending his run and a new writer was on his way to take over the series.  Though his first officially written issue was #21, this new writer had worked in conjunction with Mr. Pasko on his final issues which involved the return, for the third time, of Swamp Thing’s nemesis Arcane.

The writer would go on to bigger things.  That writer was Alan Moore.

But those final issues officially written by Martin Pasko and deliciously drawn by Mr. Bissette and Totleban, had my full attention.  I LOVED the character of Arcane and I was breathless to find out what became of him.

When issue #18 or #19 of the series was about to be released, I was away from the boarding school and the local comic shop I frequented up there and searched for a comic book shop in my local environs.  The one I found was a small shop called Starship Enterprises.

I picked up the then latest Swamp Thing issues and looked around for other books I wanted to catch up on.  This period of time was, for me, a new golden age of comic book discovery.  I loved the rise of the Independents, I loved the rise of more “serious” works.

And for a while Starship Enterprises was my go-to shop for these books.

So into comics and back issues was I that I searched for other shops and, eventually, Starship Enterprises was no longer my go-to shop.

But the years passed and most of the other shops I frequented closed down.  Starship Enterprises, I found, was sold off to another person and renamed Superheroes.  I once again started to frequent the shop and got to know its owner, Glen, well.

Over the years, I headed to the shop every week or every other week and checked out the latest releases.

Over the years, there also came the rise of digital media.

Bookstores, once frequent in my area, were suddenly gone, and the worst thing was that I didn’t miss them.  I could/would go to Amazon and buy whatever books I wanted, first the physical copies which would be sent to me, then moving on to getting digital copies which I would read on my Kindle or iPad.

But Superheroes, then later known as Villains, continued.

In conversations with him, I suspected Glen knew he was living on borrowed time.  The fact of the matter is that new comic books -pretty much all comic books- are finding their way to the internet.

You’re interested in reading the latest issue of Batman?  Do a quick google search and you may find someone has posted it online.

It’s illegal.  It sucks, but like pirated movies and books, its a sad reality of today.

Just before I headed out to California, I visited Villains and told Glen I’d be gone a couple of weeks.  I told him to hold on to anything that I might like.

Yesterday, after returning to Miami, I headed over to the store to see what I’ve been missing.

I found the store was closed and empty.  A “For Lease” sign was on the window.

Villains is no more.

Were the digital issues I noted above to blame?  Did Glen simply have enough of this business and decided to move on?  Had he experienced some health problem which precluded him from continuing?

When I last saw him just before going on my vacation, Glen gave me no indication that he was about to shut the store down, so I do worry that maybe something serious happened in the interval which forced him into this shut down.

Perhaps.

But the bottom line is that a store that has existed in one form or another for some 34+ years (at least that was roughly the first time I went into it), is now gone.

And that saddens me tremendously.

Here’s to you, Starship Enterprises, Superheroes, and Villains.

And here’s to you, Glen.

You’ll be missed.