The Alameda Connection
An encore presentation of "The Alameda Connection," as broadcast on KCSM-HD2, highlighting the best of Alameda, California.
Full archive with all past settings: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAlamedaConnection
The Alameda Connection
Eitan Manhoff - Cape & Cowl Comics
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Eitan Manhoff is the owner of Oakland’s Cape & Cowl Comics.
Host Scott Piehler talks with Eitan about his journey from comics fan, to owning the store that was honored in 2023 with the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award, given annually at San Diego Comic-Con to the best comic book shop in the world. Cape and Cowl makes their “Alameda Connection” on August 30th, when their annual Cape And Cowl Con returns to Faction Brewing.
Show note: This episode originally aired on KCSM-HD2 on Sunday, June 28, 2026
Full show archive for all past episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheAlamedaConnection
Good morning, and welcome to the Alameda Connection on KCSM HD2. I'm your host, Scott Peeler. Since the incredible success of the Marvel cinematic universe, comic books have moved from being the fringe interest of an odd subculture to front and center in American pop culture. Here in the East Bay, we actually have one of the best comic book shops in the entire world, Oakland's Cape and Cowl Comics. What's the Alameda connection, you might ask? Well, at the end of August, they are hosting their annual Cape and Cowl Con at Alameda's own faction brewing. My guest today is Ayton Manhoff, the owner of Cape Cowl Comics. We'll talk about his journey from fan to owning one of the best comic book shops on Earth. That's Ayton Manhoff of Cape Cowl Comics. This morning, the Alameda Connection on KCSMHD2. Good morning, Ayton, and welcome to the Alameda Connection. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. First of all, for people who are unfamiliar, having someone talk comics on the radio is perfect because I don't think everybody realizes that the only reason Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite is because of radio. That's true. That's right. Good old Bud Collier, the actor who played Superman, wanted a vacation. They didn't have a fill-in. So the radio people came up with the kryptonite and then just had some no-name sit in the corner and go, mm-hmm. And that's why we have kryptonite. Uh background, where were you born? Where'd you grow up?
SPEAKER_02I was born in San Luis Obispo, California. I lived there until I was 13 or 14, and I moved up here to the Bay Area.
SPEAKER_00Your dad, Harry, is uh Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Beth Shalom in San Leandro and an adjunct professor at St. Mary's and a comics fan.
SPEAKER_02Yes, correct. Yeah, that guy reads more comics than I do.
SPEAKER_00Deep, deep history of Jewish creators. Before we went on the air, we were talking about that. Some have argued that Superman is a riff on the Jewish Golem myth. There's a poets of prize-winning comic called Maus. Does that make an added connection for you?
SPEAKER_02I think it's always been there. I particularly because I've done comics with my dad since I was 10 years old. And that's always been one of his primary focuses or primary interests in comics is the Jewish connection. Yeah, it's it's always there, maybe less present these days, but it's always interesting when something pops up. And you're like, oh wow, hey, that's uh that's cool. I need to make sure that I point that out to my dad.
SPEAKER_00Was he excited when Ben Grimm, the thing from Marvel, was revealed to be Jewish? Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Oh, anytime, anytime. In fact, my dad will tell you that Batman is Jewish because Batwoman, his cousin, right, is Jewish. Right. That is his cousin from his mom's side. Right. So if you go by traditional matriarchal line, right? Right, which we don't, you know, all need to emphasize all the time. But if you go by those classic things, then Batman's mom was Jewish and therefore Batman's Jewish.
SPEAKER_00Your first comic was Superman Man of Steel number 12, June of 92. How old were you? I was 10 years old. Now you've described that comic as, quote, completely unremarkable, but the old comics guy is going to say, but that was written by Louise Simonson, penciled by John Bogneau, the two creators of Steel, and integral part of the Death of Superman team, which is where you got hooked.
SPEAKER_02Death of Superman is is my end-all be all. I love that story so much. Every time I go visit another comic book store, I go to their dollar bins, and I can't help but buy Death of Superman issues because they're they're always there and I have no competition. Within a year before the Death of Superman, when Superman was just kind of there maintaining the status quo, he's fighting some purple blobby monster coming out of the street. There's really nothing to it. The art was beautiful, and Louise can write, it was enough to get me in there.
