Michael Matthews didn’t expect to work in a comic shop, but when Rock Bottom Comics needed more help, the store decided to promote fanboys.

Jenna Isaacson photos

Rock Bottom Comics in Columbia is owned by Glenn Brewer, who has been in business for more than 30 years. He has operated out of several locations downtown but has been on Walnut for 21 years. He moved into his current store front in 2000.

"Hey, you’re here all the time," Matthews recalled one of the employees telling him. "Why don’t we pay you for it?"

About a year later, Matthews is the pickup guy for Rock Bottom. Each Wednesday, he crawls out of his High Street apartment, gets into his pickup truck and drives to the UPS on Vandiver Drive to pick up the week’s haul of comics.

Sure, the shop could wait for the comic books to be delivered, but that would waste precious time - Wednesday means new comics, which means Wednesday is the day all the fans show up to grab their favorite books.

And fans hate to be kept waiting.

For more than 30 years, Rock Bottom Comics and owner Glenn Brewer have been answering the needs of comic book fans in Columbia - even surviving the comics crash in the ’90s that saw 60 percent of the nation’s shops go out of business.

On a normal weekday, Rock Bottom opens at 10:30 a.m., but on Wednesdays, the store opens at noon. The extra hour and a half is used to unpack boxes of comics and check them against the inventory list, place a select number of issues into protective sleeves and place those issues on the wall, and "pull" another group of issues and place them in their boxes behind the counter.

To pull a comic means to take it off the sales floor and place it in a safe spot to wait for the customer who put it on his or her pull list to come pick it up. This way, the loyal Rock Bottom visitor doesn’t have to worry about the most recent issue of "Ultimate Spider-Man" being sold out.

In the years Brewer’s been running his shop, he’s seen the image of the comic book reader go from an overweight, unathletic nerd to Joe Everyman.

"It’s more accepted," Brewer said. "I’ve always had doctors and lawyers that walked in here and didn’t try to hide it."

Matthews, who came to Columbia in 1996 for college, said he’s gone from one spectrum of comic book fandom to another - once ashamed of his interest, now he’s trying to get his foot in the door of writing comic books.

"No, you don’t have to go into accounting," he said. "You can go into comics."

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Brewer didn’t expect to go into comics.

Rock Bottom Comics employees Michael Matthews, left, and Bob Sieli, right, look over the new shipment of books that’s come in at the shop as they prepare them for sale.

In 1971, he and his sister started Rock Bottom Used Books in Fayetteville, Ark. "Rock Bottom" referred to their prices. Brewer ran the store’s day-to-day operations and soon found customers asking more and more about comic books.

"I’m good at supply and demand," he said.

Comics found their way to the store’s shelves and then into the hands of the customers.

But Brewer felt like a change. In 1973, he left his sister, came to Columbia and started Rock Bottom Books and Comics. When the doors opened at his original Seventh Street location, comics made up about 40 percent of his store, but in two years, comics were 60 percent.

"Gradually, the paperback books didn’t justify the room and labor," he said. "The business just evolved."

Now, a quick glance around the shop at 1029 Walnut St., one of several locations of the shop that has jumped around for the best rent and location, would make it hard to believe romance novels and science fiction paperbacks ever graced Brewer’s shelves.

A stand with hundreds of comics lines the west wall of the store, while the center of the store contains dozens of boxes of back issues. The store’s blue walls are littered with action figures ranging from the Daily Planet Editor in Chief Perry White to Jesus and odds and ends such as air fresheners made to look like sushi and "I Heart Meat" stickers.

Toward the back of the store, a table is stacked with sets of cards from the popular game Magic: The Gathering, and even farther back is the adults-only room with back issues of Penthouse and comics such as "Cavewoman Jungle Tales."

When the business began, Brewer said, he’d pick up a copy of "Spider-Man" here and there, but he wasn’t addicted to the medium.

Then he read Frank Miller.

An accomplished comic book writer, Miller’s work on Marvel’s "Daredevil" in the ’80s caught Brewer’s attention and hooked the 63-year-old.

Miller’s body of work includes past epics such as "The Dark Knight Returns," a Batman story set in a depressing future, "Batman: Year One," a story that acted as the blueprint for last summer’s blockbuster "Batman Begins," and "Sin City," a series that was adapted into a movie last year.

