Chapel Hill Comics marvels at new store

When walking down West Franklin Street on Sunday afternoon, the sidewalk outside of Chapel Hill Comics is noticeably bare. Despite the extensive signage, there are no trappings of the big move that's scheduled to take place. No boxes of manga. No empty racks clogging up the sidewalk outside Mediterranean Deli.

Instead, all of it - comics, Uglydolls, register and all - is piled inside the new location at 316 W. Franklin St. This fact surprises even the owner, Andrew Neal, who says the move was done in just four hours.

"We underestimated how nice it is to be 30 seconds down the street - downhill," Neal said.

Neal, who sported a Chapel Hill Comics t-shirt and a conspicuous black wrist brace (not move-related, just old tendonitis rearing its ugly head), has owned Chapel Hill Comics since 2003.

Before that, it was located on Rosemary Street and known as Second Foundation Bookstore, where it was half science-fiction and fantasy books, and half comics.

The move to West Franklin Street and expansion into just comic books proved fruitful for the business.

"We've grown the business pretty significantly since we got to this spot," Neal said. "The location helped a lot; where we were before, we were kind of hidden in a basement."

Neal didn't plan on moving from the former Franklin Street location to another one, but when offered the bigger space by his landlord, Neal decided that it would be better to get the inevitable expansion out of the way sooner than later.

"We weren't looking for a new space," Neal said. "(But) we're right on the cusp of needing more space."

The comics store's new home is only seven doors down and twice the size of its former store. There's a small stage and separate rooms left over from the building's former stint as a pottery-painting store - space Neal plans to use for comic-book signings, cartooning classes, birthday parties and evening music performances.

Aside from events, Neal hopes to expand his fare of mostly comic books and manga to include more art and design-oriented books.

"We want to carry all kinds of books people are gonna see and want," he said. "Something people are gonna see and say, 'Wow, that's pretty.'"

Neal is looking to make the store more of a specialty book store than a collectible store, but he's still planning on carrying the old standards, from DC and Marvel superhero comics to Japanese anime standbys.

For now, though, the smell of paint is strong inside the new store as a smattering of volunteers leftover from the big move linger out to the soothing sound of the Shop-Vac, and Neal is left to survey his comics kingdom.

"We're still trying to keep up with what we're doing in one space," Neal said.

But if the growth of this store is any indication, there might be another move in his future.

Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu