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Through out the years there have been 3 owners
of the Comic Book Collector.
Here are a few words from each, starting with the original owner
Eddy Smet.
 In
the late 1970's, the distribution and sale of comic books in London
was quite sporadic. Variety stores did not necessarily bring in
all the titles, or brought in only a few books of a specific issue.
In order to obtain a copy of all the titles that came in that
week, I would have to go to a number of variety stores in the
city, or even go as far as Hamilton.
 I
also had made an attempt in 1979 to sell, from my home, some of
the comic books that I no longer wanted by placing an ad in the
London Free Press. This attempt had very limited success.
Finally, and most importantly, I have always loved bookstores,
including, of course, comic book stores. In 1979, I was familiar
with Harry Kremer's store, Now and Then Books, in Kitchener and,
to a lesser extent, with The Silver Snail in Toronto. It was a
wonderful treat to go to one of these stores. What a pleasure
it would be to have a little comic book store!
All this came together when my wife Zorka Smet and I walked past
a small empty store on Dundas Street in East London. After some
soul searching, we made the decision to open up a comic book store
at the location, 616 Dundas Street. We rented the premises from
Clyde McDow, who operated McDow Jeweller next door. He was a kind
person and very supportive, especially with respect to the rent
that he charged. Without this, the store would not have come into
being.
 We
chose to call the store The Comic Book Collector both because
we thought this was an appropriate name for several reasons and
also because we wanted to have a name that would clearly identify
what the store was about. We proceeded to bring in an old desk,
some chairs, and some wooden benches that Zorka's father had available.
We also were able to make arrangements to get new comic books
on a non-returnable basis from Multi-book and Periodical Inc and,
again, without this support, we would not have been able to open
up a store. (Incidently, even though I was unaware of this at
the time, the direct distribution of comic books had only become
possible in the preceeding couple of years.) Finally, we were
set to go as soon as we received our first shipment of new comics.
Zorka was going to be the person who would manage and run the
operation, and I would continue to teach mathematics at Huron
College (now Huron University College).
The opening day of sales was Saturday,September 29, 1979. From
that day on, the store was open every 
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
During most of the years that we had the business, Zorka was
ably helped in the store by her mother, Ella Novak. Those of you
who dealt with Ella were probably not fully aware as to how much
she loved being in the store and meeting all of you.
For the last few years that we ran the business, we also had
a fine young man, Mark Hunt, as part-time help.
Eventually, the stress of running the business was placing too
much of an additional burden on Zorka's health and we realized
that we would have to let the business go. We wanted to pass it
on to good hands and we were fortunate enough to find them in
the person of Steve Jewett. Steve purchased the business from
us and we turned it over to him on October 1, 1987. I could not
have asked for a better person to take over from us.
It is also a tremendous source of satisfaction to see that the
business that we created still continues to thrive. Like me, Steve
was fortunate to find a good successor, Tim Morris.
Zorka and I have wonderful memories of our years when we had
the store. I want to express our thanks to all of you that we
met then and to wish you all many more years of enjoying your
comics.
Eddy Smet
April 5, 2007
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