JJ’s Comics and Cards to celebrate 30 years in business Saturday

ALBANY — When you have more than 300,000 comic books, sports cards, and NASCAR die-cast cars in stock, eventually you are going to run out of elbow room. And that is exactly what JJ’s Comics and Cards partners Gladys Dollar and Nicky Stephens discovered not long after they opened the popular outlet.

Dollar and Stephens, who opened JJ’s in 1987, recently expanded their store in the Village Green Shopping Center to include more inventory and a gaming table for enthusiasts.

“We just needed the room. We just had so much crammed into a room that was basically half the size of this one,” JJ’s Chief Operations Officer Cindy Lewis said Wednesday. “We couldn’t display the way we wanted to. We were expanding our clientele and getting new customers all the time, and we needed to spread out a little bit.”

Dollar and Stephen began their business at area flea markets, then moved to a bricks-and-mortar location on Broad Avenue. As the business continued to grow, they saw the need to move yet again to a new location, one with more room. So they gathered their employees and friends together and moved the entire store in one day to 2401 Dawson Road.

Six years after their Albany opening, they added another store in Tifton.

“Through the years, original customers stayed with the company and many are still with us,” Lewis said. “Through (loyal) employees, customers and volunteers and opening a second store in Tifton, (Dollar and Stephens) weathered trends of different comics, trading cards and gamers.”

Lewis added that while the solid base of comics and sports card aficionados has remained steady, the shop tries to stay on top of ever-changing trends in a very fluid market.

“We’re seeing more gamers now,” Lewis said. “I think Albany has always been into the gaming, but the baseball cards are still going strong. We should have more on the self next week. The hot, hot stuff is still the comic books and the gaming. We have people who are interested in our Superman collection and our die-cast cars — Matchbox or NASCAR.”

One of the things Lewis and her husband, Mike, say they enjoy most about the shop is that every day is different.

“We have the same people who come in, but we have different people as well,” she said. “The books and cards come in, and there is a different set every week. We go through the back issues every week. It’s just different every single day.”

JJ’s Comics and Cards will celebrate 30 years in business with a 30 percent off (most everything) sale Saturday.

“We look at it as a special thank-you for the customers from all around who kept JJ’s Comics & Cards open for three decades,” Lewis said.