'To be continued', never a truer word spoken

There are shops whose age you don't question because they seem destined never to age. Because they're an integral part of the landscape of their surroundings, their city. Or at least that's how it seems to you. I'm stunned when Albert Mestres, the business's founder and still at the helm, tells me they've been around for forty-six years. On April 23, 1980, Sant Jordi's Day—a perfect day, indeed—they celebrate the anniversary in style. They're a benchmark not only for selling comics, but also for publishing and distribution.

The oldest brick-and-mortar comic book store in the country. It's quite something! Perhaps their secret to longevity lies in what has now become an essential requirement for shops to thrive: the ability to adapt to changing times, to forge new paths, to embrace uncertain yet promising challenges. Albert could tell you the story of comic book publishing and distribution in Spain over the last half-century. I could write a book about it! It's a world that went from being underground and scorned as a form of low culture, to enjoying international prestige today as an essential way of understanding literature and reading.

Today, comic book stores are temples of what we can call "new collecting," focused both on the comics themselves – an unreachable territory of classics, new releases, graphic novels, all possible nationalities... – and on the semantic fields associated with them: Game of Thunder, Dragon Ball, Star Wars, Pokémon, Magic, War Hammer, Lords of the Universe and countless other examples. And this includes, of course, all kinds of merchandising, essentially the immense universe of action figures.

Albert welcomes us to his office in the basement of the shop, which today is a haven for out-of-print and collectible comics. Your eyes are drawn everywhere: Bruguera, Capitán Trueno, Novaro, Superman, Tintin, and all kinds of classic editions. How did it all begin? Well, like so many other things in life, by making a youthful dream come true. Albert and his longtime partner, Joan Navarro—later closely associated with Norma, Glénat, and the Barcelona International Comics Fair—met while doing their military service and became good friends thanks to a shared passion: comics.

After a few twists and turns, doubts, and chasms that had to be crossed, a small shop on Templers Street—right behind the City Hall—was the ideal place to begin the adventure. Albert already had his sights set on Paris, seeing shops that fascinated him: "They were like earthly paradises, and I wanted to do that!" "You're crazy!" they'd tell him. But they were clear about it; they wanted to do what they loved, and they also saw a promising market niche. There weren't any shops like that in Barcelona. Alongside their project, others flourished—Makoki, Tòtem—but they fell by the wayside. Norma, too, became a competitor. Why "To Be Continued"? Well, because what word is more associated with old comics, published in installments in weekly magazines, with that ending that left children eager for the next installment? A bit like what happens today with TV series and the addiction they generate.

And the crucial day of the move arrived. After seven years in Templers, they found the empty space at Via Laietana 29. A complete triumph. A perfect location. The first few years were those of the pre-Olympics, the first waves of tourism. Japanese tourists compulsively buying Olympic Games merchandise. Cobi, of course. As we've already mentioned, they quickly recognized the importance of incorporating the object and the accessory as an essential relative of comics. And then came the tsunami of manga, a whole universe of possibilities they discovered while traveling to Japan.

They were the ones who introduced them to the Spanish market. Quite a feat, a true visionary instinct. And then there's the publishing adventure, of course. "For a bookseller like me, publishing is similar to succeeding in life." Continuará has created several publishing imprints to publish both manga and European comics. They are publishers and distributors. They've also specialized in buying and distributing old stock from defunct or restructured publishers. A whole universe of possibilities and temptations for acolytes and collectors. All kinds of clientele. Those who used to come with their parents now come with their children and instill in them a passion for reading. Manga fans, superhero fans, classic comic book enthusiasts, collectors of rarities. Add to that the national and international fairs, online sales, and the constant drive to stay on top of new tastes, new trends, and old passions. To be continued, never a truer word spoken.