Even among the many comic shops in Philadelphia, Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse is unique. Yes, there’s the coffee part of the equation, but there’s also the fact that Amalgam is one of the few Black-owned comic shops in the U.S. Community and social justice are baked into its fabric in equal measure, important things as the U.S. continues to recover from a global pandemic and unrest over the killings of unarmed Black people by police.
Is it neat that owner Ariell Johnson can go off on why Storm and Black Panther’s marriage didn’t work? (“Storm is in a book called Black Panther. It’s not her book,” the Ororo-Logan shipper says of the 2006 event.) Absolutely, but there are bigger things at play here.
And right now, Amalgam needs help.
Unlike other U.S. comic shops, Amalgam has not yet reopened to in-person service. And while the staff is still working to get the store in order, on Saturday, it will host an outdoor Juneteenth celebration featuring Black Child Book Fair, a Chicago-based traveling book fair aimed at promoting and amplifying Black voices in children’s literature.
To those ends, the store has put up a GoFundMe page seeking $35,000 both to fund the Juneteenth celebration and to fund rent, repairs, health and safety upgrades, deep cleaning/disinfecting, and hiring and training new staff for reopening.
“I almost feel like this is our second coming, if you will, because we’ve been closed for so long,” Johnson told ComicsXF. “Some folks didn’t make it, and so we’re just really thankful and honored to say that we were able to pull through, and we’re excited to see what this next phase of our existence will look like.”
In early 2020, its fifth anniversary drawing ever closer, Amalgam was on a mission of expansion. The store had just finished renovating classroom and office space, so it could host more events and educational functions. The kind of things that encourage people to gather indoors in common spaces, the thing many of us would become afraid of as the year ground on.
From March to June 2020, Amalgam was completely shut down — a familiar refrain for comic shops during that period. It reopened for curbside pickup in mid-June, a couple weeks later than planned, as social unrest lingered in Philadelphia and across the U.S. in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“Amalgam is in a historically white working-class neighborhood, so there is a little bit of … I wanna say that Trump-supporter energy, I hate to say it like that. But it just felt unsafe sometimes,” said Johnson, citing concern for her staff of mostly Black and brown employees. “It felt very dystopian.”
Like many comic shops, the pandemic forced Amalgam to unleash the digital sales and social media beast within. Where previously its online store was for pushing branded merchandise — Amalgam T-shirts, hoodies, etc. — and select books, over the course of the year, the staff moved nearly all of its inventory online. This has opened up sales beyond greater Philadelphia to places like Wisconsin and Hawaii, Johnson said.
“Our website has never been more robust,” she said. “I’m hoping that it is a real expansion of our reach, because people will be coming back in the store but people will still be shopping online.”
Philadelphia is making its way out of the dark alongside the rest of the country. On June 11, the city lifted its indoor mask mandate. As of June 14, according to the city’s Health Department, 668,710 residents were fully vaccinated in the city of 1.6 million, or nearly 54% of the adult population. Health officials say case counts are the lowest they’ve seen since the start of the pandemic.
But even as Philly unmasks, Johnson sees the store maintaining COVID precautions for the immediate future, including mask requirements, keeping the coffee bar closed and putting in-store events and gaming on the back burner until at least the fall.
“There’s still 50% who are not vaccinated and not wearing masks, and I want to be mindful of that, and who COVID has affected disproportionately, which has been my community,” Johnson said.
Which isn’t to say Amalgam is looking to remain in hiding. Saturday’s Juneteenth event is intended to be a big outdoor, child-focused community affair, featuring young authors, poets, musicians, even DJs.
“Especially for Black and brown children, it’s important for them to see different avenues of livelihoods. Depending on the community that you live in, you don’t see all the options that are out there,” Johnson said.
Case in point: “The first time I saw Cirque du Soleil, I was like, ‘You mean I could have been in the circus?!’”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Amalgam was at $15,985 of its $35,000 goal. Hosting Black Child Book Fair and the Juneteenth celebration is the priority. The things needed for reopening can come with time.
“The thing with financing, I feel like, you ask for what you need and then you plan for when you don’t get it,” Johnson said. She’s still exploring other funding sources, on top of the federal recovery money that’s been out there since last year. “I’m almost like throwing everything out there and seeing what sticks.
“My hope and prayer is even if we don’t hit the total goal for the GoFundMe, that when we have the reopening, we have the support … it will help us get all the wheels turning.”
You can support Amalgam on GoFundMe. Info on the Juneteenth celebration and Black Child Book Fair can be found here.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
