Editor’s note: With the holiday shopping season in full swing, The Examiner profiles some local businesses where you can check off your gift lists and keep your money in our community.
Every Wednesday is an exciting day for comic book fans — that’s when the latest issues hit store shelves.
Kris Politopoulos is hoping Jan. 7 — the first Wednesday of the New Year — will be extra special for Invisible Jet Comics and its customers. That’s the day she plans to reopen her West Portal comics shop in its original location after a fire in the building last year forced her to relocate to a temporary spot a block away.
Because Politopoulos never had an official grand opening for her shop when she opened for business two years ago, she will hold one for her reopening. She plans to have a superhero caricaturist on hand, as well as some artists to hold book signings and other events extending into the following weekend.
“I’m going to do it up!” she said.
New businesses can be tough to get off the ground, but the fire presented an extra challenge for Politopoulos. The blaze happened as she was celebrating her store’s first anniversary. Electricity arcing from a bare wire exposed in a construction project in a building next door caused a fire in between the two structures, which spread to a salon upstairs from the comic store.
Firefighters put out the blaze before it spread to Politopoulos’ shop, so it didn’t suffer any smoke or fire damage. She was also able to rescue some personal and irreplaceable items — including some custom art signed by the artists — as well the new comics she had set aside for her regular customers.
But water used to put out the fire damaged some of her furnishings and merchandise. And it meant she had to close her doors to all but pick-up orders from regular customers, so she lost sales.
Fortunately for Politopoulos, an assistant to Supervisor Myrna Melgar who regularly attended the neighborhood’s merchants-association meetings knew of a vacant storefront nearby that was looking for a short-term tenant. A cobbler had previously operated out of the space, but it hadn’t been occupied in a few years and wasn’t in great shape, Politopoulos said.
But Politopoulos was able to convince her insurance company to pay for finishing out the place so she could reopen her store there. She ended up doing so by the third week of October — less than two months after the fire.
“I can hustle if I need to,” she said.
Although Politopoulos is not exactly glad the fire happened, it has had at least one benefit. Her temporary storefront is on the first block of West Portal, a block closer to the Muni station than her original digs. That means there’s more foot traffic.
“Being here, funny enough — it probably doubled my customer base,” she said.
And she’s hoping to take those new customers with her when she returns to her old location.
West Portal Muni station — seen in 2021 — is not far from Invsible Jet Comics’ temporary location. Owner Kris Politopoulos hopes the new customers join her in the old digs when the shop reopens Jan. 7 at its original spot.
Kevin N. Hume/Examiner file
T.J. Camaclang, 24, is one of those new customers. A comics fan, Camaclang stopped by Invisible Jet for the first time in early November with his friend Hunter Komuro, 25.
Camaclang said he lives nearby and was in the neighborhood, so he thought he’d check out the shop.
“It’s cute,” he said. “I really like it.”
“It’s nice to have a comic shop close to us,” he said.
Another of Politopoulos’ newer customers is Sam Fetian. Fetian, 36, said he only recently got into comics, turning to them as a kind of diversion while he went through a difficult situation in his life. He said he enjoys reading Batman, Godzilla and Spider-Man comics, although he’s trying not to get “too crazy” into comics.
Fetian said he lives in the Dogpatch, but he started stopping by Invisible Jet because it’s on the way to his chiropractor’s office. He has checked out a few other shops in The City, but he enjoys going to Invisible Jet, he said.
“I really love it,” he said. “It has a big personality.”
That’s almost entirely due to Politopoulos, who — in addition to being the shop’s owner — is its sole employee. From almost the moment she came up with the idea of opening her own comic store in February 2023, she had a distinct vision for Invisible Jet, she said.
The store’s name is an allusion to the vehicle used by Wonder Woman, Politopoulos’ favorite comic hero. She said she figured out the shop’s logo — which features that jet sitting over a cartoon speech bubble, all colored in Wonder Woman’s costume colors of red, yellow and blue — within five minutes of deciding she wanted to open the store.
Politopoulos said she also knew where she wanted to put her store. Before she opened Invisible Jet, there was just one comic-book store between the middle of San Francisco and Sunnyvale — and that store, which is in Pacifica, shifted its focus to board games in recent years, she said. Given that, she figured there was room for a store in the southern part of The City.
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She said she planned to focus in part on kids’ graphic novels, which have become among the best-selling books for younger-readers, much more so than comics. So, to accommodate kids and families, she wanted her store to be somewhere relatively close to freeways, with good parking and access to mass transit, she said.
