by Jon Gorga
Just before 6 p.m. on Wednesday, as the bell was about to toll on Diamond Comic Distributors’ part of the Retailer Day panels at New York Comic Con 2025, Joey Vazquez and Mike Staub of Midtown Comics took the stage to give a presentation about ComicKnowledge, a new full-service point-of-sale (POS) system for comics stores.
Other comics-specific POS systems like the recently-deactivated ComicsSuite, ComicHUB, or the long-defunct MOBY seem to mostly come and go. The duo touted their program’s ability to recognize things like variant cover editions and see the difference between individual comic books and comic book paperback collections much as those old options did.
However! Unlike all those previous platforms, theirs includes credit card processing. Retailers will be able to take care of this key need directly within the same application tracking inventory.
The package even comes with a remote admin user app (presumably for iPhone and/or Android smartphones). They promised shop managers the ability to check their sales and customer subscriptions while on vacation from the beach (despite the fact that, as we all know, comic shop owners never take vacations).
Sounds like the extremely mobile and highly versatile Square system popular at bakeries and small clothing stores but tailored for the comics ecosystem, a first in our field.
To this former shop owner, the most exciting part of this was when the PowerPoint slideshow proudly exclaimed: “COMING SOON: PULLBOX!” and the images below looked like a public-facing interface for preordering stuff arriving at your local comic shop.
That’s a smart move as it looks like it could be a solid replacement for comiXology’s Pull List, a sorely missed service since 2018. It’s become even more important since Diamond has lost so many publisher contracts and their catalog PREVIEWS (and the online version PREVIEWSworld) no longer contains everything coming to comics stores.
Vazquez and Staub said the team is “finalizing” the digital pull list elements but stopped short of naming even a rough launch date.
The company’s other announcement last night: expansion to the gaming space! ComicKnowledge will soon also hold the barcodes for board games, miniatures, and sourcebooks. Considering how much trading card games like Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering have become a foundation of the survival of geek culture retailers, this would no doubt be a smart addition. Pulling all these elements together could genuinely bring the start-up close to their slogan of being “THE ALL-IN-ONE POS SOLUTION!”
Vazquez holds the title of Customer Success Manager and Staub is already the Director of Customer Success at Midtown Comics so they really want to signal that they are here to help other retailers grow instead of merely provide their new clients a piece of software and sit back.
There’s a bit more to learn at ComicKnowledge.com, but we’ll have to wait and see if the comics shops of North America choose to trust these guys. They could become a new big help in the retail space or just another stop on the road to the death of print.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more coverage from NYCC ’25.
