The Million Year Picnic: A Hidden Comic Haven
If you turn into the sharp corner on Mt. Auburn Street and go down a set of stairs, a door adorned with cut-out owls, a Pokémon poster, and Comic-Con signs will greet you. This is The Million Year Picnic: a microcosm of a comic book world and one of the oldest of its kind in New England.
A calm voice greets each person who walks into the store. A man wearing a blue sweater with round-rimmed glasses looks down as he checks out the next customer. This is Anthony “Tony” F. Davis ’84, the owner of The Million Year Picnic. As customers pass through the store, Davis greets them with courteous conversation, remembering names and asking them about their days. Davis has been working with the store since he was an undergraduate at Harvard.
“Oh, this place is a trap,” he says. “It's easy to get into, but it’s very hard to get out of.”
The store was founded in 1974 by author Jerry Weist and then-Harvard undergraduate Charles E. Wooley ’75. They named the shop after the short story from Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles.”
Ornamented with hundreds of graphic novels, daily comic editions, and more, the shop makes use of every corner and inch of space. Titles such as “Asterix,” Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” and daily strip collections “The Phantom,” line the walls. Each section of The Million Year Picnic is brimming with life.
“I wish we had three times the floor space because I feel like there’s so much more stuff I’d love to be putting out there,” Davis says.
Davis came to the store after an experience at another comic shop in the Square at the time where the store owners would not allow him “even look at the books.”
The Million Year Picnic has always been open to underground and niche series within its space. In developing such a collection, Davis says, “I’d never been in a comic shop before I came in here that sold underground comics, that sold the few independent comics there were at the time.”
As the comic scene grew, the store had more material to pull from. For Davis, it was always important that the store featured diversity amongst the shelves. “That took a while because the early underground movement was pretty heavily white and male and heterosexual,” Davis notes.
Davis says he hopes to “open the doors” for more variety in his comics by including works from creators of color, female authors, and other diverse artists. In doing so, he wants to create an environment of new discovery for his customers. Davis’s own personal inspirations draw from a variety of sources such as Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and “Love and Rockets” from the Hernandez Brothers.
“I really want the store to be someplace where, if you’re eight or 80, you can come in and find something that speaks to you,” says Davis.
In fact, the store has had a significant impact on Cambridge residents. Discussing his childhood in 1980s Cambridge, George R. “Chip” Greenidge Jr. touches on the influence of The Million Year Picnic in his own life.
“As teenagers — 14, 15 years old — we would always run to Harvard Square just to explore the many different stores that were out there,” Greenidge says. “One of those stores was The Million Year Picnic, which was a place for any young person to just let their imagination run wild.”
Despite being a smaller Cambridge institution, the shop has remained in the city for the past 50 years, celebrating its anniversary this past July. The celebrations included a film festival, which showcasedthe screening of a documentary called “The Picnic,” a 40-minute film about the history of the store. Another part of the festival included an author Q&A with Sara Varnon, author of the graphic novel “Robot Dreams.”
The documentary was headed by Vincento-louis Apruzzese, a current animator and former employee of the shop. Beyond Apruzzese, The Million Year Picnic has employed several workers who have found success within the industry — from Rich Titus to Mike Luce.
“I feel like we built a really great community,” says Davis.
— Staff writer Neeraja S. Kumar can be reached at neeraja.kumar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @neerajasrikumar.