LCS and Cheesesteaks

In 1988 or 1989 I walked into a comic book shop for the first time with my parttime friend and parttime nemesis Mike Shupe. Mindbridge was a tight and narrow LCS, with a counter on the right as you walked inside. On the left were racks of new issues, and there I picked up my first comic book, Detective Comics #587 August 1998. Norm Breyfogle's art caught my eye and wouldn't give it back. Batman, standing in the rain in the middle of an alley, cape billowing with lightning streaking through the sky, became my favorite superhero in the instant I picked the issue up.

Also on the wall also sat back issues of The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, and Batman Arkham Asylum, A Serious House on Serious Earth. I could tell immediately all of these books were above my pay grade. I hated Frank Miller's art on the Dark Knight. It would take decades for me to fall in love with that book. At this point in my 10 or 11 years on Earth I preferred the comic book-y style of art of Norm Breyfogle.

At this early age I was still picking up kids books, like COPS, the comic based on the awesome cartoon. I still have all the issues from this run, and also that first issue of Detective 587. With Tim Burton's Batman movie on the horizon, the bat was about to become a life-long love of mine. And it all started at Mindbridge, this small rink-a-dink comic shop in Dundalk.

I found dozens of issues and magazines and books that I still have in my collection to this day, like Hobby Japan. I don't understand a single thing on most pages, but the photos of awesome Japanese models and mechs was too incredible to pass on. And there was this insane A Nightmare on Elm Street book that came out while there were only a couple of movies in the franchise, and my mom wouldn't buy it for me. I had to get someone else to buy it later, but I think my mom returned it. It's odd, because she really didn't care what I watched as a kid as long as she didn't know about it. But to this day I still want to own a copy of it. It's scarred into my horror-loving mind.

Next door was a sub shop, Filetti's, and I would pick up a cheesesteak sub and a side of gravy fries and walk home to read my books. Halfway home however, I would always stop and eat, the smell of the food in the paper bag too much to refuse any longer.

Filetti's still exists as Merritt Sub. The other Filetti's locations are closed. But this one store still survives, with ephemera and pictures on the wall that have been there since the late '80s. I love it. They make my favorite cheesesteak sub and fries I have ever had. I manage to pick one up at least once a year. It's like eating a piece of the 1980s.

Merritt Sub

Mr. Filetti, the original owner/proprietor, has become one of my customers at the bike shop I work in. He's since retired and sold the shop to another own. I was kinda hoping he would work there until he was 100 years old. The sub shop won't be the same without him...

Later, after Mindbridge closed up shop, others popped up all over Dundalk. But none had the appeal of that dark, crowded shop on Merritt Blvd. This place has become mythical in the decades since I first shopped there. I can't find any trace of it ever existing at all, except for one or two guys who worked there who are now at other shops, like Chuck's comics. There are no pictures, nothing but a small story on the Baltimore Sun they posted to their website as a throwback story from 1986.

I received the trade paperback of The Dark Knight Returns for Christmas 1989. It was during Bat-mania, after all, and I was getting everything Batman. A watch, a coffee mug, a pewter Batman, a host of Batman t-shirts, it just went on and on. But this trade paperback was something I just wouldn't put down. It seemed quite adult to me, and much more than just the children's comic books on the stand. I didn't realize that it was comprised of four issues at that time, but even the art alone made it feel so very adult. It was like something I shouldn't be partaking in, such as skipping to Cinemax accidentally while channel surfing back then...