Nola’s best comic shop
For more than 30 years, Crescent City Comics has combined deep inventory, independent voices and relaxed New Orleans sophistication to become the city’s best comic shop.
Crescent City Comics’ Calhoun Street flagship carries forward a New Orleans comic shop story that began decades earlier on Elysian Fields Avenue.
Coming of age
During the comic book boom of the early 1990s, comics began appearing almost everywhere.
Baseball card shops added racks of Marvel and DC titles beside their wax packs and glass display cases. Some stocked enough back issues to keep a young reader digging. They recognized an opportunity, and for much of my teenage years in St. Bernard Parish, I bought my comics from a store like that.
They gave me a place to begin, but dedicated comic shops opened the door to something larger.
The shops worth leaving the parish to visit carried the latest releases alongside older runs, independent books, original artwork and titles I had never seen before. Each had its own personality, specialties and regular customers. The people behind the counter knew the medium, and an afternoon spent moving between stores could become a comic book road trip across the New Orleans area.
Among those destinations, Crescent City Comics became a home away from home.
Crescent City Comics’ deep back-issue selection rewards collectors willing to search through the bins one issue at a time.
A city of great comic shops
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the New Orleans area already supported an impressive ecosystem of established comic shops. Each offered its own selection, personality and reason to make the drive.
BSI Comics ranked among the region’s most influential. Carl Tupper founded Book Swap Incorporated with his wife, Linda, in 1979, beginning with used paperbacks before comics became the heart of the business. BSI expanded beyond its original location and helped nurture the regional comic book community. Carl mentored young employees, supported future retailers and comics professionals, and connected customers with people and businesses throughout New Orleans. Jason, who later owned BSI, remembered him as “a social network before the term existed.”
By the time I began visiting the Fairfield location, Carl’s banter and opinions had become part of the experience. The shop also offered a deep selection of back issues, including early Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books that remain in my collection.
In New Orleans East, The Bookworm on Read Boulevard offered another kind of comic-buying experience. Like BSI, it began as a used bookstore before comics became a major part of the business. Mrs. Pauline and her husband ran the shop, but its greatest attraction for me was the largest selection of dollar comics I had ever seen. Those shelves allowed a teenager with limited money to explore unfamiliar titles, follow new characters and sometimes assemble nearly complete runs in a single visit.
Across the river, Paper Gold maintained close relationships with artists and independent creators. Original pages brought readers closer to the creative process, while the inventory reflected an enthusiasm for work beyond the largest publishers.
BSI, the Bookworm and Paper Gold each contributed something distinctive to a comic book culture that encouraged readers to travel, explore and wonder what another store might hold. They helped shape New Orleans comic fandom during the years when I was first becoming a collector.
Crescent City’s mix of comics, graphic novels, models and statues helped establish the polished presentation that first distinguished the shop on Elysian Fields.
Up the stairs on Elysian Fields
A new generation of comic shops arrived in 1994 when Crescent City Comics opened at 6111 Elysian Fields Ave., bringing its curated selection and polished presentation to the New Orleans lakefront.
Located only a few blocks from the University of New Orleans, the shop became an easy addition to my afternoons as a UNO student. I could stop at Bud’s Broiler, Lee’s Hamburgers or another inexpensive restaurant along Elysian Fields before parking outside the shopping strip and climbing the stairs to the second floor.
Inside, clean carpet and organized inventory established the tone. Custom-built black comic bins with clear acrylic fronts stood directly on the sales floor, while handsome shelving displayed trade paperbacks, graphic novels, models and statues. Many of those same fixtures remain in use at the Calhoun Street location.
The inventory matched the presentation. Clean bags and boards protected deep runs of back issues, while major keys lined the wall, ready to do serious damage to a collector’s wallet. Crescent City became the first place where I saw an actual copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the 1962 comic that introduced Spider-Man.
Everything about the Elysian Fields store felt thoughtfully chosen and beautifully presented. It offered a top-shelf comic book experience while remaining relaxed, welcoming and unmistakably New Orleans.
Then Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
The storm devastated the surrounding neighborhood and ended Crescent City’s 11-year run on Elysian Fields. The shop’s second-floor location protected much of its inventory from the floodwaters, but holes torn through the roof allowed rain to destroy entire sections of back issues. When the surviving books eventually returned to the shelves, gaps in the inventory still revealed where the water had entered.
