On average, between 130,000 and 135,000 people attend San Diego Comic-Con each year. With crowds that large, there’s no telling how many attendees need last-minute comic runs, forgotten supplies, or maybe that one vintage toy they’ve been hunting for.
Just 0.9 miles from the San Diego Convention Center, Now or Never Comics at 1055 F St. has become one of the few downtown shops, and the only comic shop, ready to meet that demand.
Given the store’s growth over the past year, it comes as no surprise that Now or Never Comics has been selected for the 2026 Corpse Tour, a nationwide comic shop tour organized by Tiny Onion, the production company co-founded by writer James Tynion IV, in collaboration with its publishing and retail partners.
Jazzlyn Stone, Tiny Onion’s director of communications, wrote that when the inaugural Corpse Tour launched in 2025, the team was met with more than a few skeptical looks from industry peers. Even so, they believed in the idea and committed to seeing it through.
That gamble paid off. The tour expanded beyond its original itinerary, drawing enthusiastic crowds and helping elevate the participating comic shops while giving Tiny Onion an even larger platform to connect with readers. Now, the 2026 Corpse Tour will conclude in San Diego just in time for San Diego Comic-Con, with its final stop at Now or Never Comics.
Taking place Saturday the 25th from 7:30 to 10 p.m., over 200 tickets had been sold to the public with regular and VIP tickets for a live Q&A session and signing with James Tynion, Michael Walsh, Tyler Boss, and, for the first time signing at a comic shop on the West Coast, Christian Ward!
Now or Never Comics owner Aaron Trites explained, “VIP guests were given Now or Never exclusive variant covers of Rascal Randy #1 by Guillaume Martinez, and all guests were given a Rascal Randy ticket.” The ticket itself was designed by Now or Never staff member Caitlin Garcia.
Upon arrival, the event was just getting started, and there was already a line wrapping around the block. While the scene outside was chaotic, the scene inside wasn’t much different. The Now or Never and Tiny Onion crews scrambled to put the finishing touches on the event and set up their merchandise. Tables were being arranged, exclusive Rascal Randy shirts were being hung, and Rascal Randy flyers were being laid out.
The merchandise was displayed in front of a massive Rascal Randy shrine backdrop ripped straight from the pages of the first issue. Also available were the Tiny Onion John Amor Rascal Randy #1 Variant, Ward’s Rascal Randy #1 Variant exclusive, and the Exquisite Corpses #12 Tiny Onion exclusive variant.
Yet amid the scramble to put the finishing touches on the event, the crews from Now or Never Comics and Tiny Onion never appeared flustered. If anything, it was their time to shine. Despite the pressure of preparing for the inevitable rush of fans, the shop was filled with smiles, laughter, celebratory drinks, and a palpable sense of excitement for the crowd that would soon pour through the doors.
And pour through the doors they did.
The VIP crowd piled in, each handed their own Now or Never copy of Rascal Randy #1 before moving into the recently opened event space in the shop. Long gone were the days of piling into the store, finding space around comic bins, squeezing between bookcases, and crowding the stairs. The Now or Never expansion allowed more than 200 people to attend, and the possibilities for what the store could host had only just begun.
With a booming introduction from Zach Norris, employee and figurehead for Now or Never, Tynion, Boss, Walsh, and Ward went downstairs to excited cheers from the audience as they all piled into the corner of their Rascal Randy shrine diorama.
Tynion, after thanking everyone for being here, turned it over to the other creators to introduce themselves before opening up the Q&A, with Tynion taking the role of moderator. Even after a couple of questions, many moments stood out to fans in the crowd.
One moment caught many people’s attention.
“How do you distill the horror energy of that into a singular image?” Tynion asked. “When you’re coming on to do an interesting image, how do you figure out your way in?”
Ward laughed, “There’s a good answer. I could give you a big long answer, but it’s vibes.” Laughter filled the room before Ward continued, “It’s that clash between cute and creepy, do you know what I mean? It’s that simple. When you’re putting that together, just screening that sort of thing.”
Ward continued, emphasizing that he has to trust that instinct by asking himself what the point of a piece is and how it should feel. He explained that it’s important to understand what the other creators are trying to accomplish, ensuring that the artwork sells not only the image itself but also the tone of the story.
At this point, Tynion made sure to throw the conversation out to the room.
The first question came in immediately: “Hi, I’m from Maine! I was curious about your choice of having the story (Exquisite Corpses) take place in Maine.”
You could almost see the sly smile on Tynion’s face.
Tynion began, “When you’re talking about horror, Maine has a tremendous history of horror, down to the fact that the sheriff character who shows up briefly in the first issue of Rascal Randy is Sheriff King.”
