History
Midtown was founded by partners Gerry Gladston, Angelo Chantly, Thomas Galitos and Robert Mileta, who met as teenagers in Astoria, Queens, and later sold comics in their video stores in Brooklyn and Queens before opening Midtown Comics in Manhattan, which houses approximately 500,000 books in its collection. According to the New York Times:
The stereotypical view of comics stores is that they are dim, cramped and dusty places with a no-girls-allowed clubhouse atmosphere. In reality, they run the gamut. For instance, the West Side Midtown store is bright, airy and welcoming to all, with two floors and 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of space. The main floor, which is one story above street level, has a long wall with countless racks of new and recently released comics. The rest of the space offers DVDs, manga, trading cards, back issues and trade paperbacks. Toys and other collectibles are upstairs. The second Midtown store, on Lexington Avenue and 45th Street, though smaller than the first one, is just as inviting.
Midtown Comics is the official retail sponsor of New York Comic Con, and has performed this role since the NYCC's inception in 2006. Each year, Midtown creates a "show-within-a-show", featuring round-the-clock appearances by comics creators and variant comic books by publishers like Marvel Comics and Top Cow.
On November 10, 2010, Midtown Comics opened a third Manhattan store. Known as their Downtown store, it is located in the Financial District, at 64 Fulton Street, in the southernmost section of the borough. Inaugural book signings were held for that branch featuring Jim Lee and Jonathan Layman, creator of Chew. As of June 2012, Midtown is the largest comic book store in the United States.
The store is also a sponsor of Artists Assemble!, a comics festival in Union City, New Jersey that began in February 2013.
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