Rising Stars: Meet Cliff Biggers of Marietta, GA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cliff Biggers.

Hi Cliff, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been involved in comic books since I was six years old, when my parents bought me four comics to give me something to read as I recovered from a tonsillectomy. As I grew up, my love for the art form never went away. As a teenager, I became involved with comic book fanzines–amateur and semi-professional magazines about comics, produced by fans of the medium. That led me into some paid assignments from professional magazines about comics, where I did interviews, reviews, critical commentaries, and more.

In the late 1970s, I met the original owner of Dr. No’s (which began as a used book and record store) and we became friends. Once he discovered that I knew comics, he told me that he wanted to add new comics to his store’s selection, and he asked me if I would help him with ordering the right titles for his shop. I became his comics ordering manager and continued to do that through 1982, when he contacted me and said he had decided to either sell or close the store. I told him the “sell” part sounded interesting, and I’d like to buy it. In conjunction with two other friends, Randy Satterfield and Ward Batty, we bought the store in 1982 and began to gradually shift the merchandise to emphasize new and back issue comics. Randy sold his share of the store to Ward and me a couple of years later, and Ward sold his share to me in the mid-1990s.

In the mid 1980s, we began adding role-playing games to our product line, starting with Dungeons and Dragons and expanding from there. We now carry a wide assortment of role-playing games, specialty board games, collectible card games, and miniatures based games, and hold weekly events for our game-playing customers.

Our store has been in business for almost 49 years now, and we have been a full-line comic shop for most of that time. Dr. No’s Comics & Games SuperStore is the oldest continually-operating comic shop in Georgia, with the largest selection of graphic novels and collected editions (books that collect longer runs of individual comics) in the Southeast. We carry books for younger readers, books for middle school readers, and books for older readers. We have a full line of manga and anime-influenced books; an enormous selection of books ABOUT comics (critical commentaries, histories, biographies of creators, instructional books, encyclopedias, and more), and of course an enormous selection of comic book periodicals–the monthly titles that are the mainstay of the art form.

We are not a mail order site, because we value the personal connection with our customers. We have some customers whose families have shopped with us for three generations now. We want to get to know the people who enjoy comics, and we want to help them find the books they will like. Mail order and online sales seem impersonal to me, and I value that human connection with our customers.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Like any business, comic shops have boom periods and slumps, and we’ve seen our share. The most challenging times came in the late 1990s, when Marvel Comics made a number of ill-fated business decisions that led at first to an industry-wide distribution shakeup, and then to Marvel’s bankruptcy filing. A lot of shops failed at that time, but we weathered the storm and came out even stronger. The COVID disruption of 2020 was another challenging period for comic shops everywhere, because most publishers put their operations on hold for several months. Thankfully, our store had an enormous selection of back issues and collected editions to provide entertainment for our comics clientele while they waited for the industry to return to normal. We’re seeing record sales now because publishers seem more in tune with what their readers want, and that benefits the entire industry.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Dr. No’s Comics & Games SuperStore is lucky enough to have an outstanding staff. In addition to myself, there are five other members of the team, ranging in age from the mid-fifties to the early twenties, and each of them brings a particular knowledge base and enthusiasm to the job. Their particular talent is in matching the right comic, book, or game with the right reader or player, and they are extremely good at that. I am proud of what they do to help our customers, and the customers value the guidance and knowledge they have to offer.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
I still remember my first experience with comic book sales, back when I was twelve years old. I had found a store that sold 12 cent comic books (yes, that was the cover price way back then) for 11 cents and 25 cent comic books for 23 cents. So I would ask my comic bo0k reading friends what titles they were interested in, and I would hike to this local grocery store and buy the books, which I then sold to my friends. I made enough to buy an extra comic or two for myself and that was all, so I wasn’t getting rich–but apparently I really liked selling comics, because I eagerly jumped back into the game as an ordering manager in the late 1970s and as a store owner in 1982.

But of course, my real favorite childhood memories come from the comics themselves. I truly love the art form, and I am old enough to remember buying the first issues of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and Avengers and X-Men and many others from the local groceries, drugstores, and newsstands in Rome, Georgia, where I grew up. I truly loved the art form, and continue to enjoy comics of all types–superhero, humor, war, Western, fantasy, science fiction, horror, and more. It’s a lifelong passion, and I particularly value the times I’ve been able to tell the writers and artists of my childhood favorites just how much their comic book work has meant to me and has improved my life. The people who give us the stories that fill our lives don’t hear “thank you” enough, so I try to let the know how much they’re appreciated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drnos.com
• Facebook: @drnoscomicsandgamesuperstore
• Twitter: drnoscomicsandgames