SPEAKER_00So did you follow the entire storyline? Did you get all the triangle issues and keep up with everything week by week?
SPEAKER_02So we weren't there for the actual death of Superman. I we were more casual at that point. I was just picking them up here and there at bookstores and grocery stores and things. So we were more the reign of the Superman. There's four replacement Superman who come and and try and take Superman's spot after he he dies. And that's when we started our very first subscription to the four Superman titles, and we would go to the comic book store every week and pick up the new issue. And I haven't miss a Wednesday in well over 30 years now.
SPEAKER_00Love it. You're a proud banana slug. UC Santa Cruz sociology. What led you to pursue that? It was easy. Okay. I like an honest answer.
SPEAKER_02Not much of a student in my younger days. I was somebody who probably could have benefited from time off between high school and college. I watched a lot of my friends go into the trades or into the military and all these things, and I knew neither of those things were for me. So I went off to college and didn't pick a major for a long time. And then I did realize that sociology could apply to anything. And without actually studying comics or pop culture in college, I found a lot of classes that were close enough and they were under the sociology umbrella.
SPEAKER_00A four-year gap between graduation and the beginning of your LinkedIn. What was going on in that four years?
SPEAKER_02A lot of dead end jobs. You know, it was 2005, so the economy was not great. We were some of the first kids to graduate college in that era, that generation, that didn't roll right into great dream jobs. You know, my sister's six years older than me, and all of her friends graduated college, went right into their forever professions, and still do them now if they're not retired. And six years later, those options weren't there, particularly not for a sociology major.
SPEAKER_00Your career starts in the construction field. You're basically a project manager.
SPEAKER_02I started as a laborer. Again, another know-nothing job. I was working in a customer service call center for Kodak at the time for online photo sharing. And one of my best friends, dad, is a contractor. I'm friendly with Ron, the dad. On my two days off a week, I start going with Ron to his job sites and helping out. I then leave the Kodak job and I join Ron full time. Honestly, I think I'm paid to be good company because I'm really not good with tools. I'm really not. I'm still not. I end up moving to Los Angeles for a few years while my wife's in grad school. And I get a job with a general contractor through a connection with my wife Melody's dad. And I don't know where they're gonna put me. Are they gonna put me in the field and I'm gonna be again another crappy tool user and it's gonna be kind of embarrassing or what? And and through the interview, they realize oh, maybe, maybe not. Maybe you should be in an office. Maybe you should be talking to people instead of screwing things up. So I so I yeah, so I started there and got into construction management. Did it for a few years and got along pretty far and and got to managing some pretty large projects, but also really far away from what I liked about construction, which was boots in the dirt and talking about problem solving. And I was pretty much strictly in the financial stuff, which is not interesting and not fun.
SPEAKER_002013, you wind up as an associate at Crush Comics in Castro Valley.
SPEAKER_02Crush was my childhood comic shop starting at 13 or 14 when I moved to the Bay Area. That's where my pull list was all the way through college. My dad would go pick up our books and read them and then mail them off to me at school. Even when I was living down in LA, he would go to the shop.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I I had a comic sugar daddy.
SPEAKER_02No, no shame in that. If you can make that work, go get it. About that time, I realized I I wanted to open a comic shop and I wanted to see how it was done. Mike Cresser was the owner of Crush at the time, and he invited me to come work at the shop and I pounced uh because I really wanted to see the back end of how a store works. And I had worked at comic shops before, but as a kid, you know, so I wasn't paying attention to any of the business side of things.
SPEAKER_00Your LinkedIn says Cape and Cal 2013, but the store opened in 2015. Explain that.
SPEAKER_02It was about two years there, probably even a little bit more, where I was doing it as a side hustle on eBay at local comic shows. I was just selling my personal collection, which had gotten really, really big by that point.
