TATES COMICS INC Information

Tates Comics, inc. is the brainchild of Tate Ottati, who as a seventeen year old high school senior, opened his store on March 28, 1993. While playing his high school economics class stock market game, Tate also invested in Marvel Comics stock in real life. He and did very well in the game as well as in the real-life stock market! Lucky for Tate, he sold the Marvel stock when it was at the highest it was ever going to get. Shortly after he sold it off, Marvel went bankrupt and the stock was not publicly traded for a few years. That original Marvel seed-money helped to open the store! With the help of his supportive father, Tony Ottati, Tate opened the doors to Tates Comics, Inc. In those first months, the store was only open when he was out of school, 3-8pm! Tates first location was a 1,000 sq. foot store that was home to all his favorite things featuring a variety of comics, graphic novels and toys. With Tates youthful eye for new merchandise and personal taste, the store did well and expanded quickly. Within two years the store was moved to a larger location around the corner, 4942 was the address number. Tate soon expanded the stores merchandise to include Japanese animation videos, Japanese comics and garage model kits. In 1995 anime and manga was very hard to find and word quickly spread that there was a local store catering to this new medium! That same year, TATES began renting rare Japanese anime import VHS videos to South Florida customers, who were thrilled to have the opportunity to see at home what was mostly only shown in anime fanclubs at the time. This was 1995 dont forget the internet was just getting started! In 1996, Tate met his wife Amanda (who was a customer at the store, of course) and as the years passed she began to contribute her favorite things to the stores offerings as well. By ordering a small selection of lowbrow art and popular culture books, as well as adding cult/horror movies to the video & rental sections the store became even more diverse. Then, in 1997, JoAnn (currently ...