Lauderhill Tutors Come To You

Lauderhill, Florida, has much to offer art lovers, including the 1,200-seat Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, which opened in January 2016. Officially known as the City of Lauderhill, the suburb of Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach boasts an Art, Culture, and Tourism Board that maintains a healthy schedule of art-related events, including the annual “Jammin’ in the Park and Art Fest.” One of the city’s more unusual claims to art fame, however, is Tate’s Comics, a gigantic retail store that had its beginnings with a seventeen-year-old’s comic book collection.

Comic book lover Tate Ottati, the owner of Tate’s, had amassed a large comic book collection by the time he was a teenager, and he started attending comic conventions to sell his books and buy new ones. When his collection got too big, he told his dad he wanted to open a store.

Luckily, Ottati had a way to finance the store. He had invested phony money in Marvel Comics stock as part of a stock game in an Advanced Placement Economics class at his high school, and his imaginary investment did so well that he placed third in the national contest. Somewhere along the line, Ottati decided to invest real money in Marvel stock. The gain was enough to finance a 1,000-square-foot space, and in 1993, seventeen-year-old Ottati opened the store with an initial inventory consisting of his childhood toys and comic collection. Because he was still in high school, the store was open only from 3:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Besides comics, Tate’s Comics also sold graphic novels and toys, and sales were healthy enough that the store expanded two years later to a larger location. Ottati added anime, manga, horror/cult movies, art books, and more.

After seven years at the second location, it was time to move to an even larger space in Lauderhill. Ottati also opened a gaming center a few doors down from Tate’s Comics. Two expansions later, Tate’s had grown to include an upstairs art gallery called Bear and Bird Boutique + Gallery that featured art shows and original artwork. A second location was opened in Boynton Beach.

Tate’s Comics has won many awards, including the coveted Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award, which is awarded annually at San Diego’s Comic-Con. Besides products already mentioned, the store sells collectibles, gaming art sketchbooks, tattoo reference books, patches, stickers, plush animals, action figures, costumes, and Asian snacks—a whole wall of them. Visitors, even those who proclaim not to care about comics or pop culture, are amazed by the endless aisles of merchandise, and Tate’s has become a “must-see” attraction for visitors to southern Florida.