For the next several years, Crescent City Comics joined the long list of places I remembered from before Katrina but could no longer visit. The shop had become part of my life as a young collector, a UNO student and eventually a college graduate. My only remaining connection was the comics I had taken with me when I evacuated, safely beyond the reach of the storm and its floodwaters.
Crescent City Comics returned to New Orleans in 2009 through this modest storefront at 4916 Freret St., four years after Hurricane Katrina closed its Elysian Fields location.
Back on the map
Four years after Katrina, Crescent City Comics announced a grand opening at 4916 Freret St.
I could hardly believe it. I missed the grand opening, but the news immediately placed the shop back on my radar. Within a month or so, I entered the address into my GPS and made the drive.
The Freret store was much smaller than the Elysian Fields location, but Crescent City was unmistakably back. Familiar black bins held the back issues, while graphic novels and independent comics received the same attention as major superhero titles.
Freret also gave the shop new momentum. Release parties, art shows and creator signings brought readers together with local and visiting artists, often with free beer waiting in the back. Crescent City supported the Alternative Media Expo and gave independent voices a place alongside Batman, Spider-Man and the industry’s largest publishers. The store approached comics seriously while maintaining the easy, communal spirit of a New Orleans neighborhood gathering.
That combination filled the modest storefront. By its sixth-anniversary celebration in 2015, a sale and a keg drew a crowd that packed the shop. Assistant manager Justin Colomb called it “kind of a comic rager,” a fitting description of the energy Crescent City developed on Freret.
One year later, Crescent City carried that momentum into a second location at 3135 Calhoun St. The two shops operated simultaneously for a time before the Freret store closed and the business consolidated around its larger flagship.
The Calhoun Street flagship gave Crescent City Comics room to expand its selection while preserving the sense of discovery that defined its earlier locations.
A shop with presence
The Calhoun Street store gave Crescent City Comics a presence worthy of its name. Track lighting illuminates long walls of graphic novels, manga and collected editions. New releases, independent comics, toys and familiar black back-issue bins fill the sales floor. Above it all, an enormous Crescent City Comics logo painted across the ceiling announces that this is no ordinary neighborhood storefront.
The April 2016 grand opening carried the spirit of Freret into the larger space. Employees, customers and creators gathered beneath the ceiling logo, while photographs captured a line for comics stretching beyond the line for more free beer. Crescent City had gained polish and scale without surrendering the social atmosphere that fueled its return.
Major keys line the walls and display cases. Deep runs of back issues reward a patient search, while the breadth of graphic novels and independent titles continues to create opportunities for discovery.
The neighboring annex makes that experience even broader. Discounted comics, variants, hardcovers and graphic novels give shoppers the freedom to dig, experiment and leave with something unexpected. Someone can shop for Silver Age, Bronze Age and modern keys inside the flagship, then spend an afternoon next door assembling a stack from the bargain bins.
Crescent City Comics’ Calhoun Street flagship pairs an expansive selection with the polished presentation of a destination comic shop.
Living up to its name
Les Arceneaux’s philosophy explains how Crescent City maintains that balance. He wanted the staff to engage experienced collectors while remaining helpful and judgment-free with people who knew little about comics. “We’re trying to cultivate a readership,” Les said in 2016. “We want our customers to feel like they can come back to us and find anything in our selection that interests them.”
That approach welcomes everyone from the collector pursuing a major key to the child choosing a first comic. It also extends into the shop’s support of local creators, independent art, release parties and neighborhood gatherings. Crescent City takes comics seriously without allowing sophistication to become formality.
The business survived Katrina, spent four years without a storefront and rebuilt in a small shop along a recovering commercial corridor. From there, it grew into a 3,000-square-foot flagship without losing the character that first distinguished it.
What began on Elysian Fields found its distinctly New Orleans expression on Freret and reached its grandest scale on Calhoun Street. Crescent City Comics is more than a comic shop located in New Orleans. It is a New Orleans comic shop.
Where to go next
Crescent City Comics combines new releases, independent titles, graphic novels and deep back-issue runs inside its Calhoun Street flagship. The neighboring annex adds discounted comics, variants, hardcovers and more room to dig.
Crescent City Comics
3135 Calhoun St.
New Orleans, LA 70125
(504) 309-2223
Store hours:
Monday–Saturday: 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
Sunday: Noon–6 p.m.
