SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Everybody has a guilty pleasure they had to forsake when they moved to Yellowknife, whether it's whiling away an afternoon at Starbucks, biting into a Whopper or seeing a movie in 3D.

Dale Bardeau, general manager of The Black Knight, says he he is considering opening a comic book shop in Yellowknife. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

For Dale Bardeau, it's being able to sort through racks of comic books.

However, if he gets his way he and others like him may be able to revisit their former love.

Bardeau, general manager of The Black Knight, is mulling over the idea of opening a comic book store in the city.

If renting a space doesn't prove feasible, he may try installing a comic book rack at an existing store, he said.

"Actually setting up the business and getting the supply in would be fairly cheap; it's just a matter of whether or not it would be feasible to actually rent out an entire store," said Bardeau. "I have no idea what the market is in town."

The main impediment to collecting comics in Yellowknife is the lack of selection. By Bardeau's count, only three businesses – Sutherland's Drugs, Wal-Mart and the downtown Reddi Mart – sell comics.

But their selection is spotty at best, said Bardeau.

"It's not a consistent supply. If you're a comic collector like I am, you'll end up getting one out of every three Amazing Spider-Man comics."

When he can't travel to Edmonton – where always makes a stop to a comic book shop his first priority – Bardeau orders his stuff online.

But even that has its downsides.

"Especially with the Internet sites, you don't exactly know what you're getting," said Bardeau. "You can't see it, you don't know what quality it is. Even though it might say it's in very good quality online, when you get it, it might be a little bit ruffled."

Bardeau has approached Frostbyte Cafe about putting in a rack inside the video gaming hot spot.

"I would like to do it," said Marcel Charland, co-owner of the cafe. "I don't know how much interest there is in town. I know there isn't anything like that, but we were thinking about also doing graphic novels."

The Yellowknife Book Cellar once featured a helping of comics, but ultimately it didn't prove financially feasible, said Judith Drinnan, owner of the book store.

While comics didn't catch on at The Book Cellar, that doesn't mean it wouldn't work elsewhere, she said.

"It's like anything else: you give it a shot, and if it work, it works."

One business owner thinks the odds are stacked against Bardeau.

James Croizier, owner of Ogre's Lair Game Shop – which primarily sells role-playing games – said the comic book heyday of the 1980s and 1990s is long over.

While admitting "a few people" may initially be interested in a comic book shop, Croizier said the tendency of many comic book readers is to download material online, whether through legitimate means or not.

"I'll just go online and get the PDF," he said. "You need a really dedicated audience to actually buy comics."

Reading things on paper is a dying practise, he added.

"In this day and age, the teenagers coming up, how are they assimilating data? Is it through reading books or is it through direct digital format(s) as in e-readers or through computer screens? And how much are they willing to spend money on actually reading something as paper in their hand? In this town? No."

Andrew Johnston is certainly more optimistic.

While he does read a lot of comics, Johnston doesn't spend a dime on them in Yellowknife. He usually waits until collections of various issues are released on sites like Amazon.

That could change, however.

"If someone did open a store like that here, I'd visit probably frequently," he said. "My wallet wouldn't be very happy ... but I might be."

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