Don't Tell The Wife

Being alone is dangerous. While my wife and daughter are away (in California visiting relatives; I'll catch up with them next week after a business trip out in San Francisco) I've been spending much too much time (and money) shopping. Yesterday I made a run to my favorite brick-and-mortar comic shop, Big Brain Comics. It's a fabulous store (I've written about it before here) and every time I go there I feel a tinge of guilt that I'm not supporting my LCS. Perhaps that guilt partly explains why I spent so much yesterday. When I went in I was really only looking for one book in particular (Tales Designed To Thrizzle, which was sold out, so if you have a copy you'd like to donate/sell/trade, let me know) but then I remembered a bunch of other comics that had been recommended to me*, so I started browsing. As I said, dangerous. Here's what I ended up walking away with:

• Or Else #1-3
• TCJ #269 (The Shoujo Issue)
• CBG #1610
• Bare Foot Riot
• Project: Telstar
• Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man (King Cat collection)
• Yotsuba&! Vol. 2

I guess that's not so bad when you think about all the other stuff I considered but passed on. (For example, I remembered I was interested in getting The Comics Journal Library Volume 5: Classic Comics Illustrators, but I put it back when I realized I never read the Jack Kirby or Frank Miller volumes. I'll wait for it to show up at the library and check it out then.) But when I look at the stacks of comics that sit unread in my office I feel especially intemperate.

And of course I compounded the problem by later stopping at Half Price Books and snatching up Orgy Bound and The Book of Ballads for eight bucks apiece. Great bargains, sure, but I didn't really need the books, either. (Not that anyone ever needs books, but these weren't even books I'd been searching for -- or even aware existed -- before seeing them on the shelf.) (Unexpected bonus: While searching for links for Orgy Bound, I found that it's out of print and garnering big bucks on Amazon ($100 for NM) and Alibris. I'm sure there are those who would find it blasphemous to consider selling a Fantagraphics comic for profit, but, hey, look at it as me making it available to those who really, really want it and are otherwise unable to find it, all while reinvesting funds back into my own comics budget. It's a win-win scenario! (Especially since I realized after-the-fact that I already own most of these stories in another Clowes collection, Twentieth Century Eightball.))**

And this is just the comics I purchased this weekend. I haven't even gotten into the Sgt. Frog merchandise I broke down and ordered...

* [Thanks to Graeme, Ed, Shawn, and David for their recommendations. So far I've really enjoyed what I've read. Maybe if I have time after my trip this week I'll blog a bit about the stuff I've read.]

** [Re-reading all of that I feel like a character from Seth's forthcoming Wimbledon Green.]