SPEAKER_00They do do I've downsized, but yeah, they do do that.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah. So I was basically a full-time eBayer while being a full-time construction worker and new dad. And so Cape and Cowell was a thing, just not a store.
SPEAKER_00Why open a comic book store? What it took it from, this is an interesting thing to I'm gonna do the whole brick and mortar thing.
SPEAKER_02I always wanted to work in comics since I was a kid, and I really thought that meant working for a publisher. You know, my dream job would have been working for DC Comics and the Superman offices. Unfortunately, getting a job like that is like getting a job as a professional athlete. There's so few positions available and so much competition. And when you have zero talent like myself, you know, I don't write, I don't draw, I don't know what editors do. That wasn't gonna happen for me. Kind of given up on the dream of working at a comic publisher. But one day it did kind of hit me. I knew how I could work with comics. I had started a comic book book club locally with friends, and I had grown to this kind of online community, and I saw I have an ability to get other people excited about comics. And how do you turn that into a job? You open a store, right? You invite people in and you get them excited about comics. It just made perfect sense.
SPEAKER_002015, a few things aligned. First of all, comics had recovered from the indie explosion, the black and white implosion. People were sort of over the buy 15 variant covers. No, I just want to read a good story. Thank you. Sales of comics and graphic novels in 2015 hit a billion dollars. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is full steam. We've just come through the second Avengers movie. Was that part of it? That things just seemed right culturally.
SPEAKER_02Comics had really taken their place, they were widely accepted. The Marvel movies had a huge, huge impact on that. People were just excited about these characters. So comics went from being embarrassing to not to those of us who love them, but people on the outside. They see people who read comics, or they see comics, and like, that's for kids. What are you doing? The wider acceptance and the wider knowledge was there. For me, it was just I needed to do it as soon as possible. I needed to do it.
SPEAKER_00Had to get it out of it. I had to get it out of my. Now, Oakland's got some really cool comics history. The biggest one for people who are newspaper comics creator was Maury Turner, the creator of WePals, which was essentially the first truly integrated comic strip. You've also got Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther, coming out of Oakland. Is it fun to sort of tap into that vibe? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02The East Bay comics scene is really strong. And the Oakland comics scene has a lot of history, like you say. I think a lot of people, when they think about Bay Area comics, they think about San Francisco and the undergrounds. From and all that. Yeah, and the great history of stores there and creators that have come from there. But really, the East Bay has an equally impressive and important history itself. Being a part of that is, yeah, it's an honor.
SPEAKER_00And you and I, we have a mutual friend, Ben Sue, who is a Pixar animator. He was the lead animator on Wade in Elemental, but he's also a Marvel Comics artist. What a guy to have around. The best. 2018, you commissioned an exclusive Oakland cover for an issue of Black Panther. How'd that come about and what was the reaction?
SPEAKER_02That was just following the release of the Black Panther movie, the first one, which has uh spoilers for a nearly 10-year-old movie. It ends with the Wakandans opening a educational center in Oakland. It became very clear to me we needed something that put Black Panther in Oakland for all of us here. So I reached out to Marvel and they had a new Black Panther series just getting started with issue one, as often happens for movie and comic synergy. And I said, We need to do a cover with Black Panther in Oakland. They said, of course, and I sent them a million ideas and they said no. And so I said, okay, we'll do something else. You know, you can't put the Fox Theater in there, you can't put the Tribune Tower, you can't do any uh privately owned landmarks or anything. So I sent them the idea of the cranes and a welcome to Oakland sign. I wanted Storm there to be with Black Panther just so we had even more representation on the cover of the community, and they gave us a list of artists, and I picked Drum Campbell who did the cover, and it's gorgeous. And the reaction was wild. I'm sure. Yeah, we were new, right? We had only been open for a few years. We weren't super well known. So we had let it be known. We're putting out this cover. You can pre-order it now on our website. We sold it for cover price, which was four dollars, which is not what you do with Excisarian covers. That really goes to show you what a what a businessman I was back then. So we sold it for cover price. And you know, we we had a few orders before it released. The day it released, somehow news spread. Oh boy. A couple of people had reached out and asked for interviews or asked to learn more about the cover, but somehow it