The first comic book Austin Mansell collected was “The Amazing Spider-Man” No. 378, the third chapter in the 1993 “Maximum Carnage” story line, noted for the broad cast of Marvel superheroes and violence of the plot. Mansell was hooked on comics and — 17 years later — he has made them his livelihood.

Mansell opened Comics Cube Oct. 1 in Cedarview Plaza of Bonney Lake.

At 22 years old the Washington native is a young entrepreneur pursuing his first business venture.

“It initially started on the first of May when I was speaking to a friend who was graduating … about what he was going to do now that he was out of school,” Mansell said. “We arrived at a comic store. We were going to start getting things going after graduation and see where it took us.”

Over the summer, Mansell filed for a certificate of formation, filed for a business license and researched locations for a store while his friend took a summer job. That friend was accepted to graduate school, amicably dissolving the partnership. Having done the legwork, Mansell opened the store on his own.

Mansell funded his start-up entirely from savings.

“I live pretty cheaply,” he said. “I’ve always rented rooms and space where I didn’t have to pay much more than $200 a month. I don’t have a mortgage, I own my own car, so I had money saved. I bought a decent amount of Boeing stock, so I figured when I started, I could cash it in if this didn’t work out.”

Mansell chose Bonney Lake because he knew the area and it is centrally located between Sumner, Auburn, Buckley, Enumclaw and Orting and it has a base population with an above average amount of disposable income, he said. He reviewed census data on the area and spent hours sitting in retail locations watching the shopper traffic.

“I was amazed by the traffic, not just on (Highway) 410, but exiting 410 and into this shopping center,” Mansell said. “A lot of people come here.”

Bonney Lake lacks large chain bookstores, such as Borders or Barnes & Noble, that frequently offer steep discounts small retailers can’t afford to match.

Mansell also considers his location next to a Gamestop video game retailer to be prime, he said.

“I don’t want to say it’s entirely the same audience, but oftentimes the same people who like to read comics play video games,” he said. “So I’ve gotten quite a few customers from people who go shopping next door, buy what they want, leave and go ‘Huh, I didn’t realize there was a comic book store around here.’

“I think we do a mutually beneficial business: We don’t have a competing product, but we cater to a similar audience and we’re right next door.”

In the first month of operation, Mansell has noticed the two surges in customers throughout the day come from the 3 p.m. after-school crowd and the 5 p.m. after-work crowd, he said.

The after-school crowd, in particular, visits the shop to gather and play fantasy card game “Magic: The Gathering.” Mansell set up tables and chairs in front of the shop for the players and has taken to hosting tournaments on the weekend, drumming up sales of snacks and sodas, as well as incidental comic purchases.

“It’s been very good for business,” he said.

Aside from snacks and sodas, the shop deals almost entirely in comic books, foregoing collector’s merchandise such as posters, action figures and T-shirts, which, according to the advice of other comic retailers Mansell spoke with, are prone to undersell and create a loss. But he tells customers he can special order such items if they like.

New books are cycled on the walls and a large table in the center of the floor holds organized stacks of back issues for sale, many of them items that the owner was willing to part with from his personal collection. He also sells books from local publishing group Creator’s Edge Press, and has a friendly business relationship with Creator’s Edge writer and Comic Evolution owner Chuck Messinger, with whom he sometimes trades inventory.

The most popular items are, understandably, comic properties that have broken into television or movies.

“Iron Man books have been selling, Batman is always popular,” Mansell said. “With the new show “The Walking Dead,” people have seen that it’s based on a comic book and have bought the books to see what they’re like.”

He is glad to see movie and television adaptations generate interest in the original books, he said. A firm believer that comic books are literature, he keeps a rack of his own favorite books on the counter, most of them story-focused titles published under independent labels.

“Comic books are definitely literature,” he said.

Revenues have been break-even or better so far, keeping Mansell busy on his seven days a week in the shop.

“The funny thing about running a comic shop is you don’t have as much time to read comics,” he said.

Comics Cube is at 20950 state Route 410 E.