From May 1978: an advert (from STARBURST) for DARK THEY WERE AND GOLDEN EYED, one of London's first specialist comics and science fiction stores.
Named after a Ray Bradbury short story, the store traded throughout the 1970s and eventually closed in 1981. They initially traded from number 10 Berwick Street and then relocated to nearby St. Anne's Court.
Comicdom returned to the court (a pedestrian footpath between two Soho streets) during the market boom when Top 10 Soho (owned by Jonathan Ross and Paul Gambaccini) opened between 1989 and 1995.
Loved Dark They were and Golden Eyed, in Berwick St and St Anne's Court. Remember my first trip to the shop and literally walked over the comics as they were on the floor of the shop ... truly weird. I must admit, I wish I had gone to a few others as well such as Alan Austin's Comics Unlimited. When Dark moved to St Anne's Court, it was never the same for me but I did visit and pick up a lot of non distributed comics (a lot of comics suddenly vanished from the the newsagents such as Avengers and Spider-man at the time). Didn't realise about Top 10 Soho ... would have gone there more often, went in there a few times and didn't buy the one comic I have regretted ever since (for £40) ... New Comics 1 (one of the very early DC comics - didn't know anything about the early DC history otherwise I would have snapped that up in seconds ! ).
ReplyDeleteDTWAGE was a turning point for me in Comic Collecting when I first visited their Berwick St shop back in 1974. And then on to "The Crypt of Comics" to visit Alan Austin in Lower Clapton Rd. Heady days indeed. Is this the Andrew Buckle who posted a review of Alan Austin's memoirs on Amazon? Thanks for the plug. We've been trying to get the word out on behalf of Alan Austin's estate.
DeleteI remember it well - a favourite haunt. so sad it's no longer there ...
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