I was speaking with fellow comic book creator and partner in crime Abdulkareem Baba Aminu (or as I know him Kareem) this evening and he was like, "OH! By the way...I am co-owner of Nigeria's first official Comic Book Shop."

I said to him, "UM!  Kareem!  That may be something very significant."

Here is their official press release:

The first-ever comic book store in Nigeria has opened.  The outlet, called PLANET COMICS, is situated in the heart of Kaduna GRA, beside mega-popular video club VIDEO MARS.  The official opening of the store took place at 2pm on the 2nd of September on the store premises.  “We are proud of the fact that the very first comic book store in the nation was opened in Kaduna.  In Lagos, Abuja and other places, there are shops or bookstores which sell a handful of comics, and only by the side or corner or whatever.  But here at PLANET COMICS, we are a bona fide comic book store,” said Ben Bonet, a co-owner of the store.

The interior of the store, a lushly carpeted and air-conditioned environment, was filled to the brim, right from opening hour to 9pm, where customers snacked on sandwiches and drank soft drinks while snapping up monthly titles ranging from X-Men, Bat Man, Legion of Superheroes and hardcover editions like Astonishing X-Men, Identity Crisis and Runaways, among others.

“Sure, they love some of them, but comics aren’t just for kids anymore. A comic book once won a Pulitzer prize for crying out loud,” Bonet stressed.  Said book, MAUS, by Art Spiegelman is a highly respected literary work.  “But don’t get me wrong: we have [comic] books for all here,” Bonet added, who also mentioned that PLANET COMICS also stocks the finest European publications, like Hergé’s Tintin and Asterix. He said “We’ll also stock, in the coming weeks, the very best of Nigerian comics by aces like Lantern Books, Imperial Creations, Pandora Studios, Homemade Cookies and more.  It’s an intercontinental feast here.”

Like most firsts, the duo behind PLANET COMICS intend to slowly expand to Lagos, Abuja and “wherever there’s a demand for the funnybooks,” joked Abdulkareem Baba Aminu, the shop’s other co-owner, knowing fully well the teeming fans of comics around Nigeria would be pleased to have an outlet within reach. As the night closed to an end, the crowd thinned out slowly, satisfied. “I hate you, PLANET COMICS,” yelled one customer, playfully, clutching the stack of TPBs he’d just bought, groaning: “There goes the money for my university education!”