Big Planet Comics

Friendly place, knowledgeable and welcoming. Glad to make this my new comic shop after moving to DC from Seattle. Small space but does not feel cramped. Shop is well organized and the staff was lovely each time I visited. Thanks for ordering Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly for my box even though they aren’t the most popular!

Amazing selection, friendly owner, great conversation and suggestions. And he was playing The Monochrome Set in the shop. I loved this store.

Amazing comic shop. The owners are nice and know their stuff, and if they don’t have something that you’re looking for, they’re always happy to order it for you.

Every time I go to a new town or area I like to stop by the local comic book store. I always ask the same question:
«Are there any comic books similar to Deadpool?»
I have gotten everything from «no, there are none» to a suggestion for a comic book that was nothing comparable. When I asked the staff at Big Planet Comics I was suggested the following titles:
Rat Queens
The Boys
Quantum and Woody
I also picked up the Deadpool Classic #1 while at this location. Overall, the staff was extremely nice and helpful. This is not the largest comic book store I have been in but it serves the purpose. They have a large selection of TPBs and all the new comic books that are out this week.
If you are in the Georgetown or Dupont Circle area I would strongly suggest checkout out Big Planet Comics if you are trying to get some suggestions for your favorite types of characters and writing.

I’ve mostly dabbled in online comics but visited a few weeks ago to check the place out. After explaining to the guy at the counter that I’ve dabbled but that all my hard-​core comic-​reading friends told me different series to start out on, he and another regular were really nice and helped me pick out some things to get my feet wet. I’ll definitely go back! Can’t wait!

Solid comic book store!
Whether you are into sci fi, fantasy, manga, or the standard DC/​Marvel Universe, Big Planet Comics has got you covered. While the store is fairly small they have a large and easy to browse selection. The sales people are also very friendly and eager to help you locate what you are looking for.
For toy collectors, stay clear. This place is books only!

A good selection of Trade Paperbacks and some Zines but not much else. Its a good store if you are in the neighborhood.

Awesome collection even some smaller press indie comics. Friendly and helpful staff. Best comic book store in NOVA.

Looking for your superhero fix? You can get that here. But believe me it is so much more fun to browse so you can find those things you wanted even you did not know that. Independent and European stuff galore. The clerk is ultra nice and knowledgeable. Love the whole vibe of this store.

Big Planet is up the street from my salon, which was an extremely happy accident. The U Street streetscape is so cluttered with signs, it is easy to walk right by them (as I’m sure I have before) or go into the wrong level as I accidentally did (sorry porn store clerk, I know I looked out of place.) But once I got on the right level I was in my happy place. Big Planet is a small-​ish store, but packs in a ton of books and comics into that space. I was greeted pleasantly and left alone to browse until it looked like I had a question. He located the books I was looking for quickly and answered all of my questions knowledgeably. I am a fan and will definitely be back.

Small but overflowing with great comics. A well-​chosen selection and an informed staff. I got an excellent suggestion for a gift for a hard-​to-​buy-​for friend and it worked out very well. That kind of service makes me want to support them instead of saving a few bucks by buying online. That and the vanishing convenience of browsing before you buy.

Update (¹²⁄₂₂₁₂): Over the past couple months, the owners have made some significant changes to this store: they changed the layout so it’s now cleaner, brighter, and easier to find what you’re looking for. More importantly, the employee who was the source of many previous problems at this store is now nowhere to be found. The owners now maintain a much more active presence at the store — their helpfulness, friendliness, and enthusiasm for and knowledge of comics makes it a much more enjoyable experience than it previously was. Customer service has improved significantly — now, if you ask them to hold or order something for you, you can have confidence that it will be done.
Ever since they made the changes, I’ve found myself looking forward to stopping in every Wednesday to check out the new books, pick up my regular series, chat about what’s going on in the industry, and get really on-​point recommendations from the guys on new books that i should check out — they’ve steered me towards some really great stuff that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Highly recommend this place for veteran collectors and newbies alike.

