Comics in Madrid

It’s been a horrendously busy week for me, but an enjoyable one nevertheless. I’ve been in Madrid, Spain all week for a couple of workshops. I’ve been ther once before, about this time last year in fact, and I think I’m developing an appreciation for the city. Which is surprising as I normally hate large cities. Paris leaves me cold and I’m only favourable to London because I don’t have to live there.

I’ve had a little time off so I decided to go wandering around the streets off of the Gran Via. Quite by accident, I ran into two comic shops that were just around the corner from each other. They could not have been more contrasting if they had tried. The first was called Generation-X. It was brightly lit, hard large windows, and had a welcoming vibe.

The second shop couldn’t have been more different. It was called Knight Comics and appeared to have closed down, but enough was left to get a sense of what it had been – obscured windows, black décor, not very appealing to the passing shopper.

Now, I don’t know what the Knight store was like when it was operating, but its obvious that the brighter Gen-X store had survived where Knight had not. The first was patterned after a modern high-street bookshop, but the latter were more like a niche rock/indy music store. Could be a lesson there for many other comics shops.