Nicole started out as a regular customer at Big Planet Comics. She’d wait around after school, pick up comics, and get into conversations with the staff about books.
Eight years ago, they asked if she had any interest in working there.
“They hired me by accident because they thought I was a college student,” Nicole said. “I was not.”
That hiring, though, brought Nicole into the small family of Big Planet Comics (426 Maple Avenue), Vienna’s local comics shop. Founded by longtime friends Gene Carpenter and Joel Pollack, Big Planet first opened in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1986 before expanding to Vienna and D.C.
From the outside, the Vienna branch is an unassuming store in the 1970s-era Wolftrappe Shops strip mall at the east end of Maple Avenue, but inside, it’s an epicenter of a local geeky subculture.
“This was my first job,” Nicole said. “I had zero expectations. I was like, ‘Woah, I get to make money at the place I buy from.'”
Kevin Panetta, a manager, has been at the shop for roughly 18 years. He’s also the author of several comics, including the excellent Bloom. Panetta said he’s watched the shop go through many changes in that time, most recently facing dual threats of online comics retail and Covid.
“The [shops] that remain are doing okay,” Panetta said. “The pandemic was rough on everybody, but we’ve seen stores shut down before that. We used to have three shops in Vienna.”
Panetta says Big Planet has had to adapt to survive — taking advantage of a significant back issue inventory, getting involved in an indie book store crawl, and annually boosted by Free Comic Book Day.
“You can get [back issues] online, but you can’t really browse them online,” Panetta said. “We’re offering something people can’t necessarily get on Amazon.”
Nicole said the shop used to have six-ish shortboxes with comics; now, they take up the middle of the store with more in the back.
“That’s helped a lot and changed what the business has been,” Nicole said. “Plus, [customers] can double-check the quality [in-person].”
The shop’s clientele is a mix of new customers who stop in once or twice and regulars — the latter usually coming when new comics release on Wednesdays. Both Nicole and Panetta say the local customers are one of the best parts of the job.
“The people that come in here, their knowledge of not just comics but other stuff is so profound,” said Nicole. “We have people that are professional movie reviewers or have odder jobs.”
“Like a professional wrestler,” Panetta chimed in.
“We have a wrestler,” Nicole said. “Someone who makes a lot of train laws for the state is a regular Saturday customer and he’s fantastic.”
Panetta says the staff and customers at Big Planet have a tight kinship bound not just by a mutual interest in comics, but broader creative pursuits.
“There’s something about comics where, if you’ve made your way to comics, you’re already interested in other creative things,” Panetta said. “It sounds cheesy, but it’s a very family vibe, especially on Wednesdays when we get three or four of our regulars to come in and chat for a while.”
When it comes to newer customers, both workers said they also really enjoy making recommendations.
“The thing I always ask is, ‘What do you like outside of comics?’ Because there’s really every single genre,” Panetta said.
“Horror has been insanely good lately,” Nicole added. “There’s been a couple writers doing a lot of great titles and there’s a lot more creativity in that section.”
They said Patrick Horvath’s graphic novel Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees about a serial-killing brown bear and even more grisly holiday horror The Deviant have been two of the most popular titles recently, though they also enjoy making “weirder” recommendations like Grog the Frog.
“That feeling when someone picks up a book you recommend — that’s great,” Panetta said. “That’s the whole thing… Getting that feeling every day is so satisfying.”
One of the harder parts, Panetta says, is the threat of burnout.
“You can also get kind of tired of reading comics, and that aspect can feel like as much of a job as the rest of it, when I feel like I have to read all the new things that come out,” Panetta admitted.
The best way to counteract that, both agreed, is going back to the comics they truly love.
“It’s about reading stuff you actually like,” Nicole said.
“Yeah, it’s concentrating on that stuff,” Panetta said. “It’s finding the stuff you really like, that sticks with you, and concentrating on that.”
