I had the pleasure of visiting the United Kingdom recently, which allowed me the chance after over a decade of fascination with British comics to see them in their natural habitat: the newsagent. Sure, we Americans are familiar with the newsstand and the bygone times of 'Extra extra, read all about it,' cried from a weird small kid in a newsie cap, but, in the UK, the newsagent is still not only a thriving business, but an integral market for the comics industry that allows it continue to grow, thrive, and reach entirely new readers in a way that America has just seemed to have abandoned.

A Brief History of Newsagents

There’s a long, and occasionally proud, history of magazine publishing (and reading) in the UK. After all, the first examples of what we’d recognize as magazines today emerged all the way back