Proudly perched among the fine dining and fancy boutiques of Ann Arbor's Main Street is Vault of Midnight, a store whose vibrant blue exterior transfixes the gaze of any casual passerby. “Comic Books & Stuff” reads its wittily vague subtitle, and a peek inside clarifies why “stuff” is perhaps the only term that can sufficiently summarize the store’s impressive assortment of merchandise. Aside from new comic books, Vault of Midnight is packed wall to wall with graphic novels, figurines, board games, T-shirts, statues, manga and an enormous six-foot Uglydoll named Icebat.

Indeed, Vault of Midnight is a veritable paradise for Ann Arbor’s aficionados of comic books and other cool “stuff.” The store offers almost 100 new comic issues each week and its entire comic collection runs into the tens of thousands. But behind the stacks of old back issues of “The Goon” is an incredible success story of an independent, locally owned business.

Vault of Midnight first opened in 1996 in a one-room house on South Ashley.

“We were so small when we opened, it was ludicrous. I opened with my entire collection and a couple thousand bucks,” said Curtis Sullivan, co-owner of Vault of Midnight, who was just 21 when the store opened.

Most ludicrous of all was the prospect of opening a comic book store in the late ’90s in a town where there were already three other comic shops. And it was a time of monumental decline in the comic book industry.

“Everyone was like, ‘Holy shit! You’re opening a comic shop in 1996?’ ” recalled Sullivan. “That’s when it went from ‘Everyone buy five-million copies (of a title)’ to ‘Everyone buy no copies.’ ”

In the early ’90s, publishers flooded the market with company-wide crossovers, holographic covers and other schemes to milk avid comic book readers of their last pennies. But the saturation of the market led to a bubble burst and the business plummeted — industry titan Marvel Comics even declared bankruptcy in 1996.

Despite the obvious difficulties of entering a dying market, Sullivan, along with his wife Elizabeth DellaRocco and friend Steve Fodale, decided to open the store. There was no grand, elaborate business plan behind the decision. Their motivations for opening a comic book store were quite simple.

“We just really love comics,” Sullivan said.

The origin of the store’s name perfectly encapsulates its dark-horse roots.

“We took (Vault of Midnight) from old horror comics, the EC Comics. Vault of Horror and Crypt of Fear, House of Mystery … they were the original independents,” said Sullivan. “We’re an independently based shop as far as the publishers go and the EC (Entertaining Comics) were kind of the renegade comic company of that era, they were the underdogs.”

“Initially we focused on independent comic books, stuff that wasn’t Marvel or DC,” explained Sullivan. “(In other stores) we saw more of Marvel and DC, so we thought we could find our niche that way.”

The store’s independent collection was a source of appeal for many customers.

“The other shops didn’t do smaller books or self-published books,” said Christian Silbereis, an original patron and current employee of Vault of Midnight. “No one else had the crazy toys … they had Superman and Batman but not Spawn, these demonic toys from hell. They looked way cooler to a 12-year-old than Superman with a cape.”

Vault of Midnight’s goal of filling a niche market of independent comic books certainly worked — it managed to prevail through one of the lowest points in the industry’s history. The store made enough money at each of its locations, moving up a little bit each time. After two years on Ashley, it moved to a new location on Huron. After another two years, it moved to Liberty Street, near Afternoon Delight, spending five years there. Now, stationed on Main Street — Ann Arbor’s equivalent of Madison Avenue — Vault of Midnight has made it to the top.