If the goods inside E Pike’s newly opened Dark Side Comics & Collectibles shop look like the kind of stuff you might find in the office of the founder of Seattle’s most guerrilla of guerrilla marketing firms, you’re on the right track.
“We didn’t have iPhones. Didn’t have console video games. For me it’s nostalgic. Kids nowadays have so many options.”
Doug Cox, founder and COO of posterGiant, has moved out of Seattle and has a new home in Idaho. His new comics shop on E Pike just above 12th isn’t exactly the result of cleaning out his belongings before the move but a lot of the things on the shelves have personal connections to the collector and man still in charge of the notoriously aggressive Capitol Hill-based poster marketing concern. Still, when it comes to business, nothing can be too personal.
“Pretty much everything is for sale,” Cox tells CHS.
Dark Side has been quietly open for a few weeks but is now keeping regular business hours on Tuesdays through Saturdays at 1205 E Pike. You’ll find Audrey Clark from recently opened high-end consignment shop The Shopaholic’s Closet also tending the store at her new neighbor Dark Side. Dark Side is centered around Cox’s collection of comics amassed over the years but he plans to expand the collectibles side of the business with more action figures, t-shirts, rock memorabilia, and old books. There are no new issues here but lots of issue #1s, first appearance issues, and more hard to find items. “I’ll be adding some oddities, really old books,” Cox said. “I want it to be very eclectic.” posterGiant, meanwhile, remains resident in the office space above the stores.
As for poster and marketing company, Cox said he continues to be a big part of the business and expects the relatively short flight of the Idaho commute to be manageable after leaving Seattle due to its traffic and the challenge in finding an affordable home. “We didn’t want to move too far out of Seattle,” Cox said.
Cox tells CHS the new shop is mostly a fun opportunity and posterGiant continues to grow. “We’re stronger than ever, bro.”
Dark Side is located at 1205 E Pike. You can learn more at facebook.com/darksidecomicsandcollectibles.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Thanks for explaining who is behind this weird venture. As an actual fan of comics both old and new, I was excited to see this store pop-up and I went in this shop around the time it opened expecting some kind of actual comics or collectibles store. Turns out it’s just a bunch of crappy cheap floppies and trashy merch. It really feels like someone’s personal yard sale of stuff they couldn’t even offload on eBay. Kind of a waste of time honestly unless you’re looking for a gag gift.
Doug Fox/PosterGiant is directly responsible for the trashing of our neighborhood streets with thick layers of old, tattered posters everywhere. The business routinely ignores the postering regulations, and the City/SDOT looks the other way.
I actually used to think the same thing about the postering until I did my own research with photos and video. There are more than one company that does this type of work and I saw first hand on more than one occasion both independent people putting up posters and not picking up after themselves and a company called Polite Society tearing down posters and leaving them on the ground. So that could have very well been the case in the past about the poster giant company you mentioned in the past. But as recent as a few weeks ago I saw the poster giant team out doing clean up of trash and poles. I spoke with them and the team they have now are about community and clean up. Everyone will judge people from the past but if we would only do the few extra steps to research and see what is happening in current times you may just be surprised. Personally they cleaned up right outside of my building and for no gain – they picked up posters that of their own that someone had trashed and not to put up new posters as they only had garbage sacks with them – just because they wanted to see it look nice. If more people would stop with negativity and not judge on things they are not aware of then our world would be better. Unless you are perfect – but no-one is.
Obviously PosterGiant is not the only source of posters on our streets, but they are the main player. They make money as they trash our streets. Sure, they might occasionally remove some posters, but only as a pr move and/or to make room for more of their postering. They are doing far more harm to our streetscape than good.