FULLERTON : Comic Book Store Hit Hardest by Fire

A soot-covered Marilyn Monroe figurine lay on the sidewalk in front of the Comic Castle. Nearby, a blackened Tasmanian devil toy rested on the curb.

Only the Spider Man mannequin and a few other items in the storefront window were left untouched by a Sunday evening blaze.

Store owner Rick Werft feared that water damage probably ruined at least $100,000 worth of his comic books and movie-related souvenirs. “There are 50,000 comic books in there and all of them are wet,” Werft lamented, fearing a near-total loss of his eight-year-old business.

Fire broke out about 6 p.m. Sunday on the vacant second floor of an 89-year-old building at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Amerige Avenue. The fire was concentrated in a storage area above the Comic Castle. Two other stores adjacent to Comic Castle sustained some damage, but Werft’s establishment had the most. Total damage was estimated to be $700,000.

As of late Monday, investigators had not been able to identify the cause of the blaze, Fire Department spokeswoman Sylvia Palmer said.

Werft and other tenants were barred from entering their stores until they are declared structurally safe by city inspectors, who fear the unreinforced masonry walls could collapse.

The Book Harbor, a rare- and used-book store adjacent to Comic Castle, sustained minimal damage, in part because firefighters were able to cover most of the inventory, officials said. Book Harbor owner Al Ralston declined comment.

According to city records, the second floor of the historic building originally served as a Masonic Temple and as an Odd Fellows Hall, both fraternal men’s organizations. When the Masonic Temple moved to its current location at Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue in 1919, the upper level was converted to a boarding house, Palmer said.

A firefighter at the scene said a marble staircase still leads to the former boarding rooms and that a claw-foot bathtub remained bolted to the floor.

Palmer said the upstairs portion of the Mission Revival-style building had been unused for at least 40 years. The street level of the building was best known as Harris’ Drugstore in the 1950s and 1960s.