St. Mark's Comics was a New York Citycomic book retailer in Manhattan. The company opened its first store, at 11 St. Mark's Place, in 1983. For a period, the store had two other locations, one in Lower Manhattan and one in Brooklyn Heights. In late January 2019, St. Mark's Comics announced it would be going out of business at the end of February 2019. St. Mark's Comics was noted for its underground sensibility and cluttered, over-stuffed decor, and for employing female staff members long before that became the norm in the comics retailing industry. In addition to comics, graphic novels, and manga, St. Mark's Comics sold trading cards, action figures, toys, T-shirts, and other pop culture collectibles. The store had been a staple of St. Mark's Place for a generation, and was featured in a number of television shows, including Friends and Sex and the City.
History
St. Mark's Comics was founded in 1983, and acquired a year later by Mitch Cutler when he was still in his teens. The store was originally located up the stairs 11 St. Mark's Place, and in 1993 moved downstairs to the ground level. Cutler founded a second location at 148 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights in 1988. That location closed in 2012. The store had another location at 150 Chambers Street in lower Manhattan that closed in 2004 in part due to the after-effects of the September 11 attacks. A fire damaged the St. Mark's location and some of its inventory in 2011, but the store was able to recover. In October 2017, St. Mark's Comics launched a GoFundMe campaign to keep the store open, but it only raised $1,201. On January 29, 2019, Cutler announced that St. Mark's Comics would be going out of business at the end of February of that year. Reasons cited by Cutler included 90-hour works weeks, higher rents and a changing marketplace. The announcement prompted tributes from comics creators including Neil Gaiman, Brian Michael Bendis, and Dean Haspiel.
In the season 3 Sex and the City episode "Hot Child In The City", Sarah Jessica Parker's character Carrie goes to get her shoe fixed on St. Mark's Place and ends up dating a man who works at a comic book store on the block. Part of the episode is filmed at the actual St. Mark's Comics.
In the season 9 episode of Friends titled "The One with the Mugging", it is revealed that Ross was mugged outside St. Mark's Comics as a child. He claims to have been there to buy Spider-Mancomic books, but his sister, Monica, intimates it was Wonder Woman.
