Comic Shops and My Lack of Credibility
Wednesday I finally got around to stopping by my new local comic shop, Curt's Comics and Collectables. This was in part because I'd gotten e-mail from Things from another World, the official Dark Horse store, about the new Serenity comic. (As it turns out, that doesn't release until March, but I'm an e-mail scan-reader, and so I missed this vital piece of information until second reading.) I also wanted to order the new Hero by Night hardcover, as Jason Embury, who used to be a member at Empty Room Studios, is working on the art. I've been following it and wanted to support these guys for telling a good story.
The shop is great. It's a small space, and Curt told me he's planning to get more lighting to brighten it up, but the displays are excellent. Best of all, all of the comics are open to the air, instead of packaged in plastic. I'm not a huge fan of stores that don't encourage a read-while-you're-here mentality, and Curt's seems like the kind of place where someone like me (who likes to look before buying) could fit right in. He did have a couple of long boxes, so I imagine he'll cater a bit to the collector crowd as well. :) And hopefully one of these days, we'll see Cowboys and Aliens II on the shelf!
In other news, I lied to you all a few days ago. I said I wasn't going to write a story for the Fantasist Enterprises submission period. As it turns out, the story I'd been planning to write for it congealed in my head, and I wrote all 4600-odd words yesterday, just in time to submit! (After listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn discuss the Grimm's fairy tale "The Water of Life" and correlating it with a Buddhist understanding of consciousness, I thought it would be extremely fun to set it in an ambiguous, Asian-flavored fantasy setting.)
Whether or not it's a great piece of work, I have no idea--I'm still far too close to having written it. But it's the story I wanted to tell, and now it's off in the mail!
So, the works-in-progress bar currently looks like:
"Saving Tara"
359 / 5,000
(7.2%)
"Choosing Fate"
0 / 5,000
(0.0%)
"The Water of Life"
4,600 / 4,600
(100.0%)
The shop is great. It's a small space, and Curt told me he's planning to get more lighting to brighten it up, but the displays are excellent. Best of all, all of the comics are open to the air, instead of packaged in plastic. I'm not a huge fan of stores that don't encourage a read-while-you're-here mentality, and Curt's seems like the kind of place where someone like me (who likes to look before buying) could fit right in. He did have a couple of long boxes, so I imagine he'll cater a bit to the collector crowd as well. :) And hopefully one of these days, we'll see Cowboys and Aliens II on the shelf!
In other news, I lied to you all a few days ago. I said I wasn't going to write a story for the Fantasist Enterprises submission period. As it turns out, the story I'd been planning to write for it congealed in my head, and I wrote all 4600-odd words yesterday, just in time to submit! (After listening to Jon Kabat-Zinn discuss the Grimm's fairy tale "The Water of Life" and correlating it with a Buddhist understanding of consciousness, I thought it would be extremely fun to set it in an ambiguous, Asian-flavored fantasy setting.)
Whether or not it's a great piece of work, I have no idea--I'm still far too close to having written it. But it's the story I wanted to tell, and now it's off in the mail!
So, the works-in-progress bar currently looks like:
"Saving Tara"
359 / 5,000
(7.2%)
"Choosing Fate"
0 / 5,000
(0.0%)
"The Water of Life"
4,600 / 4,600
(100.0%)