The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store...

On Sunday afternoon we took a trip to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope. I'd only been here once before, waaaaaay back in February last year for Tom's birthday - Steve's been wanting to visit the store ever since I told him about it, so it was quite a special occassion for him.

The store was set up by a charity that offers creative writing classes for inner-city children and teenagers, they've got a couple of other shops across the country including a Pirate's Supply Store in San Francisco.

Inside the shop are floor to ceiling shelves full of fantastic products - well, they look like products but they're actually empty boxes and empty tins. They have cans of X-Ray vision, the speed of light, tins of doom and gloom, tins of antimatter and gravity, they sell cloakes and disguises, they sell secrect identity kits and good vs. evil maps of New York, they have all sorts of fantastic items...

They've created their own brands, ranging from FantastiCo which is your more entry level superhero supplies to The Aardvark Bros. which is your more top-end specialist goods. All the copy on all the packs is fantastic, all the little details have been thought about and it feels like they've had a lot of fun coming up with all the ideas.

Behind one of the shelves is a secret doorway which leads to the room where they hold the creative writing classes. So you pull the shelf towards you and it opens like a door revealing a room that feels like clubhouse with book lined walls, comfy chairs and tables to write at. It looks fantastic and I bet the classes are great fun.

There were some small children in the shop when we were looking around. They were recieving the full Superhero make-over treatment, picking out capes, learning how to pose, coming up with names, working on their flying techniques (with a fan blowing their cape around) and looking for gadgets, they were having loads of fun... so was Steve, he was stocking up on antimatter and doom as presents for people.

Before you buy any things from the shop you have to say the 'Superhero Oath' out-loud infront of everyone in the shop and give yourself a superhero name, then you place you items in a vault and they're sent up the the HQ offices for pricing.

The whole shop is a complete experience and is so much fun - it's just a shame I don't qualify for one of the creative writing classes. The whole place is really inspiring and although when you think about it they're selling empty boxes for $15 - you're really making a donation to the charity and having a lot of fun at the same time. It's BRILLIANT!