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Meet the East Coast’s First Black Female Comic Book Store Owner
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Meet the East Coast’s First Black Female Comic Book Store Owner

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September 16, 2016
Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse, Ariell Johnson, Comic Book Store, African American Entrepreneur, Black Businesses, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN

KOLUMN Magazine celebrates the lives of People of Color by…

[two_fifth padding=”0 35px 0 10px”]MEET THE EAST COAST’S FIRST BLACK FEMALE COMIC BOOK STORE OWNER

BY   Ryan Bergeron
PUB   The Philadelphia Tribune [/two_fifth][three_fifth_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”][perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”14″]Ariell Johnson checks out a customer at the cash register as patrons browse her store’s collection of comic books. The 33-year-old is the owner of Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in Philadelphia. You might say Johnson is a superhero herself.[/perfectpullquote]She’s the first Black woman on the East Coast to own and operate a comic book store. The comic book world tends to skew heavily towards white males. That’s true among comic book authors and owners. But when it comes to finding inspiration, Johnson didn’t have to look far. She turned to the X-Men.

“The first character that really got me excited about comics was Storm of the X-Men. A lot of that had to do with the fact that she was the first Black woman I had ever seen [in comics],” says Johnson.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”14″]“Seeing her I felt like I could be a part of that world.”[/perfectpullquote]

A lifelong “fan girl” of all things “geek, supernatural and superhero,” Ariell says she first had the idea to open her own shop in 2003.

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Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse, Ariell Johnson, Comic Book Store, African American Entrepreneur, Black Businesses, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN
Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Philadelphia, PA
Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse, Ariell Johnson, Comic Book Store, African American Entrepreneur, Black Businesses, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN
Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Philadelphia, PA
Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse, Ariell Johnson, Comic Book Store, African American Entrepreneur, Black Businesses, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN
Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Philadelphia, PA
Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse, Ariell Johnson, Comic Book Store, African American Entrepreneur, Black Businesses, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN
Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, Philadelphia, PA
[two_fifth padding=”0 25px 0 10px”]Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA[/two_fifth][three_fifth_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”]Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse is a celebration of geek culture. A place for comic book fans, hardcore gamers, movie addicts, television connoisseurs, and zombie apocalypse survivalists to meet, and with their powers combined, change the world a little bit.

We specialize in comics, toys & figurines, games, comic related magazines, apparel, coffee & espresso related beverages, and baked goods.

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Inside the ‘Chitlin Circuit,’ a Jim Crow-Era Safe Space for Black Performers | Atlas Obscura

A safe haven for all of geekdom! Pick your poison…and enjoy!

MORE | Facebook        CONTINUE READING @ The Philadelphia Tribune[/three_fifth_last]

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