really exploded. It ended up on NPR that morning. Oh boy. Yeah, oh boy, is right. I I was off at some meeting, I think meeting with an accountant at the time who's probably telling me, like, you're not making any money doing this comic book store thing. What's the plan? And my phone is blowing up with orders on our website for this cover of you know, 10 copies at a time. And I'm panicked. I'm I'm outside of my account's office. I call my wife who's helping me run the website, and what do we do? Do we got to stop people from buying all these? What's happening? We're not gonna have any in the store. We had 3,000 copies, and I was worried we weren't gonna have them. And I have my meeting, we figure out something for the website. I go to the store to get ready to open, and there's a line around the block. Oh wow. And there's a news crew out there. Oh my goodness. And I panic. I I have one person scheduled to work with me that day, hopefully coming in and open. I don't even remember at the time. So I very quickly call the other two very part-time staff members I have and beg them to cancel everything and come in that day. They do. We end up with a line around the block all day. We sell all 3,000 copies that day before we ever close. We have a waiting list of hundreds of people who want more in case people's requested copies aren't picked up. Other news crews show up, it's a whole thing. We managed to do a second print of the cover. We really just wanted everybody who wanted one to get one. And I think by this point we've accomplished that.
SPEAKER_00Have you paid attention to what first prints are going for on the secondary? I haven't checked for a while.
SPEAKER_02No, I know for a while they had really gotten up there. People were selling them for well over $100. I remember it was on the hot list of books for the week.
SPEAKER_00That was really funny. 2023, you start Cape and CowellCon, a convention for comics. Same question. Why make that jump?
SPEAKER_02We were invited to do an event at Gilman Brewing in Berkeley. It was a Halloween drag show in their event space. How East Bay can you get? Yeah, yeah. It was wonderful. It was awesome. It was a Halloween drag show, and they wanted a table full of comics. I said, I can do that. We're good. And I just looked at this space and I turned to our friend Michael, who was running events there, and I said, you know, we could do something here. We could do a little mini con in this space, and there's an adjoining parking lot. Like we could really have a great time here. The whole thing came together in maybe three or four months.
SPEAKER_00But about a month after the first Cape and Cal con, you wind up winning the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retail Award. And I have to sort of preface this for the audience who may not be this deep into the industry. The Eisner Awards are essentially the Academy Award for Comics. Secondly, the award is a bit of a pun because Eisner created the character The Spirit. Thirdly, this is an international award. It is given to a comic shop in the world. Describe the process, the nomination, and the feeling when they say, hey, you're it. It's really something.
SPEAKER_02The process is anybody can nominate any store. There's a few rules. The store has to be open for two years. It has to be a brick and mortar store. It has to meet a few other criteria. And anybody listening to this could log on to the site and say, Cabin Cowell, please, I'd like to nominate them. Right. And so you end up with this long list of stores that get nominated. The Eisner Award Committee reaches out and says, Okay, well, we need to learn more about your store. We need a five-minute video where you walk us through the store and tell us what you do and why. And we need this big packet of information backing up the things you're saying in your video, basically. Actually, after our second year, we were nominated for the award. Okay, that's fun. We'll make a video. We'll make a packet. We'll send it in. To my absolute shock, we become a finalist for the award because only five stores are finalists each year. Five, maybe six. So I had no expectation of that at all. We lose. The next year we're nominated again. We say, hey, why not? I mean, obviously it was a fluke, but it's kind of fun to make the video. Making the packet seems like a helpful project. Let's do it again. So we're nominated, we send it in. Boom, we're a finalist again, two years in a row, and we lose. Then I believe COVID and we take a couple years off. They're still giving out the award, but it felt very weird to me for us to even submit a packet. We were curbsight only for a very long time. So after we reopen in 2021, we're nominated again. We submit the info. We lose. Three times a finalist, three times a loser. The following year, again, we go through the whole thing. We're a finalist and we finally win in our fourth try. It's probably the record for the most nominations without winning before you finally do. It was an amazing feeling. It was absolutely incredible. And I'd kind of decided, all right, if it doesn't happen this year, maybe we're not the best comic shop in the world. That's not really surprising. But you know, maybe this will be the end of the road. So I'm very glad that we stuck with it and it was an amazing experience.
