Ode to My Favorite Comic Book Shop
A Photojournalism Response Essay to Star Clipper’s Announced Closing
by Mikkel Snyder, FreezeRay Editor
On January 15, 2015, Star Clipper customers received notification over Facebook and email that their doors would be closing. The popular comic book shop based on the Delmar Loop meant a lot to St. Louis residents. The bulk of the essay was written the day of the announcement, and was edited to reflect additional information gained in the following weeks.
Star Clipper staff knew about the closure about a month earlier. This essay is dedicated to the incredible community that I, and many others, found thanks to them and owner.
When you’re growing up and moving around a lot, one of the things you don’t actually notice is that places change over time. It seems simple enough. However, when you’re moving every few years, you can’t really appreciated it because to you, everything is new by virtue of being different. You don’t see places rise and fall. Roads pretty much stay the same. Life goes on.
As a military brat, I didn’t start noticing that places change until my family stopped moving and we actually lived in the same house in Maryland for nearly a decade. However, given that four of those years overlapped with my college career, I can’t say any of the changes I noticed affected me in any meaningful way.
Today, as I continue my attempts to settle in St. Louis, I’m forced to confront this challenging concept of change that comes up with being a resident. That is to say, the loss of a beloved institution and establishment.
A Photojournalism Response Essay to Star Clipper’s Announced Closing
by Mikkel Snyder, FreezeRay Editor
On January 15, 2015, Star Clipper customers received notification over Facebook and email that their doors would be closing. The popular comic book shop based on the Delmar Loop meant a lot to St. Louis residents. The bulk of the essay was written the day of the announcement, and was edited to reflect additional information gained in the following weeks.
Star Clipper staff knew about the closure about a month earlier. This essay is dedicated to the incredible community that I, and many others, found thanks to them and owner.
When you’re growing up and moving around a lot, one of the things you don’t actually notice is that places change over time. It seems simple enough. However, when you’re moving every few years, you can’t really appreciated it because to you, everything is new by virtue of being different. You don’t see places rise and fall. Roads pretty much stay the same. Life goes on.
As a military brat, I didn’t start noticing that places change until my family stopped moving and we actually lived in the same house in Maryland for nearly a decade. However, given that four of those years overlapped with my college career, I can’t say any of the changes I noticed affected me in any meaningful way.
Today, as I continue my attempts to settle in St. Louis, I’m forced to confront this challenging concept of change that comes up with being a resident. That is to say, the loss of a beloved institution and establishment.
Star Clipper's Storefront Neon Sign. After Star Clipper’s closure, the sign will be donated to
St. Louis’ City Museum, a fitting home.
St. Louis’ City Museum, a fitting home.
Star Clipper was, is, and may always be my favorite comic book store. When first finding the store on the loop five year ago, I was not well versed in comics. I was a huge nerd of comic book properties since I had grown up on the DCAU, and had an extensive list of webcomics that I kept current with, but comics, physic comics, were foreign to me with their picture book-esque quality. I had read a graphic novel here and there, sure, but never experienced what it really meant to be a comic book fan.
Star Clipper elevated me to a new kind of nerd. The first time I walked into the store, I just started browsing the stacks to see the plethora books available and I stumbled on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, a ten volume set and to this day one of my prized possessions. Being reckless, I purchased all ten volumes in celebration for the end of the semester and proceeded to read that series in a weekend. This started a long standing ritual with me and a store.
I can’t iterate enough times how important this place was to me. I can’t tell you all of the thing I loved about it, from the incredible that has guided me through the selection, the store front itself being pitch perfect, the amazing events I’ve gotten to be a part of.
I will say Star Clipper is responsible for the two bookshelves of comics that I display proudly in my living room. I will say that I’m really, really sad I need to find a new comic book shop, because if there is a single lesson to be taken away from this, it is not the fact things change, but that I can’t stop reading comics now. I’m in too deep. There are too many good stories that I’ve stumbled on to.
Star Clipper elevated me to a new kind of nerd. The first time I walked into the store, I just started browsing the stacks to see the plethora books available and I stumbled on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, a ten volume set and to this day one of my prized possessions. Being reckless, I purchased all ten volumes in celebration for the end of the semester and proceeded to read that series in a weekend. This started a long standing ritual with me and a store.
