On a recent Saturday, hundreds of people, including a green-skinned woman and a man in a purple cape with a big S on his chest, met in a mall parking lot near the UNLV campus.
They gathered for a birthday party of sorts. Twenty years ago, Ralph Mathieu opened Alternate Reality comic book store. For many of those here, Alternate Reality is a home away from home.
And Mathieu is family.
"This is the first place we came after the birth of my first son," said Brent Holmes, 35, a Las Vegas graphic designer.
Located at Maryland Parkway and Flamingo Road, Alternate Reality is 2,000 square feet packed with comic books. Names you recognize like Superman, Batman and the X-Men rest on metal shelves alongside books with titles such as 100 Bullets and Afterlife with Archie. And yes, that’s Archie, the high school student in Riverdale with Betty, Veronica and Jughead -- except in this new comic, some of Archie’s friends are zombies.
Owner Ralph Mathieu is a blur of movement who can stop on a dime and recite the theme and storyline for almost any comic book in the store.
But he’s more than just a Wikipedia of comic book lore. When Ralph Mathieu talks of comics, it’s with the appreciation of a gallery curator.
Mathieu’s love of comics is infectious. Scott Johnson, a father of two and an actor in “Tony and Tina’s Wedding,” said Mathieu drew him back into comics after he had abandoned them for other interests -- like girls.
Now 37, Johnson takes umbrage when asked why, as a father and adult, he still reads comic books.
"That's a loaded question," Johnson replied. "Why do adults watch TV? Why do they play sports?"
Harry Fagel read comic books as a child for solace. Today, he’s a lieutenant in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He is also a poet. And he wrote a poem about why he reads comic books.
"Spiderman says with great power comes great responsibility. Or maybe Stan Lee," his voice boomed through the store. "Either way, it’s another truth from the pages of comics. I live this way. I love these stories… reach past the things that separate us as human beings and touch me in the universal truth."
Mathieu, the store owner, takes it all in.
Twenty years ago when his comic book store opened, Bill Clinton was in his first term as president. Since then, 9-Eleven happened. Thousands of Las Vegans lost their homes and went bankrupt in the recession.
"I've led a charmed life," he says.
