Madeleine Coles
Staff Writer
Bob Beason has been collecting comics all his life. The first comic he ever bought was a twelve cent Spider-Man #39, and his collection only grew from there.
Eventually he had more boxes of comics than he knew what to do with, so he decided to open a comic book store.
Beason’s store, Captain Bengal’s Comic Cove, has been a staple in the comic book community of Pocatello for three years. And the community is larger than some might expect.
According to Beason, Captain Bengal’s holds comic books every month for over 100 collectors.
Although most customers of the store are regulars, Beason said that there are always newcomers.
“I love the start of the school year, because ISU always brings more comic fans looking for places to buy comics. A couple from Mississippi actually just moved here, and they were so happy to see a comic book store,” Beason said.
With Captain Bengal’s being the only comic book store in Pocatello, it is understandable that it draws in a large crowd, which Beason said is one of the most interesting parts of the job.
“Everybody has their own individual tastes,” Beason said. “Some people like a certain author, some people like a certain art style.”
And according to Beason, this leads to a lot of nerding out.
“It’s kind of fun to be around people who have like interests and don’t look at you like a flaming idiot,” Beason added with a laugh.
While the comic book community shares many similar interests, members also have different styles, which Captain Bengal’s Comic Cove often caters to. It offers many specialty comics, some with a pretty hefty price tag.
The most expensive comic that the store has sold was a first edition copy of Deadpool that sold for $600, and they currently have a Star Wars toy valued at $140.
However, after an expensive comic was stolen from the store, Beason decided it was too risky to keep extremely rare comics.
But Captain Bengal’s still offers an incredibly wide variety of comic books from the immensely popular to the virtually unknown.
And Beason’s favorite part of the job is getting to show those comics to his customers.
“It’s like Christmas every Tuesday for us because we get new comics on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, it’s like being Santa Claus,” Beason said.
Despite the excitement of receiving a new order of comic books, Beason said the hardest part of the job is figuring out just what to order.
“There are so many comics that we don’t know what our readers are going to go for,” Beason said. “But when we have a person that likes a certain artist or writer, that makes it easy.”
Beason added that a vital part of ordering is knowing what the most popular comics and characters are.
The popularity of comics can fluctuate quite a bit.
According to Beason, the boom in comic book movies has redirected what comics people buy.
“Captain America was cancelled, and then they came back with the Civil War storyline, and suddenly it became really popular again,” Beason said. “That’s why they decided to make the most recent movie about that plot.”
Hollywood movies can also help influence what characters sell the most comics.
“The most popular characters right now are probably Deadpool, Harley Quinn, Batman and Spiderman. Almost in that exact order I would say,” Beason said, which reflects the most popular comic book movies being released this year.
Aside from the comic books, Beason said that his store is unique because of the personal service. Beason said that his son-in-law, James, who is an employee of the store, knows almost every customer personally.
“We have over one hundred different boxes to keep comic books for people, and when somebody walks through that door, James knows exactly what box number they are and gets their books for them,” Beason said.
Captain Bengal’s Comic Cove welcomes long time collectors and newcomers to the comic book world alike.
