Photos and story by Ben Gomez
At first glance, Black Star Collectibles seems like a typical store specializing in comics, sports and other pop culture merchandise. Action figures of superheroes. Comic books in a glass display case by the register. A wall of Barbies, another wall of Funko Pop figures. There are T-shirts and toys and enamel pins of various superheroes by the counter.
But upon closer inspection, it is clear that this Carson store, which opened in December at the SouthBay Pavilion, has its own vibe. The Funko Pop merch skews more toward Ice Cube and Tupac than Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons. Mace Windu action figures are more prevalent than any Skywalker. You may not see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Barbie, but you can take home a Rosa Parks Barbie.
And while there is no shortage of Black Panther, Luke Cage or Miles Morales sightings in the comics section, the only Captain America has black skin and the only Superman you see is standing toe-to-toe with boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
“I’ve always wanted my own toy store for as long as I can remember,” Black Star Collectibles co-owner Feon Cooper said. “[Black Star Collectibles] is its own thing. It’s its own category. It’s a pro-Black pop culture collectible store.”
First Black-themed pop culture shop in South Bay
While there are Black-owned bookstores that may sell graphic novels or comics in the greater Los Angeles area, Black Star Collectibles may be the first store in the South Bay, if not all of Los Angeles County, to specialize in Black superheroes and collectibles.
And it’s been a dream for Cooper and high school friend, and co-owner, Kareem Burton since they were teenagers. Rabid comic book fans, they’d read anything they could get their hands on. But when they decided to open their own store, they were determined to offer their clientele something hard for them to find while growing up:
Superheroes that looked like them.
The two recall having to bounce around a number of different stores in and around the South Bay to find comics that featured Black superheroes and other collectibles. It’s not that other stories didn’t offer them; it’s that historically, like all media, the representation of Black and other people of color was rare, and what few there were often riddled with stereotypes.
(For a timeline of the evolution of people of color superheroes, as well as an analysis of diversity in comics, see our “Putting the Color Back Into Comics,” package online at csudhbulletin.com.)
Cooper said that the importance of representation is crucial for young children in comic books and other mediums that deal with heroes. And a big part of opening their store was to help younger comic fans realize that people who look like them can be heroes as well.
Now, Cooper and Burton have created their childhood dream store packed with collectibles that represent people of color. They want their store to be everyone’s one-stop shop for everything representing Black culture in today’s pop culture.
Actor Inspired, Devastated
But there is a bittersweet irony to Black Star Collectibles: the same Black pop culture icon that finally propelled its co-owners to launch their store after nearly a decade of dreaming and planning, one who inspired and empowered more Black people in 135 minutes than the bulk of an 80-year history of an industry that had so long marginalized and ignored them, died four months before the shop opened.
At least the actor who played that icon: Chadwick Boseman, whose portrayal of the titular character in the 2018 film “Black Panther,” propelled a movie by a Black director and mostly Black cast that was incredibly successful and entertaining, a cultural phenomenon that, in the words of Jamil Smith in a 2018 piece on time.com, was also something Hollywood had never had before: “a blockbuster that was splendidly Black.”
It was the cultural impact of that film that mobilized Cooper and Burton to open their store.
The concept for the store began around 2011, Cooper said in a YouTube interview on the “Chronicles of Comic-Con” channel that live-streamed the day before the store opened in December. But after opening a store in Compton didn’t click with the community, they put the idea on hold. Cooper opened a more traditional comic and collectible store in Long Beach’s Shoreline Village in 2015. But though it reportedly did well (Long Beach mayor Richard Garcia was a fan), it wasn’t the concept they wanted.
But then “Black Panther” came out.
“Thank God for Disney and Warner Brothers for giving (that film) a platform,” Cooper said in the Comic-Con interview. “When it came out, we felt now was the time to do it…it finally gave us the right time to do the store correctly.”
But Boseman’s death from colon cancer in August of last year hit Cooper hard.
“Man, I’m still mourning Chad,” he said in the video interview. “ When he passed it was in the midst of us creating this store and it was terrible, heartbreaking…It felt like we lost a real live superhero…..like we lost a family member.”
A graceful and imposing model of the fictional king of Wakanda is prominently displayed at the front of the store, a nod to Boseman as well as the first Black superhero to appear in the pages of Marvel or DC, the two publishers who have dominated comic books since Superman appeared on the cover of “Action Comics” in 1938.
Cartoons before comics
But though Black superheroes are a definite focus of Black Star Collectibles, the store offers more. Because before comic books, there were Saturday morning cartoons.
“I loved Saturday morning cartoons,” Cooper said. “Superheroes, He-Man, Thundercats, I wanted the toys and then it led to comic books.”
But even the non-comic book merchandise is in sync with the owners’ desire to promote Black culture.
For instance, no one’s going to confuse a Barbie doll with a superhero. But those are some of the hottest selling items. Burton said that the Barbie wall is hard to keep stocked because so many kids scoop up the ones that reflect themselves as soon as they replenish their stock. He added that it isn’t every store that keeps a Barbie in every shade on hand.
Barbie and Miles
Barbies are not the only hot seller. So are Funko Pops of Marvel’s Miles Morales. Morales isaA half-Black, half-Puerto Rican Spiderman created for an alternative Marvel universe but who has since been folded into mainstream Marvel continuity, They are constantly being restocked, Cooper said.
But though the store specializes in Black pop culture, and celebrates positive Black role models, it’s not a Black-only store. Cooper said it is a welcoming space for everyone to enjoy pop culture comics and collectibles and take pride in their own ethnicity.
Which is what Grace Chung and her nephew experienced when they visited the store in early March.
“We were walking by and [my nephew] wanted to come in and it’s such a cool store,” Grace Chung, a customer, said.
Chung and her nephew are of Korean descent and although her nephew was barely old enough to walk, he was enthralled with the store’s vibrant colors.
“Maybe I could open a Korean store,” Chung said with a chuckle.
