Heroes Comics

Heroes Comics is a comic book store operating in London, Ontario, Canada. The store won a Harry Kremer comics retailer award at the 2013 Joe Shuster Awards ceremony.

The store, which is the biggest comic book store in southwestern Ontario, is cited as one of the most successful current retail interests in London's downtown core area.^[1] Sixty percent of the store's sales comes from selling comic books, including mainstream, manga, alternative, graphic novels, and trade paperbacks. The next largest portion of sales comes from genre collectibles and toys such as action figures, which together account for 25% of sales.^[1] The final 15% of sales comes from sports cards.^[1]

The store's history dates back to 1988, when it was founded by the Robinson family. Ownership changed hands in 2000 when Brahm Wiseman, who was hired as an employee in 1998, took over the company. At the time of the takeover, the store had two outlets: one in the downtown core of the city and a smaller one in White Oaks Mall in the southern part of the city. Wiseman later closed the mall outlet, and in 2008, the remaining store moved to a nearby larger location at 186 Dundas Street. Furthermore, in defiance of the decline of retail businesses in the downtown core, Heroes renovated internally in 2016 to expand with a second floor of retail space in the back.^[2]

The city has an unusually large number of equivalent retailers in close proximity, due in part to the city's large post-secondary student population including students from the University of Western Ontario (whose main library includes a 10,000+ comic book collection in its materials^[3]). The competing comic book retailers and the London Public Library collaborate on Free Comic Book Day with local cross-promotions which has grown to become a major popular event for the city downtown's core.^[4]

إلى جانب أنشطتها التجارية الاعتيادية، تلتزم الشركة بالشؤون العامة. يشارك المتجر في منظمات مثل جمعية أعمال وسط مدينة لندن ومنظمة مين ستريت لندن. كما يشارك المتجر بشكل فردي مع مكتبة لندن العامة في فعاليات لتشجيع محو الأمية لدى الشباب من خلال القصص المصورة، مثل فعالية "كوميك جام" التي تُقام خلال عطلة الربيع. علاوة على ذلك، ألقى وايزمان محاضرات في ندوات التطوير المهني التي ينظمها مجلس مدارس وادي التايمز حول استخدام القصص المصورة كوسيلة تعليمية. ^{[ 5 ]}

في عام 2013، حصل المتجر على جائزة هاري كريمر لأفضل بائع تجزئة للكتب المصورة الكندية، كجزء من جوائز جو شوستر في تورنتو . ^{[ 6 ] [ 7 ]}

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