Lawmaker's comic shop also is place for politics Associated Press Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Updated 10:06 a.m., Saturday, December 8, 2012 Yaccarino says he first started ordering 25 books a week, a decision that would, however unlikely, eventually lead to a political campaign that crossed partisan boundaries. Some might imagine DJ's customers as pimply teenage boys, but the time when that stereotype might have been true is long over, and Yaccarino says he sells his comics to all kinds. When I tell that to people who don't follow the business, they go, 'Get out of here.' Since becoming a state representative, Yaccarino, in his second term, says he's found some comic fans at the Capitol, too. Yaccarino's vocation as comic shop owner acts as an icebreaker of sorts — he says he's had politicians profess their fondness for the art form to him as if it was a guilty pleasure, that they "didn't want to tell anyone." Why have comics influenced modern popular culture so heavily, providing the basis for films like "The Avengers" and television shows like "The Walking Dead?" What draws the politician, the ironworker, and, yes, the pimply teenage boy, to the comic shop? DJ's customers shop according to a regular cycle, so, when they come in, they're likely to see familiar faces, likely to start forming friendships. [...] being able to come into the comic book store and talk about what the Congress did, or the Senate did, or what's going on in state and local government, to complain and put out your ideas, to be the Monday morning quarterback for what you would have done if you were a senator or whatever, that's what makes this place great. Gritz, who graduated from Boston College with a major in political science and history before going to law school at the University of California, Davis, became Yaccarino's treasurer after he started working at the shop. [...] I think he's in it for the right reasons, Gritz says. Since Yaccarino became a state representative, he, Gritz and Tropeano agree DJ's has become more than just a comic book shop.