In case you missed it, they have new owners and staff!
I’ve always been fond of Big Planet — the people are knowledgeable, they have a wide variety of more independent/​lesser-​known comics and graphic novels, and it’s incredibly convenient (for me).
Now that they have new guys running the store, the experience has gone from ok to amazing. Jared and Nick are incredibly passionate about comics (ALL comics) and can always recommend something for your mood. If they don’t have it, they will gladly order it.
The new set-​up is great; it’s amazing how much inventory they can fit in there. Seriously, it’s a small room, but I have spent many an hour in there always finding something new.
I get it — they don’t have back issues. That stinks. But space is limited, so I deal.
If you’ve been there before and had a bad experience, go back and give it a new shot. You won’t regret it. This is unquestionably the best comic store with the most helpful staff in DC.

Every now and again you travel to a place that lets you know how fortunate you have been in life. I have grown up with comics and have spent countless dollars at comic book stores across the east coast. Every one of the shops that I went to were awesome because each one of the owners/​workers has been polite, helpful, funny, and/​or fun. I make it a point during my vacations to find the local comic book shop and try to spend somewhere between $ 50-​$ 100 to support them. That all stopped the day I went to Big Planet Comics…
I looked on-​line for a comic book shop while I was in DC and Big Planet was the only thing that came up. Immediately, I picked up a cab and spent $ 15 without a care because of the excitement of another comic book shop.
After spending a few minutes browsing the current comic section (which was OK, not amazing) I started looking through the trades. I was excited to find that they had Warren Ellis’ Gravel, and I was about to pick up the first three trades (about $ 75). Then I noticed that they had Brian Woods (note the W in the last name) Demo Volume Two. I sat down because since Wood begins with W, he was on the bottom shelf, and since I am 6’3, it was much more comfortable to sit down briefly to peruse through the other Wood titles. I could not have been sitting for more than 3 minutes before the lady working behind the counter rudely said «could you not sit on the floor, thanks» and added an expert roll of the eyes.
I understand that comic shops make money when people buy comics, and i was not sitting on the floor free-​reading comic books, I was looking through their Brian Wood collection seeing if there was something new I might want to buy, and I wasn’t sitting there long enough to even get comfortable. (WOOD, Why must your last name begin with a letter near the end of the alphabet!!! J/​K)
The one thing I did like was that they had some of the trades arranged by writer. I loved this because I saw some things that Grant Morrison and Alan Moore wrote that I am going to go out and purchase, SOMEWHERE ELSE OF COURSE!
If you are a comic fan, save your money and support stores that appreciate, hell maybe not appreciate but at least respect your business.

