Welcome to The Retail Comic Strip Archive!


At long last, I’ve created an online archive for the RETAIL comic strip. After considering a few different options, I ultimately decided to put together my own simple website where fans of the strip can read the comic in its entirety. I strive to keep the site ad free, so tips of any size are greatly appreciated.

If you’re new to RETAIL, welcome! You can learn more about the history of the comic by clicking the link in the menu bar. If you’re old to RETAIL, I’m sorry this took so long. After retiring the strip back in February 2020, I have been very busy with book projects. That, and I had no access to the old web archive. Over 5,000 original comic files had to be reformatted to get them ready for the new site. It took a while.    

Speaking of which, since I had to work from my original files, you may catch a typo here and there. I encourage you to send me a polite email when you see one, so I can fix it.

Each strip is named by date only. The individual comics aren’t tagged yet. I realize this makes searching for a particular comic you might remember impossible, but my main goal was to get the comics online ASAP. Eventually, I’ll get around to tagging individual comics a few at a time, then I can add a search function. For now, there is a calendar and “jump to” dropdown in the sidebar so you can navigate to specific dates a little more quickly. You can also hack a date into the url to get to a specific comic as well. (ie: /january-2-2006/) 

I had no access to the old comments, so they’re gone, but please feel free to comment anew. Be advised, however, that my time/desire to moderate them is very limited, so don’t be a jerk to other people. Also, I’ve disabled the ability to post links in the comments to mitigate spam. If you try to post a link, your comment will get stuck in moderation limbo and you’ll have to type it all over again, so maybe don’t do that.

I don’t know how much the site will grow from here, but thank you to everyone who has reached out in RETAIL’s absence to tell me how much the comic meant to them. It is truly appreciated.

I hope you enjoy the archive!

-Norm