I can’t iterate enough times how important this place was to me. I can’t tell you all of the thing I loved about it, from the incredible that has guided me through the selection, the store front itself being pitch perfect, the amazing events I’ve gotten to be a part of.
I will say Star Clipper is responsible for the two bookshelves of comics that I display proudly in my living room. I will say that I’m really, really sad I need to find a new comic book shop, because if there is a single lesson to be taken away from this, it is not the fact things change, but that I can’t stop reading comics now. I’m in too deep. There are too many good stories that I’ve stumbled on to.
The Aforementioned Bookshelves ( the collection has doubled since)
But in particular, these last two years with Star Clipper have been particularly defining to my adult life. After graduating and moving up to Madison, Wisconsin, the absence of Star Clipper was one of the many factors that made me realize that I loved and missed St. Louis. I literally made the 300+ mile trip down south to “see friends,” and by that I mean “go to Star Clipper at least once.”
It was only 6 hours.
I remember going with Kastyn during one of my visit and then getting a 24 pack of Fitz’s root beer before I headed back north. I remember driving six hours, getting six hours of sleep, and then waiting in line for three hours with Ben Tolkin as we talked poetry and the musical episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, just so we could get all of the comic book offerings possible. I remember the Free Comic Book Day the year before when I gave Emily an Iron Man 3 pen in exchange for a declaration that I was in the fact the best of all her friends to much discontent with our other friends.
So much swag.
I remember having my ever feature as Crossover Poetry with my stage partner, Lauren.
I’m pretty sure I was doing a pantoum persona piece of Renee Montoya when this picture was taken.
I remember graduating Comics U as a freshman this past year, and now I’m going to have to get my certificate framed and wear my t-shirt more often as a reminder.
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The first (and last) Star Clipper produced zine on the left. My poorly drawn Voltron on the right.
I remember going to midnight showings at the Tivoli and getting five dollar gift cards or anime themed postcards and just being so, so, so happy with my life decisions.
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All of that awesome in one summer (and yeah, one of these things is not like the other)
I remember when I saw that Star Clipper’s owners had literally developed software for tracking comic book stock and falling even more in love with the store and what is stood for.
So where do I go from here given this news?
Well, clearly this is not what I ever wanted to hear. Clearly, Star Clipper is so important to me. Clearly I don’t want to find a new store and if I had the funds necessary, I would toss money until the doors could be kept open for eternity.
Unfortunately, that’s not an option. And unfortunately, I think that’s growing up.
So where do I go from here given this news?
Well, clearly this is not what I ever wanted to hear. Clearly, Star Clipper is so important to me. Clearly I don’t want to find a new store and if I had the funds necessary, I would toss money until the doors could be kept open for eternity.
Unfortunately, that’s not an option. And unfortunately, I think that’s growing up.
The last big merch run collected that Saturday after close.
Come February, there’s going to be a hole in the heart that matches the size of the soon to be vacant storefront on the Loop. At the end of the day though, I am a comic book fan. I am one thanks to Star Clipper. I will continue to be a patron there until they tell me I can’t. I will buy books at an alarmingly frequency for a few more weeks. I will keep my weekly pull of the half dozen series I’m reading.
But mostly, I’m going to keep being a nerd. It’s the best way I can honor Star Clipper, its staff, its owners, and everything they have done for me.
But mostly, I’m going to keep being a nerd. It’s the best way I can honor Star Clipper, its staff, its owners, and everything they have done for me.
A rare selfie taken in memoriam for this incredible shop. I’ll miss it.
In the half month since writing this first draft of this essay, Star Clipper Facebook Page has linked to many an article that range from talking about the history of the store to its current standing. Rather than try and incorporate these directly into the essay, I wanted to present a few of the ones I found resonant as a coda below.
Star Clipper Announced Closing in the Loop
Star Clipper is St. Louis’ Latest Culture Retailer Casualty
Why Star Clipper’s Owners Shuttered Their Beloved St. Louis Comic Book Shop
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