Heartaches: Bizarro-Wuxtry, The Remarkable Athens Comic Shop, is Up For Sale

In 1992 I moved to Athens, Georgia. One of the first things I did was check out the local comic shop. I was used to a certain type of comic shop from my high school days; the type where Love and Rockets was shelved in the back room next to the pornography because Love and Rockets had the word “mature” on the cover, a place plastered with posters of Batman scowling over a darkened cityscape or close-up drawings of Marvel Comics character The Wolverine. I absolutely wasn’t used to comic book stores like Bizarro-Wuxtry. It was an environment that completely overwhelmed (and permanently re-wired) my late teenage brain. The store was a riot of comics I’d never heard of, ‘zines nobody had ever heard of, and a million other things that I’d never considered the existence of, all piled on top of each other, simultaneously competing for my attention and merging into an amorphous whole of weird new experiences and ideas. Also, Love and Rockets was right there at eye level, on the main shelf, nowhere near any hardcore pornography. I could pick up a copy without feeling weird and ashamed. It was alien territory. I can’t remember exactly what I left with that day, but I have narrowed it down to either a copy of Chester Brown’s Ed The Happy Clown or an issue of Fiona Smyth’s Nocturnal Emissions. I still have both of these comics, but which of the two I purchased first is a fact lost to history. The important thing to realize here is that both of these things were available in a store staffed by people who were knowledgeable enough to recommend them, a kid who had, when he walked in the door, never heard of either title.

In June of 2026 I walked to Bizarro-Wuxtry from my office on my lunch break. Lunch break comic book store visits had become a time-honored tradition, one that I’d kept through several jobs. Even during times when I worked too far away to allow me to walk to the shop, I’d find a way to get there occasionally. Things seemed normal that day (or, at least, what passes for normal at such a place) but less than an hour after I got back to my desk a notice went out on the store’s social media: Bizarro-Wuxtry was for sale. There are several longer versions of the historical details out there for anyone who wants them, but Bizarro-Wuxtry was spun off from its parent entity, Wuxtry Records, in the early 90s. Wuxtry had always sold comics, but as the inventory grew, the comics part of the business needed more space. After a couple of relocations on street level, it found its permanent home on the floor above Wuxtry Records and slowly expanded into more of the upstairs room becoming the greatest comic book store in the world along the way.

That’s quite a hyperbolic claim, I know, but I’m prepared to argue it. There’s nothing like Bizarro-Wuxtry’s sprawling floor plan, occupying a mid-century office building with surprises (and confusion) in every corner. One room holds the back-issues, its walls a museum of flyers for Athens rock shows, comic signings, book releases, circuses, mayoral campaigns, and anything else interesting enough to warrant permanent display. Another room, with bizarre blue wallpaper on which a repeating pattern of plants and parrots is printed, holds even more back-issues, but this time it’s the “kids” comics; funny animal books, Archies, 90s Bongo books and the like. Outside and around the corner you’ll find the manga, the wrestling magazines, the 50s and 60s hot rod magazines, the Mads, Crackeds, and their imitators. There’s a room for weird toys, both new and “vintage.” There’s a room for art books. There’s… no real way to explain it. It’s an accumulation of the coolest stuff, representing pretty much every decade of pop culture and it makes me sad that I’m using the present tense to describe it to you because as I write this, I know that it is gone.

You can’t really talk about Bizarro-Wuxtry without talking about its manager and guiding light Devlin Thompson. Devlin’s been behind the counter for over three decades and it’s his commitment to (among other things) self-publishing, small press, and the very concepts of comics, art, and general weirdness that have given the place its character. To walk into Bizarro-Wuxtry is, to some extent, to walk into Devlin’s brain (as people like Kirk Demarais and Pete Bagge have documented). It’s a singular vision, but it’s not opposed to collaboration, and it’s one of the main reasons that the present-day Athens comics community exists. There were, obviously, comics in Athens before Bizarro-Wuxtry but the thriving (and growing) comics community in Athens is a vine that grew on Bizarro-Wuxtry’s lattice. When the FLUKE small press festival began 25 years ago¹ the shop served as a meeting place to discuss how it would work and Devlin was there to provide ideas, free graphic design, and encouragement. When cartoonists in Georgia or the Southeast release new work, Devlin makes sure to have space on the shelf for it, regardless of print run, publisher, or even the “professionalism” of the finished result. You couldn’t ask for a more dedicated, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic supporter of comics and small press.

The stuff’s not gone, as far as I know, but Bizarro-Wuxtry is, and that’s an immeasurable loss to the comics community. Landlords sell buildings to developers to turn into apartments all the time. That’s what’s happened here. Bizarro-Wuxtry is just one of the more recent victims of this sadly universal occurrence. The modern world, though, has fine-tuned the process of stripping away anything that builds community and provides joy. Under capitalism, the much-talked-about “third place” almost necessarily has to be in some way a commercial enterprise, but places like Bizarro-Wuxtry do (or, I guess, did) more than simply sell things to people, fighting back against the idea that commerce is always its own goal. It’s important to document what we’re losing. I would roll my eyes so hard at a sentence like that “third place” one if I read it. It’s just a comic book store, right? Well, yes, but also, no.

Devlin’s still around. The Athens (and beyond) comics scene is still strong, but we’re all rattled right now. As with any ending, there are rumors, ideas, and speculation about what happens next, and I believe that something good will grow from this loss. But those wishes and that speculation can’t hide the fact that the world has lost something good; a place filled with ideas, one that allowed an inclusive community to grow inside and around it. In the eyes of most of the world, that’s nowhere near as important as “luxury” apartments for college students, but some of us (and if you’re reading this, you’re probably among that number) know that inspiration, friendship, art, and ideas are eternal, even when it doesn’t feel like it. It’s hard not to end on that uplifting, if somewhat saccharine note. I want there to be hope. I want there to be growth from the ashes, but right here, in the middle of this loss, it feels uncertain, and also a little silly to be so publicly emotional about the closing of a store. But it’s more than that. It always has been. There’s probably a place that holds a similar meaning for you. You should go there when you can and think, just for a moment, about what you’d do if it went away. I hope, for you, it never does, but it’s happening all too frequently these days. Developers need to turn their money into more money. College students need luxury apartments. Nobody in the property management office is gonna care that David Greenberger did a Duplex Planet reading in the building they just bought. The students probably won’t care that Evan Dorkin, Eleanor Davis, and James Sturm all signed books in what will be their kitchen. But I care, and Athens cares, and that care will be transformed into grief. It’s up to us whether or not that grief pushes us forward or drags us down.