SPEAKER_00What do you think pushed you over the top finally? What is it about Cape and Cowl that made the judges say, mm-hmm, that's the one?
SPEAKER_02Our store has always been nice looking. It was really one of the goals of the store when we opened, is that it was a store that people could be proud of shopping in, because that's not necessarily always the case. You wouldn't always bring your grandma and be like, mom or grandma, look at my comic book store. You know, but I wanted one that you could do that. We've always been very deep-rooted in our community. I feel like if you can, you have to. That's how I was raised. I'm not sure if anything about that changed. We always kind of have our foot on the gas, and we're always trying to do more and do better. And I think we maybe just reached a point where we were doing a lot really well.
SPEAKER_00So back to Cape and Calicon. Last year it moved, and thus the Alameda connection, you moved it to Faction Brewing out on Alameda Point. I was there, I had an absolute blast. It was wonderful. And for those who are thinking about going, it is a free event. So you're not risking anything, but had an absolutely wonderful time. You had some great big names there in the industry. How'd you come to be at Faction?
SPEAKER_02We realized we had outgrown Gilman and Berkeley. We weren't going to be able to fit as many people, artists, vendors, guests, attendees in that space as we wanted. Also, we didn't have the connection there anymore to the events manager. They stopped working there. We started looking for a new place and we loved the idea of the venue. Indoor, outdoor, having beer is very nice if that's your thing. That is helpful. And so we started looking around and we came across faction and saw their event space, and I was floored. I couldn't believe how perfect it was for us. I had been there before and I hadn't thought about it in that way. So I reached out to them. I was so nervous. I was I thought for sure, well, this isn't gonna happen, so we'll have to come up with plan B. They got back to us right away and they're like, Yeah, sounds good. Great. What they do want to do it. That was so much easier than I expected. How'd you feel about the reception overall? Amazing. People really love this event. I think the fact that it's free and it's all ages and it's community focused and it's celebrating our area and artists here and the community that we have here around comics and art is really great and should be celebrated. And I think it's viewed as a celebration.
SPEAKER_00And I think you hit on a few points. Smaller, family friendly. I've been to Dragon Con in Atlanta. It's amazing, it's overwhelming. You need a vacation after you go. Also, maybe HeroesCon in Charlotte, which is a little smaller, more family friendly. And I found myself enjoying that more. I mean, things like Comic Con down in San Diego get all the press, but these are massive Super Bowl-level events. And to be able to interact on a small level with these creators is really quite a gift.
SPEAKER_02Our goal for the first few years is we want to try and become a Heroes Con West Coast. But we're going to take our time building towards that. And I think even that idea is changing because I don't think we'll ever be a traditional convention in a convention center. That is incredibly boring to me. It is. But we are, you know, we're playing with other ideas on how to grow it, but keep it personal, keep it unique, but include everybody who wants to be a part of it. We have 70 professional guests at that coming to this year's show, and there are more reaching out to us saying, I want to come. Excellent. And I don't want to say no to anybody. So we have room for about 80 vendors after those guests. And I've got over 150 applications already. And it kills me, kills me to say no to so many people, to anybody, really. Because if you want, if you're making something that you're proud enough of to set up a table and expose yourself to the community and to these other professional artists and things, like, oh my gosh, I want to support that. That's really what motivates me to make it bigger. We don't make any money on it, it's just something we're doing, trying not to lose money on because it's fun and special. So growth has nothing to do with that. It's really how can we include as many people as possible who want to be a part of it?
SPEAKER_00Someone I actually met at HeroesCon in Charlotte, and I've had a relationship with, which is Ron Randall, who's done Supergirl. He has his own creator-owned title called Trekker. I've been in his comic book. And Ron only lives up the coast in Washington. So I keep telling him, Ron, you gotta come down. Come down. He's he's an awesome human being. What do you think are the best parts of a convention like Cape and CalCon? Why should someone come?
