Cutting Edge Retro
How a community comic shop survived a global pandemic.
Nestled between a Chipotle and an Irish pub in downtown Davis is a tiny building with a loud storefront. BIZARRO WORLD is emblazoned on the window in large red letters. COMICS CARDS GAMES underneath the name clarifies the store’s purpose. At the bottom of the window, Cuting Edge Retro sums up the irony that is owning a comic-book store in 2021.
If you want to know what’s currently hottest in geek circles, just check the display window in Bizarro World. The owner routinely changes the display to keep up with the trends relevant to the kinds of customers who come into his shop. During the past few months, collectors have been going crazy over Pokemon cards again, so right now the display is Pokemon themed, showing off a large Pikachu poster and collector’s card tins, among other memorabilia. Right outside of the store the owner has set up tables displaying boxes overflowing with cheaply priced books, comics, and DVDs, just waiting to be sifted through by passersby.
Inside, the store is crowded with collectibles, though not with people, unless you happen to come in on a Wednesday morning, the day of the week most new comics are released.
The air is warm and smells of dust, and often one can hear old jazz recordings playing. The newest DC, Marvel, and indie comics line the shelves. Hardcover and paperback collected editions abound. A display section in the center of the room hosts a variety of action figures, statues, and other pretty things that customers will pay big bucks for because they feature their favorite comic book characters. A bookshelf near the door is stuffed with sci-fi and fantasy novels, while another shelf toward the back of is dedicated entirely to manga. Short boxes and long boxes are crammed full of back issues, some valuable, others sold for no more than 50 cents each. The wall behind the counter is lined with trading and game cards: Magic: the Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and more.
The store’s back room is dedicated a video-rental service. Film posters for cult classics such as Cool World are fastened to the ceiling. The room is filled with DVDs and even VHS tapes, which shows just how long the store has been around.
According to the Bizarro World website, the store has been in business since 1991. Store owner Dan Urazandi says he initially began selling comics because he found himself “unemployable.” He sounds like he’s joking, but with his Avengers: Endgame-themed cloth face mask hiding his smile, it’s a little hard to tell.
He tells me about one customer he had, a man in his 90s, who would come in to rent movies. He was the last person Urazandi knew who had been in World War II.
Urazandi started out selling comics from his personal collection out of the back of his dad’s car. He organized trade shows where comic-book collectors and fans from the Davis area could get to know each other while buying and selling comics. Eventually he acquired a tiny storefront for his business, and after moving locations a few times, he has settled into this dusty, two-room store in which he utilizes every inch of available space to store or display comics, cards, games, and much, much more.
Bizarro World started out as a comic book store, but over the years, it has expanded to selling far more than just comics. When Marvel first began producing trading cards, it only seemed natural to sell them alongside the comics. The emergence of trading and gaming card systems such as Magic: the Gathering and Pokémon spurred the Urazandi to begin selling even more kinds of cards.
Urazandi explains that the store window reads COMICS CARDS GAMES because that was what the store mainly sold. However, he has continued to expand the inventory as it suits him. “I’ve added things, but it has to be something I’m interested in,” he explains.
It was his interest in sci-fi novels and old records that inspired him to begin selling those items in the store. Same for board games, classic video games, and action figures. He describes the notion of selling items he doesn’t have a personal interest in as “painful.”
As for the video rental service, Urazandi started that up when the Blockbuster and another video rental store in Davis both closed down. The back room of the store used to be an arcade, but he converted that space to VHS and DVD storage instead. He jokes that perhaps he should have seen the writing on the wall when the other video rental places in Davis closed down, but notes that people still come in to rent DVDs. He tells me about one customer he had, a man in his 90s, who would come in to rent movies. He was the last person Urazandi knew who had been in World War II. He died last year.
You never know when you might find exactly what you didn’t know you needed.
Three men in their thirties come into the store, all wearing face masks. They browse, as customers are wont to do in Bizarro World. Even those who come in knowing exactly what they want often can’t resist looking around a bit before making a purchase. You never know when you might find exactly what you didn’t know you needed. Even if one abstains from impulse buying, it’s a treat just to look. New comics and old comics, all existing in the same space. Action figures that were made last year, depicting characters that were created 40 years ago. New versions of old properties, and old artifacts that become new again when seen through new eyes.
The tallest of the men, with curly hair that reaches his shoulders, examines the action figures hanging from the wall. He exclaims in delight. “They even got Hellraiser shit!” His friend comes to the counter and asks about Magic cards, and Urazandi takes a break from talking to assist the man. And though the group of men leave having bought little, their nostalgic reminiscing indicates that they have received much more from this encounter than their credit cards will show.
