This week on Off Panel, Dan Gearino, the author of Comic Shop: The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture, joins the show to talk his new book about the world and history of comic shops. Gearino discusses his comic book origin story, when he first visited a comic shop, why he wanted to write a book about the direct market and comic shops, the origin of the book, the tenor of conversation with his interviewees, the research process for the book, the cyclical nature of comics, the essential nature of the women of the direct market, the difficulty of pinning down who Phil Seuling was, his ideal comic shop, how shops will need to evolve, barometer comics, how comic shops reflect personalities, the future of comics, and more.

Thanks for listening to this week’s podcast with author Dan Gearino. You can find him on Twitter, his website, and in his recent book about the world and history of comics shops, Comic Shop: The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture.

You can download the show directly here on Libsyn.

Off Panel now has a Patreon! Support the show and earn some rewards by backing the podcast on there.

Big thanks to my patrons, including – but not limited to – Dan Gearino, Jacob Sareli, Ford Gilmore, David Baroldy, Evan Blasor, Andrew Scott, Brian McCray, Ira James Udaskin, Benjamin Birdie, Henning Ahlers, Modern Magic Stories, Nick Hall, Bruno Batista, Abraham Riesman, Adrian Diaz, Bobby Angus, Bjorn Basen, Darren Neely, John Hendrick, Steve Anderson, Michael Perlman, Phil Knall, Ian Maxfield, Cliff Chiang, Benjamin Schipper, Colin McMahon, Chris Palmer, Maxwell Schmidt, Scott McGovern, Nathan Fairbairn, Cat McKenzie, Lou Iovino, Christopher Carter, Nicholas Keslake, Greg Rucka, Ryan Mayle, Adam Highfill, Nicholas Gardner, Andrew Corrigan, Fiona Staples, Chris Morris, Chris O’Hollaran, Mark Abnett, Mike Murphy, Michael Shirley, Tom Barnett, Jim Demonakos, Norbert, Nick Lowe, James Kaplan, and Mission: Comics and Art in San Francisco You’re all the best.

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Header image is of Big Bang Comics in Dublin, Ireland. Intro and outro music is Vulfpeck’s Outro from their album Vollmilch. Thanks to the band for letting me use the track.