Costumed kids and future customers help with the Silver Snail’s big move. Photo by Zack Kotzer.
It’s no secret that the Queen West strip has drastically changed over the past two decades into what can be described as an outdoor wing of the Eaton Centre. With only a few bastions of the block’s cultural resistance remaining, the city turned its head when the Silver Snail, downtown Toronto’s most popular comic book store, announced that they would be vacating the area after over 30 years of residency.
Right in the heart of it, near the corner of Queen and Peter Street, the Snail broke up the retail wall with a cape studded storefront, outlandish toy utilizing window displays and a healthy amount of costumed occasions. The wood floored and poster soaked interiors have inaugurated new fans for decades, and graced by stars like Neil Gaiman, Harrison Ford and Bob Dylan. The news has made some hearts sink, but the store is far from closing. It’s just moving, into another retail thick environment at Yonge and Dundas. The store’s current manager, and staff since the age of 15, George Zotti, “can’t wait.”
According to George, the property owners have sold the building, and the new owners plan to renovate the space and charge “Queen Street rent.” “Which we just cannot afford,” says Zotti. But a new space begs for new additions. On the second floor of what used to be the southern part of an HMV, will be the new Silver Snail. The biggest change up will be an in-store cafe, something born out of friend and fan ramblings overheard over the years. More familiar things will be the superhero calamitous mural, recreated by sidewalk artist Dave Chalkmaster, with updated alterations to each comic book star. As for the wide, faded blue sign, Zotti doesn’t see how the new space can accommodate the unplugged warhorse, but he is going to keep it in storage regardless.
As the moving date shifted deeper into the summer, fans weren’t sure when they would get to see their new haunt. But everyone was sure this move wasn’t going to happen without a proper send-off. “We’ve had so many people ask if they can help us move,” says Zotti, which, realistically, they cannot accommodate. Mark Gingras, George’s business partner, joked about a human chain from Queen to Dundas, and having patrons pass along boxes to each other. George actually thought it was a fun idea, staff and customers agreed. 200 store fans promptly aligned themselves when asked over email. “What other retail store could ask their customers to move boxes,” says Zotti, “and that they would say yes?”
A mere week before Fan Expo, the city’s biggest comic convention, well over 100 fans awoke one sunny Saturday morning to shuffle boxes. Some of them brought their children. Some of them dressed like Storm Troopers. Each were registered via email and sectored off to create a daisy chain along Queen to Bay, then up to Dundas, then a final stretch towards Yonge. Each given a name label, designating them as a cluster of nerd stuff, like Magneto, Black Bolt, Data or Sonya Blade. For just around an hour, this parade passed football sized cardboard boxes to one another, a consistent line with only a few negative spaces near the end. After all the boxes were passed, they congregated by the pond in Devonian Square, greeted by Zotti with megaphone, blue hardhat and shorts that show off his sibling Green Lantern tattoos as well as a wooden, homemade Tardis. “Don’t make me cry,” says Mark Askwith, one of the original managers, “What a great show of solidarity. Really great, very bittersweet.”
At least two Doctor Whos and a replica TARDIS made appearances at this significant moment in space-time. Photo by Zack Kotzer
While the boxes did not actually contain store stock, they did contain prizes for the giving. Comics, posters, Cylon action figures. The prizes were distributed by a man dressed as the current Doctor, using his Sonic Screwdriver to scan nametags to see if they’re a winner. It was hard to tell if there was a winning pattern and what it was, but being a small child seemed to increase odds full fold. After the line, which at peak wrapped around the pond, was finished, the grand prizes, stashed away in the Tardis, were given out to premeditated winners. These winners got the stores’ sympathetic karma, for having put up with nametags like “Jabba the Hut” and “Wesley Crusher,” earning them autographed iconography. Every participant was treated to a half-off sale, applying to every item back in the current store, which likely moved more product than any box lugging voyage could. The Tardis was eventually carried off by staff pallbearers.
For a lot of retailers, a sudden shift in location can be devastating. Even if it remains in the core, a few hops down the street can suddenly alienate longtimers, and remove one self from pedestrian zeitgeist. But the Silver Snail is not like most comic stores, it’s not even like most stores. The Snail has a fan base of unilateral nerdiness, and for many of their clients a place they picked up their first Spider-Man and Magic: The Gathering starter set. A cafe and heavy traffic area doesn’t hurt, but it’s unlikely the Snail has much to worry about. Upstairs and a few blocks away is nothing. They could relocate the furthest, coldest moons in the star system, and their devoted clientele would still stop by regularly to pick up their pull list.
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Zack Kotzer is a freelance nerd in Toronto, and the assistant editor of Steel Bananas. Tweet him, if you dare @KingFranknstein
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