I was nine years old the first time I stepped into a Graham Crackers Comics. On a beautiful summer Saturday, my mom planned for me, my brother, and her to hop on the purple line and travel from Evanston to downtown Chicago to explore the Loop for the first time. This was a rare excursion, and to my knowledge, the first time that I ever rode on the El. I can recall attempting to commit Trapped in the Drive Thru by Weird Al Yankovic to memory as I watched the architecture grow taller and taller out the train car window. We visited the Art Institute, walked through Millennium Park, and stared up at our warped reflections underneath the bean. When lunch time came around, we walked across the street to Panda Express. On the way to the restaurant, we passed a storefront decorated with the colorful pantheon of superheroes that, by this point, I was long obsessed with. Cartoons, movies, and video games introduced me to the Marvel Universe, and by this point, I had already started collecting single issues. Our local comic book store was the first place I was allowed to go to by myself. The first single issue I bought with my hard-earned (or gifted, who can remember) money was Amazing Spider-Man #548
Naturally, I begged my mom to go in, and she assured us that we could check out the store after we ate. After gnoshing on some fast-food-facsimile orange chicken, we headed on over to Graham Crackers Comics Chicago Loop. This shop was double the size of my local store, boasting wall-to-wall new-release racks, seemingly endless boxes of back issues, and trade paperback shelves that, for all I knew, rivaled the size of the world’s largest libraries (I had not been to all that many libraries). I was in comic book heaven.
Now, when I say that I had already started to collect comics, this was a nine-year-old’s version of collecting. Being an elementary schooler, I didn’t have the liquid capital to finance buying every issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, which at this time was still releasing three times a month. I grabbed what I could, when I could, relying on context clues to fill in the gaps between issues. It didn’t matter to me if I was jumping into the middle of a story arc; I was content piecing together my knowledge of the Marvel universe one miscellaneous issue at a time. It was a quainter style of collecting; one filled with possibility and intrigue and unbothered by online chatter.
The issue I walked away with that day was Amazing Spider-Man #625, the second of a two-part story in which the original Rhino faces off against a larger, more advanced copycat, wielding a giant scythe. Funny enough, this issue was written by current ASM scribe Joe Kelly. I read the issue on the train alongside my brother, who had gotten a Futurama comic (rest in peace, Bongo Comics).
I didn’t know then, of course, but 15 years later, I would return to Graham Crackers Comics Chicago Loop for the first time. I had recently gotten a job working downtown. I won’t go into much detail here, but I will just say that it wasn’t a very good fit. I was quite unhappy working there, and found my only respite in the nearest comic book store, which I would visit on Wednesdays after I got off. I didn’t piece together until stopping there a few times that this was the very same shop that I picked up ASM #625 at all those years ago. After three months of trying my darndest to tough it out at my job, I walked into Graham Crackers and filled out an application. They weren’t hiring at the time, but they assured me they would let me know if there was an opening. On my final day of work, I got an email from the great Anthony Fograse, Chicago Loop manager and punk rocker extraordinaire, saying the job was available. I eagerly accepted, and soon I was a member of the Graham Crackers team. Within a year, I was given the opportunity to take over managing duties at Graham Crackers Comics Chicago Lakeview.
Serendipity is a hell of a thing. One moment, you’re the world’s biggest Weird Al fan, buying piecemeal Spider-Man comics at a random comic book store, and the next moment, you are a recent college graduate struggling to find your path, only to return to that same store and find your next step.
