Saturday, March 25, 2017

Thunderbooks no more

©Bill Hughes, Bill Hughes Photo.
I'm sorry to hear that Blackpool's comic shop Thunderbooks is no more after nearly 30 years. It's now under new management and has been completely refurbished and renamed Infinity Comics. I wish the new owner and his shop well, but I'll definitely miss Thunderbooks. It was one of the last of the old style comic shops and I always dropped in on my visits to the seaside resort every summer. 

At least, for now, Thunderbooks still exists on Instant Street View, and you can have a virtual reality cyber-walk around the shop as it was in Summer 2012. Click on the following link for a tour...
https://www.instantstreetview.com/@53.798617,-3.050182,155.95h,-5.16p,1z,Nhqgvq_UDoCOB7HGRhxw2A


©Bill Hughes, Bill Hughes Photo
It looks like the mail order arm of Thunderbooks, Star Trader, is still trading though, and you can find their website here:

The Facebook page of the new Infinity Comics store is here:
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6 comments:

  1. paul McscottySaturday, 25 March 2017 at 11:08:00 GMT

    That’s a shame I used to visit “Thuderbooks” on my (rare) long weekend visits to Blackpool and although I have not been in the city for over 7 years it was a place I always visited and got some really good books. Blackpool was always a haven for US comics when I was a kid and I remember in the late 60s - mid 70s (on the traditional family Glaswegian weekly holiday to the city - before it turned into being plagued by idiots and stag parties from my lovely city and beyond) comics were everywhere. I have great memories of picking up Alan Class books, Marvels, Skywalds, Warrens, etc (not many DC strangely enough) by the bucket load - when that all "stopped" I found Thuderbooks to fill the gap. At least a new comic store will take its place but it’s another wee bit of history/nostalgia gone.

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  2. James SpiringSaturday, 25 March 2017 at 11:35:00 GMT

    This is Infinity's main website, which clearly needs updating: http://www.infinitycomics.co.uk/

    Can't they do their own scans? They've lifted the cover for the DC Rebirth Holiday Special from a piracy site! Of all things, I wouldn't expect a comic book store to do that, it's like saying, please pirate your comics instead of buying from us.

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  3. Lew StringerSaturday, 25 March 2017 at 22:40:00 GMT

    It does seem counter productive but some people don't think things through that deeply, James. They wouldn't even have needed to do their own scans as they could have used any image from press releases sent to them. Ah well, their loss.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousSaturday, 29 April 2017 at 17:12:00 BST

      Hi, as the owner of Infinity comics I can say that it is not so simple as doing my own scans as all of that is arranged in advance, before the actual comics arrive. The images are in no way pirated they are from the retailers press releases, on top of that you can go to any publishers website and see the covers. And when the comics do arrive I have to prioritise getting them to the customers.
      As for the website. It takes time, doing everything myself while working 2 jobs, some times things have to be put on the back burner, at the moment my priority is the shop itself. While it is hard work and it is a shame that thunderbooks had to shut down, the changes I have made to the shop I have been incredibly well recieved.

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  4. Lew StringerSaturday, 29 April 2017 at 17:34:00 BST

    James was referring to the name of the pirate site that's embedded at the top right hand corner of the DC Holiday special on your site. If James noticed it, others will too, and it means that people can see that, search for the pirate site, and read the those comics instead of buying from you. No one wants that.

    I appreciate you need to show covers in advance but the official Diamond Distributors site has them which might be a better place to source images from. Here's next week's comics:
    https://www.previewsworld.com/NewReleases

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  5. AnonymousSaturday, 29 April 2017 at 19:07:00 BST

    Ah. I never even noticed that. As far as I was aware the place I had recieved it was the DC website. For the recommendation I take it from customers, holiday special image was sent from the customer (who bought the issue and said he pulled the cover from DC) and that slipped through. However that has been rectified with the image from the DC website. Unfortunately that was something I did not notice! For the other I did take it from the marvel site as it was not sent by a customer.

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