Miller is still writing. "All Star Batman and Robin" is a 12-issue, monthly DC Comics title from the writer that’s only released four issues so far, but Brewer’s devotion dissipated with each issue.

"I’m not reading it, and my customers are spitting on it," Brewer said.

"It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen," said Brad Desnoyer, a shop employee.

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The staff of eight doesn’t really work at Rock Bottom - it’s more like they live there and bicker like siblings while jumping into one another’s conversations.

Rock Bottom Comics regular John Doerflinger, left, pays for his selections at the counter as employee James Cagle, right, reaches for a bag. Doerflinger says he’s been collecting since he was 12. “I’m here every week,” he said.

"On our days off, we’ll come in and hang out," Matthews said. "There’ll be three of four people in the shop, and generally only one of us will be on the clock."

As Brewer’s crew of four part-time employees - no one is full time - tore through the week’s shipment of eight boxes, insults flew, a movie trailer for the new "Ghost Rider" movie was played and the group just sat around and talked. Mostly about comics.

" ‘1602’ was OK," Matthews said about the Marvel Comics miniseries that answered the age-old question of what people with superpowers would be like in the year 1602. "It was better than 1602 II."

"A sharp stick in the eye is better than 1602 II," James Cagle, a shop employee for close to 25 years, said of "1602: New World."

The group also tackled finances … and comics.

"I’m screwed," Sara Melton said as she counted 13 titles off of the new-release wall that she’d be buying.

"You’re not screwed," Matthews said. "I’m buying 20."

"Yeah, but I’m using money that’s supposed to be for my gas bill," Melton said.

The average comic book is 32 pages long, 10 of which are ads, and costs $2.99 before tax, but annuals, one shots, miniseries and other variations often make the price fluctuate.

With 20 titles in this week’s pull, Matthew’s purchase of books such as "Blue Beetle," "52" and "Green Lantern" cost him $45.05 with his employee discount.

"And this sinking feeling in my stomach," he said.

But it’s a wad of cash he’ll lay down again next week - just like the millions of faithful readers such as Jefferson City resident Jeff Slote.

In Columbia on business at least once a week, Slote has a pull with Rock Bottom that dwarfs that of the fickle reader.

"If it’s from the Marvel company, that’s pretty much it," he said to his pull criteria. "I just always grew up with these characters. I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin."

But what inspires the bearded 25-year-old man to spend between $25 and $30 each week 30 minutes from his home?

"It’s one of the truly American art forms out there," Slote said. "I can walk in at any time and have my pull ready for me."

Just as creators and their titles suffer through peaks and valleys of greatness, so has the industry. According to a 2000 Salon.com article, in April 1993, there were about 10,000 comic shops in the country, and sales for the year reached $850 million.

"That was the end of the speculation bubble," Brewer said.

In April 1994, there were only 4,000 shops, 11 of the 12 comic distributors went out of business and Marvel - producer of "Spider-Man," "The Fantastic Four" and "X-Men" - filed for bankruptcy.

"I really believe I would have made more of a living as a night watchman," Brewer said.

Brewer survives by a tried-and-true number system. Behind the counter, Brewer has hundreds of note cards that list what pulls get what books, how many of each issue the store has bought and sold by week and more.

It’s the system he uses to tell him how much to buy each week.

Brewer has to buy enough books to satisfy his pull customers and any customers who might wander in looking for the latest issue. If he doesn’t have it for the walk-ins, they’ll most likely find it at another store before he can get it.

In his 30 years of selling superheroes, Brewer has seen his fair share of competitors come and go - places such as Red Planet, The Danger Room and The Cheshire Cat.

"This last year without any has been pretty nice," Brewer said.

But at the beginning of this year, a new shop opened its doors - less than a half of a mile from Rock Bottom. Quinlan Keep features pulls, action figures and comics just like its Walnut competitor - not that Boen Quinlan, the Keep’s owner and former Rock Bottom customer, is out for blood.

"I think he is a staple in this community," Quinlan said. "It was never my intention to drive Glenn out of business."

Brewer said he hadn’t been to the Keep yet, but his employees have and like Quinlan and his shop - plus, Brewer’s never been above referring business to his competitors.

In an unstable market, they’re all in it together.

"Satisfied customers is the gimmick," he said.