Politopoulos looked for months for a space. But then she found the storefront on West Portal, which had walls that were the same shade of yellow as that in her logo.
“I was like, ‘This is the place!’” she said.
Going into opening Invisible Jet, Politopoulos was a longtime comics enthusiast, but not exactly an experienced retailer. She and her husband had previously owned a comic store — Comix Experience Outpost on Ocean Avenue — but they were living in rural Salinas at the time and left the running of the store to a partner. And that store went out of business some seven months after they purchased it in 2021.
Politopoulos had spent much of her career in the tech industry. Prior to opening Invisible Jet, she had been at YouTube, and at Google before that. But after 23 years in the industry — and the onset of perimenopause — she was ready for a change, she said.
Working in tech for so long “broke me,” she said.
Many people are prompted by middle age to change directions and start new careers, but not many quit their jobs to open up comics shops. For Politopoulos, though, her decision was kind of a natural one.
Wonder Woman’s trademark plane, pictured at a San Diego Comic-Con installation in 2016, served as the inspiration for the name of Kris Politopoulos’ West Portal comics shop.
Christy Radecic/Invision for Warner Bros. Consumer Products/AP Images
The San Francisco native said her dad was a big comic-book collector as a kid, and she grew up reading his stash of mid-’60s issues of titles such as “The Fantastic Four,” “Justice League” and “Wonder Woman.” In her late 20s, she got back into comics thanks to her soon-to-be husband — a big fan himself, who introduced her to many of the modern titles she’d missed, such as “The Dark Knight Returns” series and “Preacher.”
The two got married at The City’s Cartoon Art Museum. Their youngest child grew up reading graphic novels. And then they bought their previous comics store.
Comics “has always been a thread through our lives,” Politopoulos said.
Politopoulos said she’s tried to learn from her previous failed comic-shop experience. She and her husband moved back to The City and now live in Merced Manor, within walking distance of her store. Before opening Invisible Jet, she reached out to Brian Hibbs, the longtime owner of Comix Experience on Divisadero, to get his advice.
Hibbs, who sold Comix Experience Outpost to Politopoulos and her husband, advised her to be cautious about how many copies of each new comic stocked, to limit them to the number she knew she could sell and to be attuned to what her customers wanted. He also gave her connections to the representatives of the various companies that distribute comics and graphic novels, she said.
“The comic-shop owners in San Francisco — it’s a community,” Politopoulos said. “We all support each other.”
She’s found a similarly supportive community among the West Portal Merchants Association, which she said she got involved in as soon as she opened her store. Among the people she said she’s found camaraderie with is Anna Bullard, who owns and runs Bookshop West Portal across the street.
Although they both sell graphic novels, neither Bullard nor Politopoulos said they see the other as a competitor. In fact, Bullard has been happy to pare back her stock of graphic novels and to direct customers seeking particular ones to Invisible Jet, she said.
“We send people over to her all the time,” Bullard said.
Politopoulos said that while the store wasn’t profitable in its first year, it’s likely making money now; she’s started to repay herself for some of what she invested in it.
It’s not unusual for comics stores to struggle to make a profit in their first few years, particularly in San Francisco, Hibbs said. The upfront investment for inventory, as well as for shelves and other furnishings, can add up to about $100,000, he said. It can take years to recoup that investment, he said.
High rents and wages make it costly for businesses to operate in The City, Hibbs said. Unlike many other retailers, comics shops generally can’t compensate by raising their prices because the price of a comic is marked on its cover, and Amazon frequently sells graphic novels at discounts, he said. Thanks to such factors, the number of comic-book shops in San Francisco has dropped from 25 in 1989 when he opened Comix Experience to just eight today, he said.
But there’s plenty of room in San Francisco for Politopoulos’ store, Hibbs said. There are more people in The City than there were in 1989, San Franciscans tend to stick to and shop in their neighborhoods, and there are no other comics stores near Invisible Jet, he said. There are lots of schools nearby, and the street Invisible Jet is on gets lots of foot traffic, he said.
One of the most important factors in a comics store’s success is its ability to cater to its particular set of customers, Hibbs said. Politopoulos — whom he said he’s known for about 25 years — is very smart and is doing that, he said.
So, while he’s not privy to Invisible Jet’s finances, Hibbs said he’s optimistic about its outlook.
“I have a lot of faith in Kris’ passion and energy and enthusiasm,” he said.
“I think she’s going to succeed.”