Nowadays, Alan can order manga from online stores, but he says it just isn’t the same.
There is a certain delight to watching Urazandi help his customers. The products in his store are so numerous and so diverse that it seems impossible that he could know so much about them all, but somehow he does. A bald man in his 50s asks if Marvel ever got around to publishing collections of Frank Miller’s Daredevil, and Urazandi shows him what he has in stock: the Volume 2 paperback collection, and the hardcover omnibus that collects the entirety of Miller’s run on the title. Anticipating the man’s disappointment at Volume 1 being out of stock, Urazandi assures him that Volume 2 contains the parts that everyone remembers: the storyline with Elektra that culminates in her gruesome death. Satisfied, the man makes the purchase.
One customer tells me that it is this human aspect that makes Bizarro World so important. His name is Alan and he has known Urazandi since 1999. Alan is in his 40s and calls comic books “serial novels.” He regards the store’s contents not with the amazement and wonder that shines in many customers’ eyes, but with a sense of comfortable familiarity. Alan is a fan of anime and manga, and it was over 20 years ago that he moved from the Bay Area to the quiet, insular town of Davis. At the time, Bizarro World was the only place in town that sold manga. From this store he bought manga titles such as Usagi Yojimbo, Samurai Executioner, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Blade of the Immortal, as the English translations came out from the publisher Dark Horse.
Nowadays, Alan can order manga from online stores, but he says it just isn’t the same. The internet offers more chance for fraud and less of a guarantee. If he orders from Bizarro World, he can drive downtown and ask Urazandi face-to-face if the books he has ordered have come in yet. It’s much more difficult to hold online retailers accountable, and Alan tells me he has lost money with them more than once. All relationships are built on trust, even the relationship between the comic book seller and the comic book buyer, and Dan Urazandi is somebody customers can trust.
Not only does the store remain relevant, it is serving a much more diverse group of people than the comic book stores of the past did. According to Urazandi, when comic shops first began popping up in the 80s, they were patronized mostly by men. “Weird dudes, too,” he says with a laugh. Many different sorts of people come into Bizarro World these days: kids looking at Pokémon cards, teenagers poring over manga volumes, college students thumbing through Marvel back issues, senior citizens renting movies. Women as well as men.
The American comic book industry itself has become somewhat more welcoming to women over the past couple of decades. Two of Urazandi’s favorite recent comic series, Saga and Monstress, feature female protagonists with agency, rendered by female artists (and in the case of Monstress, written by a woman).
The industry has also made an effort to cater to children, and Bizarro World has a spinner rack dedicated primarily to children’s comics; some from Marvel and DC, others from publishers such as Scholastic that mostly deal in prose but have recently been branching out to comics. Between these changes in the comic book industry and the wide variety of products offered by Bizarro World, it’s no wonder that so many different types of people find a reason to stop by the store.
The store’s other strength is in its variety of products. Urazandi explains that the store’s income is balanced fairly equally between comics, rentals, and games, including cards. If business in one area goes down, then the income from the other two will allow the store to cover its costs. This variety of products is a big part of the reason customers love this place.
One college student browsing the store calls it a “one-stop shop,” because there are so many different kinds of items available. Her twin brother agrees: “There’s something fun about looking through the aisles and finding something you weren’t looking for.”
He had been particularly worried that his regular customers from before the pandemic would no longer come to the store once it reopened. But their loyalty and love for comics endured.
For some customers, Bizarro World is just an interesting place to check out when wandering downtown with friends. For others, it’s far more. A customer named William tells me that the store helped him out financially when he had fallen on hard times. William recounts a time 10 years ago when he sold a great deal of merchandise to the store. The money he received in return allowed him to pay his rent. He lives in Woodland now, but he still visits the shop every now and then out of a sense of loyalty and gratitude.
In no small part due to its loyal customers, Bizarro World’s future is looking good, Urazandi tells me. To say the pandemic was bad for business would be an understatement. The store was forced to shut down for a few months, and Urazandi had to contend with the possibility that it wouldn’t be able to reopen again. Nothing like this had ever happened to the store before, and he describes the ordeal as “worrisome.”
Fortunately, the store survived. The stimulus money from the government came through, the landlord was understanding, and when the store reopened, the customers came back. It was in March and April that the store really began doing well again. As Urazandi puts it, “People had money to spend.”
He had been particularly worried that his regular customers from before the pandemic would no longer come to the store once it reopened. But their loyalty and love for comics endured, which in turn has enabled Bizarro World to endure as well. It may be small, but it contains worlds, bizarre and otherwise.
