We live in a world where comic books reign supreme. They are selling better than ever. The biggest movies and TV shows are based off of them. It’s difficult to go out in public without seeing t-shirts, bumper stickers, or phone cases depicting comic book characters. Comic books have become a modern mythology in which just about everyone knows of them and their stories. We can thank this modern day adoration of comics to the comics of old. We absolutely wouldn’t be able to have those Captain America t-shirts or Joker sneakers if it wasn’t for the survival of comic books that released decades ago. Because of this, those comics should be celebrated.
Halley’s Comics & Games in North Tonawanda celebrates these classic comics more than most other shops I’ve seen in Western New York, while also respecting newer reads that show how far comics have come. For a tiny shop, they’re covered wall-to-wall with comic books. Like other comic stores, they do have a shelf of new releases, but every other book there ranged from several decades old to very recent. Many of the comics were old enough that they were yellowed like old newspaper, showing how long ago they were originally printed. If you are someone looking for a comic you’ve read when you were younger, or someone newer to comics looking to discover something older you can’t find elsewhere, Halley’s is absolutely the place for you.
Because so much of our current culture is shaped by comic books, it’s important to respect their origins and have a way of reading up on their history. I am grateful that there is a place that helps with such a thing so close to Buffalo.
Halley’s Comics and Collectables offers more than just celebrating old comics. They provide nostalgia in many forms. They of course sell action figures and toys typically found in other shops, but Halley’s also sells toys from decades ago, like an electronic laughing ball from the 1989 Batman movie. Novels are also found on their shelves, and I was excited to find the X Files that I read in middle school that got me into watching the television series. Nowadays, it’s pretty standard to find Funko Pop! figures in stores, but Halley’s offers a precursor to the popular collectable. Halley’s has a wide variety of bobble heads. Some are of newer characters, but most were older, like the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. There are so many unique, classic items found in-store that I kept seeing new things after returning to the same sections multiple times.
A lot of the items found in-store were things that the owner accumulated for his own collection over decades that he is now deciding to sell. This intrigued me and made me think about my own collection, and the community around collecting. My collection of comics, action figures and other items is small, at the moment, but I can certainly see it expanding greatly over decades (apologies ahead of time to my wife). Like with most collectors, there must be a point far in the future when the time comes to say goodbye to at least some of those items. It’s also interesting to think about how many different collectable things people are interested in finding in the realm of nerdom, from Beanie Babies, to bobble heads, to Funko Pops!
With all of the different incredible items found at Halley’s, including puzzles, models, and bobble heads, there also comes some issues. There is so much to find there that it might even be a little too much for the space. As I was trying to browse through the comic books, which included a lot more than the usual superheroes, I had to find my way around containers, stools, and boxes that were obnoxiously in my way. It also didn’t help that there didn’t seem to be much of an order to how the comics were organized. Their store hours also make them potentially difficult to visit, as they don’t fit into traditional retail hours.
Halley’s Comics & Games celebrates the world of collecting with both new and old comic books, models, action figures, and more. If you’re looking to add classic and unique items to your collection, Halley’s would be a fantastic place to start searching.
Halley’s Comics & Games | 1144 Oliver Street | North Tonawanda, NY 14120 | (716) 695-6138 | Facebook