G-Mart Comics
Address: 44 East Main Street, Suite 101, Champaign, Illinois 61820
Phone: (217) 356-7733
I’m not gonna lie to you: this place struck me as a bit strange. It’s inside of a nice old brick structure called the Lincoln Building in downtown Champaign. The way I found the shop was by looking for the bathroom. While wandering the hallways, I found these odd paper signs that indicated that a comic book shop was at the end of the hall.
Suspicious, I followed the signs. After going through a few doors and almost despairing that the home-made posters were a prank, I entered into the inner-inner-inner sanctum of G-Mart Comics.
Since I teach with comics and the ones that I buy are usually handled by lots of students, I always head straight for the dollar bin. G-Mart had a good selection of old, gently used comics, so I got what I hadn’t even been looking for.
The cashier was nice, if not over-friendly, and it is a little bit odd to be in a windowless room with one other person while you are browsing their merchandise. The shop is very simple, with plain display racks and limited decorations, figurines, or other items that might be found in larger stores.
The second time that I visited, I brought my arm-candy so I’d have someone to chat to, and the vibe in the place felt a bit less awkward. There were also other shoppers around on my second visit, which made for a bit of jostling, but also made the room feel more like a store.
The shop is quite small, but the prices are very reasonable. I don’t think this would be the perfect place for a first-time comic book shop visitor to go, but the aficionados of Yelp seem to love it.
Overall, I would recommend G-Mart for the novelty of visiting a comics bunker and for inexpensive classroom materials, but I can see how the treasure hunt to find the place would be off-putting to casual shoppers.
I used to live in champaign and even worked at G-Mart for a couple months. The main caveat I would give is that their business is based primarily on Internet preorders, which they excel at.
They do not at all Excell at their online store. I ordered the new run of avengers number 1 in March way before it dropped in mid mag. I didn’t receive my books till the end of June after several emails. This guys who runs it does seem ok and gave me a 20 credit for my troubles. I thought that was very nice. I decided to use that credit on one book on July 4th, it is now August 1st and my order hasn’t even been processed, in fact I have sent 2 emails over the last week or so and haven’t even been given the courtesy of a reply. I don’t get this company if you treat customers badly, you won’t be in business for very long.
Thanks
Chuck