EARTH-2 Comics Readies for Relaunch of DC's Superheroes

Beginning Aug. 31, on Ventura Boulevard will be ground zero for local comic-book fans who follow the exploits of Superman, Batman and Green Lantern, plus lesser knowns like Aquaman and the Flash.

That’s when DC Comics will relaunch its entire line of action heroes with new stories in comic books each numbered No. 1. In particular, Superman, the character who began in 1938, will be re-envisioned into the 21^st century, the world of cellphones instead of telephone booths, and of jeans and a T-shirt instead of blue tights and red boots.

“Any time you change Superman, people get excited,” says EARTH-2 Comics co-owner Carr D’Angelo. “He’s one of three fictional characters, along with Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, recognized worldwide.”

The relaunch of 52 separate, DC comic book titles will occur Wednesdays from Aug. 31 through Sept. 28. D’Angelo and co-owner Judd Meyers plan to stock hundreds of extra copies for what they expect will be high demand.

D’Angelo said the reboot of superhero story lines will help attract readers who may have been put off by long-running plots, some of which had continued through comic book volumes numbering into the 900s.

“It’s kind of intimidating,” D’Angelo said of the high-numbered books. “It’s like buying a DVD movie, but only watching part of it.”

But D’Angelo, who opened the shop more than eight years ago, doesn’t have that problem. He began reading comics 40 years ago as a 9-year-old in New York. He went on to become a managing editor of Starlog, a sci-fi magazine, and expected to follow other Starlog editors to DC Comics. When a hiring freeze blocked his way, he moved to Los Angeles to produce movies but kept up his fascination with comics.

In the early 2000s, he realized that the comic book industry had changed, and was still changing. Comics, which had previously been read by children who bought them in drugstores and grocery stores and off news racks, were being read by adults, mostly 18 to 40, who bought them in specialty comic book stores as they were issued.  

Those stores, however, were often dark and unappealing, with an atmosphere intimidating to women and having a limited selection of comics. Entirely missing were comic book collections and graphic novels. So, D’Angelo opened EARTH-2 Comics to sell what he saw as the new market in comic books, comic book collections and graphic novels.

He partnered with Meyers, who sold comics online, with the idea that any overstock could be sold there. Within four years, the store had tripled sales from its first year. In 2007, it was named “Outstanding Retailer of the Year,” at San Diego Comic-Con.

Now, EARTH-2 Comics has a second location in Northridge near the CSUN campus. Together, both stores carry more than 5,000 titles, plus another 40,000 titles stored in the EARTH-2 warehouse.

EARTH-2 Comics is well-lighted, well-stocked and squeaky clean. About 15 percent of store customers receive their titles by mail and many of the drop-in customers are those in the entertainment industry, D’Angelo said.

Besides action figures, the store sells vintage and back-issue comics, trading cards, graphic novels and, with the closure of a nearby chain bookstore, non-illustrated fantasy and adventure novels such as Game of Thrones.

Customers are loyal, like Chase Taylor, a student at the University of Las Vegas, who dropped by the store on a recent Friday during a visit to his mother in Sherman Oaks.

“I first started coming here because I had X-Men issues 1 to 41 and couldn’t find 42,” Taylor said. “I started reading them when I was 13 and when I found it here, I nearly cried.”

Now, he has a collection of more than 7,000 titles, he said, “all from Judd and Carr.”

EARTH-2 Comics (earth2comics.com), 15017 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.