Queen Street West is losing one of the last surviving vestiges of the less fashionable, more literate, counterculture strip it was of yore.

The Silver Snail comic book store, that 35-year-old, world-famous emporium of comics, action figures and toys, is packing up its distinctive, colourful window displays of superheroes and moving elsewhere — to the Annex, perhaps, or Yonge St.

Owner Ron Van Leeuwen is retiring from the business he founded in 1976, when he decided to turn a passion into a store. It has had three different locations on Queen St. W., and has stood at its current address, 367 Queen St. W. — between Spadina and Beverley — for “about 28 or 29 years,” says manager George Zotti.

The Snail is not closing for good, however, and will stay in the family. Zotti is buying the business from Van Leeuwen along with a partner, Mark Gingras.

The vibrant, cavernous store will remain on Queen St. W. until at least February 2012. But it will move to a new neighbourhood, says Zotti.

“Queen Street is not the book-friendly place it used to be,” he says. “If you want shoes or $300 jeans, it’s a good place to go. It’s lost that browsing, literary feel it used to have.”

The store is legendary for hosting indie artists as well as comic book royalty — including Simpsons creator Matt Groening and Sandman writer Neil Gaiman — at store events. With its proximity to Much Music, it’s also had drop-ins from a litany of celebrities with comic fetishes, including KISS’s Gene Simmons, actor Robin Williams, Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and Burton Cummings of the Guess Who.

“We’ve opened the store early so Harrison Ford and his kids could shop,” says Zotti, who has worked at the store on and off since he was 15. “Mark Hamill came in when I was 18.”

Then there was the Friday afternoon Bob Dylan strolled in.

“I saw someone who was scruffy as can be, and my heart skipped a beat,” says Space Channel producer Mark Askwith, who managed the store from 1982 to 1987. “I realized who it was . . . I just thought, ‘I can’t really deal with this.’ ”

Dylan wanted an American Splendor and some Looney Tunes comics, including a pricey copy of Porky Pig, for those keeping track.

“Our manager . . . had to go hide in his office while I rang (Dylan) through the cash,” laughs Zotti.

The many bars, bookshops and music stores on the strip meant the Snail attracted a cross-section of Toronto — university students, local artists, people working on film sets. The store was once of the tallest on the strip.

Van Leeuwen owned the building, and that is a key reason the store has lasted so long on Queen, says Askwith. (There is also a Silver Snail location in Ottawa.)

Zotti won’t be downsizing. He will expand the store if he can.

“If we can find a big enough space it would be cool to have a café inside,” he says. He cast his eye to the northwest and sees the bookish neighbourhood of the Annex, already home to book shops Book City and BMV and the city’s other renowned comic destination, The Beguiling. That would be a “good fit,” Zotti says.

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“Hopefully they will find a new home that suits them and their clientele,” says Beguiling co-owner Peter Birkemoe.

“I think what’s going on on Bloor St. is very special right now,” says Askwith. “Queen St. for whatever reason has become a place where fashion rules rather than counterculture.”