SPEAKER_02I think the personal experience that you can have with a creator or with a local artist or with your friends that you go with is really special and fun. The vibes of this event are so good. They're so good. My parents come and hang out, my my siblings and their kids come and hang out, and they hang out all day. You know, and they and they they're not comics people other than my dad, but they're just, you know, it's just a nice place to be. And if you want to have a really great day in summer, come to this con. I promise you it's gonna be a really great day. What's the most starstruck you've ever been with a creator?
SPEAKER_00Or have you been?
SPEAKER_02I met Ed Brubaker at one of these Eisner Awards a number of years ago. Ed Brubaker is a crime comics writer. That's my favorite genre outside of superheroes, and he's the best at it. I found myself because of a friend I was standing with after the awards, after losing the Award, FYI. I was standing there with Ed Brubaker, Scotty Young, and I love Scotty Young.
SPEAKER_00He's a great guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, like these guys are modern day legends. I could have stood there and talked to Scotty. I could have stood there and talked to Chip. You know, they're very personable. They had had a few beverages during the award show. But Brubaker walked up and I was just like, I could feel the beads of sweat going down. I was like, I can't blow this. I need to, I gotta say something clever. And I think I did not.
SPEAKER_00I want to talk about the power of comics because some people, like you say, look and that's silly. That's it's just an entertainment. But I got a great story. And it was again at Hero's Con. I met the late Neil Adams. Neil Adams, for those of us of a certain age, if you saw a Batman comic in the 70s, nine out of ten it was Neil. And Neil also did what's called the hard-charging hero stories, which was when Green Lantern and Green Arrow hooked up in what is considered to be the first socially relevant DC book. And in that run, Green Arrow's sidekick, Spady, winds up hooked on heroin. So I was talking to Neil about that. And he said, here's a story you're not going to believe. Over my life, I've had five to seven, maybe nine people come up to me and say, Neil, I got off heroin because of you. Wow. And that's the kind of thing that goes on. Do you have a moment, maybe quite, you know, not like getting off heroin, but is there a moment where you say, This is what comics is capable of doing?
SPEAKER_02My kids were not interested in reading really when they were younger. They weren't resistant readers, but they just didn't care. It's not something that they wanted to do. I brought them home Dogman comics, one of the probably the all-time best-selling graphic novel. They read them and they read all of them that were available, and it completely broke the seal. And they both became voracious readers. Nice. That happens all the time. Additionally, for me, I I had some customers. They were in the neighborhood. They were this great couple. I remembered them, but I didn't, they weren't regulars. They weren't there every Wednesday. Um, and they moved away. And then I would go to the Comics Pro Conference, which is a annual conference for comic book retailers and the rest of the industry. And that couple's there, and they had opened their own store out in Maryland. And they came and told me it was they were inspired by the store. I thought that was really special because those are two people who who took their lives and stopped doing whatever they were doing. I don't know if it was easy or not, but they picked a very hard profession to take on, and it was because they enjoyed what we were doing here in Oakland.
SPEAKER_00What are the five books collected or runs that you would suggest to someone who doesn't read comics? I'll give you mine. It's Frank Miller's Dark Knight, Alan Moore's Watchman, Mause, Persopolis, and My Odd Choice is Paul Deanny's Dark Knight with an N, a true Batman story. What are your five that you kind of have? You don't like comics? Try these.
SPEAKER_02Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples is the gateway drug to comics. That one I can hand to actually anybody, and it's going to connect with them on some level. All right. It's Romeo and Juliet in space. Okay. You know, it's a man on one side of a war, woman on the other. They come together, they fall in love, they have a baby, and they're on the run from the whole universe. And it's very funny, it's charming, it's action-packed, it's sexy, it's it's great. So that is a go-to. Beyond that, we're gonna have a couple crossover. I think Watchmen is incredible, despite some things that haven't aged incredibly well. Mouse is an incredible work of art. Pulp by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is the epitome of what a very lovingly called dad comic. It's a western tale about uh an old outlaw who's making a living writing his true stories as pulp novels. Oh neat. Uh, an old Pinkerton from his past comes and blackmails him into robbing the American Nazi Party uh in New York City. Love it. It's amazing. It's not long, and that's another one. It might not be for everybody, but for your cranky dad, right, uh, or your older brother, or and it's not just for men, it's really not. I don't mean to imply it that way, but that's one that works for those people. And my mind keeps going to Mr. Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Jared's that came out five to ten years ago. It's really a spectacular book that I feel very confident in when I when I recommend it to somebody.