I don’t bother doing these reviews much. There are two reasons for this.
1) Unilocal is infested with yuppies flagellating themselves and their «Writing» ability, though they do for writing what brown toilet paper has done for the field of invention.
2) There are few experiences that I’ve had that have compelled me to wish a flying saucer would come and physically rip the store from the face of the Earth via some kind of tractor-​beam, only to casually dispose the toxic contents into the sun where they subsequently are vaporized, doing us all a favor.
Big Planet Comics fits this bill. Since my first negative review of «Daily Grind» out in Leesburg mall was followed with the damn store closing, thus prompting me to jump up and down gleefully from my living room floor laughing «muhuhuhahaha,» I can only hope in my heart that justice prevails and the world is rid of yet another retail abomination that simply deserves to cease existence.
I am embarrassed to share the same oxygen as this store and its posse of neckbeard hipster and fangirl employees, let alone the hobby of proliferating «Graphic novels,» or as they’re more realistically called, comic books.
Sad, considering I try my damnedest to look for comic book stores worthy of getting my money in exchange for something. I happen to like the printed word, and being a man-​child, I also happen to like the pretty pictures. It takes the attitude of a couple of really horse’s ass-​level rude people to dissuade me from at least giving the 4.95 for a book-​printed-​on-​grocery-​bag-​paper books a try. And well, a horse’s ass I got.
After lamenting how comic books had gone downhill and I could relate to very few and how I was not eager to check out «Batman in the 57^th Dimension,» I decided to get lost in a tome that was a security blanket of sorts, «Pyongyang,» a travelogue written by Guy Delisle. Well, it couldn’t have come quickly enough. After jumping around to a few fave sections of this book, the waddling store oaf admonished me that, «Sir– you can’t just sit there and read. I’m sorry,» implying that the «Sir» and the «Sorry» from this bloated windbag were anything but genuine.
Seemingly oblivious to the advent of e-​publishing and the separate advent of webcomics and what tidal-​wave will be caused when these two fields merger, Big Planet Comics, being the tough guys that they are, have thrown caution to the wind, and ignoring all warning signs on the horizon have instead opted to follow the crotchety, cigar-​chomping bloated «THIS AIN’T A LIBRARY, KID!» old-​man store-​owner-​trying-​to-​make-​a-​buck business model. In this economy? You can’t afford NOT to be nice. Bad call!
I elaborate. Y’see, bookstores still exist, luckily, because they allow people not only to «browse» – (that word you second-​rate comic book store owners are happy to mis-​use and OVERuse when instructing us consumers Read: Chumps! how to conduct our happy little retail experience) — but they also allow us to literally sit there for hours, comfortably. With sofas! I shouldn’t have to explain that having people hanging out for long periods of time in your store denotes popularity, not necessarily freeloading, and GOOD LORD if you’re the kind of establishment that sells things as useless as bloody pokemon cards, ESPECIALLY surrounded by uppity posh social types, the LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS BOOT KIDS OUT OF YOUR STORE. If you’re the kind of establishment that has groups of five or six «Otaku» coming in and loitering the hell out of the manga section, YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, because it definitely improves your chances of one of them BUYING SOMETHING tenfold at least.
Extrapolate to other retail experiences. Would you kick people off your lot as a used car salesman? If you were a store clerk at a woman’s clothing store, would you accost them for trying something on? The first retail establishment I could postulate, on the fly, that actually sorta DEMANDS that you purchase something, is a bar, and even in a bar there’s not that much pressure to buy a beer. On a busy night, in particular, you can sit for about an hour and not be waited on. Try it. The only bar where you’re ultimately FORCED to drink is a tittybar, and I’ve said as much before. If you have to pay ten dollars for a beer, there better be tits floating IN the beer.
Remember when Bush, upon visiting Iraq, got a shoe thrown at him? Were this store in Arabia, it should deserve to have a shoe factory worth of shoes dropped upon it like rain. Big Planet, I wish a pox on your house.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, I don’t like this place very much. I strongly formally urge anyone with a brain to continue the organic process of decay which has already begun, and allow this shop to regress into what all downtown DC comic book stores inevitably morph — a vacant storefront with a sign that says, «This space for rent.» People with reasonably good mental function should vote with their cash for stores like this to be gone.

Maybe I’m spoiled coming from Boston… This shop was small and there wasn’t a single back issue! When I asked the clerk if she had a recommendation she told me that comics weren’t profitable and I should try e-​bay. Fail.

Only comics, but they have everything! My husband lives in this place and I shop the over-​priced vintage jewelry store upstairs.

Comic book geeks would love this place. Although their stock is more «graphic novels» and rare issues versus the periodicals (not sure what those are called in the comic world). From DC to Marvel to Dark Horse, it is at Big Planet. They receive new stock every Wednesday.
Big Comics offers a ton of benefits to their loyal followers: In free subscription with10% off and an e-​newsletter you can sign up for in store. The store holds a big sale twice a year on Independence Day and New Year’s Day with a discount of 20%.

This comic store has probably the most comics of any place in D.C. They don’t really have a lot of toys or anything like that, it’s mainly just books. If you go in there looking for something, chances are they’ve got it. Big Planet is very organized, so you’ll have no problem finding what you want. Serious collectors will enjoy this shop. The store is located one block off Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown.