Ariell Johnson is a business owner and accountant and is the first African-American to own a

comic store a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

on the east coast of the United States.

Early life and education

Johnson was born in

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

. Growing up, she originally wanted to be a dancer, and even auditioned for Philadanco. She earned her

Bachelor of Business Administration A Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is an undergraduate degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of four years and typically 120 credits of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of busine ...

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

from the

Fox School of Business and Management The Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management is the business school of Temple University. Located in Philadelphia, the Fox School offers several Master of Business Administration programs (full-time MBA, part-time MBA, international MBA, ...

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

in 2005. While at school, she came up with the idea of opening a comic book shop, saying: “I enjoy accounting, but I couldn’t do it all day, everyday. There’s a part of me that loves sitting and staring at spreadsheets, but I need a creative aspect to my work.” As a child, Johnson recalls seeing the superhero

Storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstor ...

on television, which was "the first black woman heroine that heever laid eyes on". Wanting to learn more about the character, she began reading comics.

Career

Johnson opened Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in

Kensington, Philadelphia Kensington is a neighborhood in the River Wards section of Philadelphia. Kensington is a primarily low-income and working-class area, and it experienced increasing poverty after the loss of its industries in the 1960s during deindustrializati ...

in 2015. At the time of the store opening, there were only 5 comic stores in the country owned by African-Americans. Johnson emphasizes that "all are welcome" in her store, citing her own experiences shopping as a comic fan driving her to open Amalgam in the first place: "You feel scrutinized being the only person that looks like you." The East Coast Black Age of Comics (ECBACC) closed out its 2016 convention in Amalgam Comics. In 2017, Johnson received a grant from the

Knight Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts. The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...

to add programming space to the store where she could offer classes and other resources to assist aspiring comic book creators. Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse closed its storefront in October 2022 due to the loss of business from the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Johnson is hopeful to reopen a physical store in the future, citing the closure and re-opening of St. Mark's Comics in New York City as inspiration.

Awards and recognition

* In 2016, Johnson was depicted on a variant cover of the November issue of Invincible Iron Man #1 featuring

Riri Williams Ironheart (Riri Williams) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mike Deodato, the character first appeared in ''Invincible Iron Man'' Vol. 3 #7 (May 2016). ...

* In 2016, Johnson was nominated for Philadelphia's "Geek of the Year" award for offering "an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere for geeks of all kinds" * In 2019, Johnson was awarded the "Jerry Clark Making a Difference Award" by the Anti-Defamation League in recognition of her efforts to make communities "more respectful, inclusive, and welcoming" * In 2020, Johnson was awarded the "Equitable Entrepreneur Award" by the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Ariell 1983 births 21st-century American businesswomen African-American women in business Businesspeople from Philadelphia Comics retailers (people) Fox School of Business and Management alumni Living people