Books are shelved according to creator rather than title and there are just as many small print indie gems, (Scott Pilgrim and Strangers in Paradise to name a couple), as there are men-in-tights superhero comics from the big two of DC and Marvel. The setup inside is simple: shelves of new release comics, graphic novels and trade paperbacks along the walls and on tables. It’s a reminder to all you latent nerds, geeks and spaz artists that “adult” is what you make of it, perhaps one of the remaining redeeming legacies of recyclable hipster culture in this New York, U.S.A. It comes across as a setting to some new Nick Hornby book, whereby having an elusive hobby is part of your cool – even if it is fetishistic. Hooked instantly, I had suddenly returned to the oasis of imagination that comic books represent. How fitting was it that they still had the old school pharmacy sign above the front window? Rocketship was the opium-cure to my undiagnosed adulthood blues. Somewhere in the last several years I awoke from my own comics slumber, as all good fanboys do, and found myself walking into a store called Rocketship on Smith Street in Cobble Hill.
To quote Paul of Tarsus, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child … but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Of course Paul never read Watchmen. In 2006, Mary and business partner Alex Cox, opened up their Brooklyn store, which has been increasingly drawing a comic-happy crowd of avid readers, many like myself who are now enjoying the sweet post-adolescent reboot of a nerdy pastime. “It’s a word you never get tired of saying,” says Mary Gibbons, referring to the store’s name Rocketship, which has no reference to any comic book whatsoever.
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