Chuckles popped up sporadically across the room.
“There is, in fact, a reason we wanted to root the story in one of the archetypal homes of American horror.”
The audience was under the impression that more questions of that caliber would be asked; they were, in fact, wrong.
“What is his voice?”
The question shot from the back of the room, yet the laughter that ensued reverberated throughout the audience and even the creators.
You could feel the moment that Boss silently died inside.
“I’m so sorry,” they exclaimed before giving the best Mickey Mouse as a serial killer that they possibly could, the words “I’m gonna get ya” leaving their mouth before creator and audience alike had a moment to process what just occurred.
Those thoughts were quickly drowned out by the ensuing laughter. Yet Tiny Onion dug deeper as the next round of questions continued.
“It’s safe to say this has been a huge success; it’s so popular, and congrats to you guys for that. Now that we are at this point, does it take some anxiety away? Can you sleep at night without worrying about reviews and get time to relax?”
Walsh paused before motioning that he’d take the question.
“For me, it adds anxiety because now I’m so grateful to all the people who have bought and enjoyed this book and supported us and given us the chance to tell these stories that I wasn’t able to bring characters that are just as iconic for season two. I want people to love this book and to continue to support it the way that they have from the very beginning.”
He adds that he is putting this pressure on himself to make sure that the quality remains at the very highest level possible.
Tynion continued that conversation, saying, “That’s always the thing. Once you’ve caught the audience’s attention, the pressure is on you not to lose them, not to lose that attention, and not to betray the trust of that readership. But we also want to show the full breadth of what this world can do, and that’s what we’re doing with this miniseries.
“We have a book that’s a strange slasher series. We have a book that’s an assassin revenge story. And we have a book that, from the beginning, I’ve pitched as our own Punisher War Journal, one that digs into the past of this incredibly dangerous mercenary figure while also serving as essentially season one, bridging us to season two.”
Tynion stressed that they are excited and they know they have a responsibility to deliver, so while there is still pressure, it feels good to know that they can tell these stories.
“Now it’s on us to make them good.”
“It gives us the opportunity to say we have two more seasons of plans. Right? So we can do something longer; we can have a big arc because of that as well,” Walsh added.
More questions poured in, but to close out the night, an audience member asked one that would leave many doors of possibility open.
“So at the end of season one– I really like Audrey. When did you decide that the character would go that way?”
“That was the amazing thing.”
Tynion paused to explain who Audrey was for those in attendance before continuing.
“The important thing was that it was really fun to talk about the killers. The killers are so much of the energy of the series and the visual dynamic of the series. But for it to function as horror, it had to be the story of the civilians. It had to be about their fear and their attempts to survive the night. We really wanted to show the cost of all this horror happening, and having one of these characters break was something we knew we needed to do.
“However, it was never preordained. We came at it in the writers’ room, walked through every step of the story, and when we saw where we were headed in the final issues of the series, we realized there was a way we could really give it a gut punch.”
“I think, in the writers’ room, there’s this idea that you have to kill your babies. We had designed so many of these characters to die. Sometimes, you have to be cruel to the characters you love the most when you’re writing them,” Walsh added.
Walsh reminisced that, in the room, Audrey was so broken, and by the end of the story she is calling to their son and he’s not going to her. As a new father, that was a very effective idea to me. “I think a lot of that part of her story came from that broken psyche.”
As the evening came to a close, the panel gave way to a lengthy signing as fans patiently waited for a chance to meet the creators, have books signed, and continue conversations that had begun during the Q&A. The atmosphere remained just as energetic as it had when the doors first opened, with laughter echoing through the shop and every corner of the expanded space still buzzing with excitement.
For Tiny Onion, the San Diego stop served as more than just the finale of the 2026 Corpse Tour. It was a celebration of creator-owned comics and the local comic shops that continue to champion them. Rather than keeping its biggest moments confined to convention halls, the company brought its creators directly into the communities that have supported them from the very beginning.
For Now or Never Comics, the night represented another milestone in the shop’s rapid evolution. What was once a small neighborhood comic store proved it could successfully host one of Comic-Con week’s biggest off-site comic events, welcoming more than 200 fans for an evening that felt every bit as memorable as the convention itself.
If the Corpse Tour was meant to demonstrate the strength of independent comics and the importance of comic shops, its final stop accomplished exactly that. For one night, Now or Never Comics wasn’t just your corner comic shop; it had become a gathering place where creators and readers shared stories, celebrated horror, and reminded everyone that some of Comic-Con’s most memorable moments happen just beyond the convention center.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ’26.
