Some journeys are inspiring in their ambition. Some journeys are inspiring in their obstacles. Some stories are inspiring due to pure circumstance. The story of Invisible Jet Comics is all three, as in the wake of a devastating fire, the store and its founder have risen like a phoenix.
The brain-child of former tech guru-turned shop owner Kris Politopolous, Invisible Jet Comics has managed to carve out a place for itself as a community pillar in a neighborhood leading San Francisco’s return to residential prosperity. Politopolous gave up a career that had seen stops at Google Fiber and YouTube for an industry that spoke to her passion for fostering empathy and diversity.
A Bay Area native who had left the city for rural Salinas during the pandemic, Politopolous held to the old adage that location is everything. When she first selected the site in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood, Kris knew she was looking for three things: “Parking, mass transit, and proximity to schools,” Politopolous told Comic Book Club. “West Portal had everything.”
Roughly equidistant from 22 different public and private schools, the West Portal transit station helps provide a steady flow of foot traffic to the area, and the sidewalks are often crowded with parents and caregivers managing small to large herds of children. And there was no comic shop anywhere close.
“The city only has eight shops. Had seven, now has eight. I didn’t want to horn in on anyone’s territory”, Politopolous added. The comic shop trade is a small world, and shops that don’t play well with others rarely last. In West Portal, Kris had found a woefully underserved and demographically perfect neighborhood.
When she first opened, roughly two blocks from the station on September 5, 2023, Politopolous was met with immediate excitement from the community. The nearby Bookshop of West Portal, another women-owned business, had only grudgingly entered the burgeoning graphic novel market and was more than happy to let the nascent comic book shop take the bulk of that business off its plate.
An early partnership with the Valkyries, San Francisco’s new WNBA team (that just happens to share a name with a long-established comics professional group for women), paid tremendous dividends over the first year of Invisible Jet’s journey. “Being on the Founder’s Wall is huge,” said Politopolous, who knows what a powerful force sports culture is in the city. The partnership and early visibility helped connect Invisible Jet to a tremendous network of women-owned businesses throughout the Bay Area.
Then, tragedy struck. On the first anniversary of the shop, with family and close friends having traveled to the city to celebrate, the building at 159 West Portal caught fire. Investigators would later determine that a spark had jumped from building to building, burning out businesses adjacent to and upstairs from Invisible Jet, one of which, a hair salon, was a second-generation women-owned business.
Politopolous told Comic Book Club about how her best friend, visiting for the celebration, sprinted from the top of the street to the shop to hold her and offer comfort in her moment of crisis. “We’re both 52-year-old women, so her sprinting to me is no small thing,” Politopolous said.
About an hour later, after firefighters had extinguished the blaze, having done everything they could to protect the shop and its inventory, Politopolous was left to navigate the rubble. Like always, the network of support around her lifted her up and showed her the way.
Online chatter and a GoFundMe led to broadening support for the shop as Politopolous looked at relocation and rebuilding options. Her husband, Pavlos, lent his considerable skills to navigating the world of insurance claims and saw to it that the store received payment for the damages and business interruptions. And Politopolous found a new temporary home, just down the street at 79 West Portal, barely 100 paces from the light rail stop.
Since the fire, the community has responded by giving her more business than she ever had before. People who never left the first block after getting off the train have discovered Invisible Jet for the first time. The loyal patrons who helped Politopolous build the community have followed her down the street as the shop’s original location undergoes final repairs and restoration. Politopolous plans not only to retain the new customers, but also to apply the big lessons she’s learned from the temporary space back home when the original store reopens next year.
“I want it very kid-forward,” Politopolous explained. “Literally, I want the kids’ section back up front. I want the kids to be able to hang out and read and play while their parents explore the rest of the shop.”
The exploding market for children’s and young-adult graphic novels is the key to Politopolous and Invisible Jet’s success, with Politopolous crediting writer/artist Raina Telgemeier for kicking things off, but with the momentum behind kids’ comics only building. “She started it, but it’s everything now,” Politopolous said. “It’s Dog Man, it’s Captain Underpants. It’s Batman Family Adventures.”
The store bears the motto “Comics for Everyone,” a statement that Politopolous completely stands behind. In an online media environment that doesn’t always offer positive models for children, she believes there is a comic out there for all of them.
“Tell me what they’re into,” Politopolous said. “Is it cars, is it spaceships, is it wrestling, is it romance, is it science fiction? Are they just starting to read or are they moving into chapter books? I’ll find something.”
And it’s that ability to seek and find the solution a community needs which has formed a framework around Politopolous’s life. It’s carried her from solving monumental technical challenges to solving deeply personal questions of taste, to coming back from a disaster that almost took the store down. As Politopolous and Invisible Jet Comics chart their course into the future, they’ll be buoyed by the support of the community she has built; a community, alongside generations of business owners, that creates a place where people of all stripes can find something that speaks to them, and where comics truly are for everyone.
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