SPEAKER_00Cape and Cowell prides itself on inclusivity.
SPEAKER_02Why is that important? Because what could be more important? That's everything. You know, comics are for everybody. It's the single most important thing about Cape and Cowell to me is that anybody can come into that store and feel welcome and see themselves in it, regardless of their background. You know, people walk into the comic shop all the time and and they've never read a comic. And a lot of comic book stores are intimidating. That is something that it's really important to me and that we focus on all the time.
SPEAKER_00So you're basically the anti-comic book guy from The Simpsons. Very much. Very much. What's out there for the parent who wants to introduce their child to reading, sees comics as good, but doesn't exactly want to watch Deadpool slicing and dicing their way through an army of ninjas.
SPEAKER_02There are so many amazing comics for younger readers, and most of them are not superheroes. You know, there are stories of every kind covering every subject and every type of kid and every family and every genre. Like kids' comics are huge and they come out as graphic novels. They're not really single-issue comics. Right. And there's a million of them. And you know, we mentioned Dogman for the very young readers. What do you think is the best comic book movie ever made? Best comic book movie ever made is Superman. Chris Reeve? Chris Reeve. Yeah. That's that is still tops. I think there's been some other really great ones, but there's nothing quite like that. There's never been somebody who so perfectly captured the character from the comics.
SPEAKER_00How about an under the radar favorite comic book movie? For me, it's the Phantom.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Meteor Man. Okay, great choice. I I actually just bought the poster of Meteor Man to hang in the store because it came up in conversation, and I couldn't believe the people around me had not seen it. I was deeply offended.
SPEAKER_00But websites, socials, ways people can keep up with what's going on at Cape Cowl.
SPEAKER_02Cape and CowellComics.com. That's what the and spelled out. That's our website. There's also a link to the con, Cape CowlCon, there. You can also follow us on social media at Cape Cowell Comics. So no and there. You can also follow the con. It has its own Instagram account. That's at Cape CowlCon. And you can call the shop. You can come see us 1601 Clay Street in downtown Oakland. We'd love to have you. We're there seven days a week.
SPEAKER_00And Cape and Cowl Con is coming up August 30th.
SPEAKER_02August 30th. It is from 11 to 6. Again, it is free. It is all ages.
SPEAKER_00It is the best thing ever. Sunday, August 30th. We'll see you at Faction Brewing for Cape CalCon. Aton Manhoff of Cape and Cowell Comics. Uh thanks for spending time with us this morning on the Alameda Connection. Thank you. Absolute pleasure. And take care. Thanks again to Aton Manhoff of Cape Cowl Comics for joining us this morning on the Alameda Connection. You can find their website at CapeCowlComics.com. Remember to spell out the word and on Instagram, find the shop at Cape Cowl Comics and find the convention at Cape CowlCon. Cape and CowlCon will be Sunday, August 30th at Faction Brewing from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's free and open to all ages. Next week on the Alameda Connection, we're going to stay in the world of comics as we get to meet Alameda's very own comic strip creator, Brees, the man behind the popular Alameda Post Comic Strip, Two Birds from Alameda. Thanks to the California Historical Radio Society for providing this week's location for my sit down with Aton Manhoff. Hope to see you there on Saturday, July 18th for Radio Day by the Bay. Yours truly is going to be in a radio play. Thanks as always to Bill Hart for our theme music, Beachside Isle. I'm Scott Peeler. Catch you next Sunday, the Alameda Connection on KCSM HD2.