Mount Pleasant readers of comic books and superhero stories will have to find a new source soon.
Opening in 2017 and taking over the 2418 Main Street address right after R/X Comics' departure, 8th Dimension Comics has been supplying Vancouverites with comics for about six years.
On Saturday (July 1), the business announced that it will be shutting its doors for good.
It's a "death by 1,000 cuts," owner and former R/X Comics employee Nick Paraschos tells V.I.A.
At the time that Paraschos and fellow former R/X Comics employee Kelly Everaert took over the location, the neighbourhood was much more vibrant. But, it all changed after the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Before COVID-19 this place was fantastic. We had a great neighbourhood," says Paraschos. Now "a lot of people aren't working around here anymore, and with rent evictions people aren't living in the neighbourhood anymore."
The business owner cites the area's post-pandemic hush as well as the Broadway Subway Project as some of the contributing factors to the bookstore's closure.
The project, which tunnels below the Broadway corridor, will be a 5.7-kilometre extension of the Millennium Line set to add six more stops to the line.
But construction and, as a result of fencing and noise from aforementioned construction, slow pedestrian traffic has caused a number of other businesses near Broadway to close, such as, ironically, a 13-year-old Subway restaurant.
"The city has mentioned that they were going to do something about giving support to retail. Where is it?" the business owner says. "We can't survive like this. All the businesses along Broadway can't survive like this."
Though the comic book store doesn't have an exact closing date, Paraschos says that the business will remain open until the end of August.
