Twenty-one years ago Pat Calanan had a dream of opening his own comic book store. When 57 Church Hill Road came available, he took a chance and opened Cave Comics. 

“It was serendipity," he said. "It was a cool building, close to the highway and easy to find.” 

He felt it was the perfect location.

At the time, Mr. Calanan says, there were more than 10 comic stores within a short distance of the shop. Today, the closest comic stores are in Bridgeport and Middlebury.

Mr. Calanan says the store has many regular customers and maintain files regarding comics and games they are interested in or looking to purchase. What amazes Mr. Calanan is that people he sold comics to as children are now coming in with their own kids to buy comics.

One of Mr. Calanan’s original customers, Dave Marshall, is now an editor at Dark Horse Comics.

Mr. Calanan added at the time the shop opened, many of the comic book writers lived in the area. 

This area had good access to New York where all of the publishers were located.  Today, with the ability to scan and upload documents from anywhere, the writers live all over the world.

His favorite part of the job is talking to people about comics.  Mr. Calanan said many people don’t know that several popular movies began as comics.  Men in Black and Road to Perdition are a couple of examples.

Cave Comics carries more than 20,000 comics.  Mr. Calanan says the superheroes are always popular and lately he has seen an increase in interest in the war genre.  They also carry sci-fi and television based comics such as Buffy.

He does carry some rare comics.  He has a few very early Spiderman books and a first edition of Disney’s Uncle Scrooge from the 1950’s.  His goal however, is not to hold on to rare comics -- he prefers to sell them.

Mr. Calanan said last year a store in New York sold a first edition Action Comics No. 1 where Superman debuts for $1 million.  The highest price he knows of a comic selling for was $1.5 million for a first edition in great condition of Detective Comics No. 27.  This is where Batman debuts.

At Cave Comics there is always a bin with $1, $5, and $10 comics. Mr. Calanan says it is a great way to get children hooked on reading. His father got him reading comics by the time he was 4-years-old. 

He says he began kindergarten knowing how to read thanks to comics.  He is still an avid reader of all kinds of literature, reading between 70 to 80 novels a year.

In addition to comics, they carry over 3,000 graphic novels and many role playing and board games.

One of Mr. Calanan’s favorite days in the year is National Free Comic Book Day. It is always the first Saturday in May. 

They give out thousands of free comics and the kids love it. This year they have a special guest. Franco Aureliani, the author of Little Archie and Tiny Titans comics, will be there. He will be signing autographs and doing drawings for the kids. 

Cave Comics is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.