Ahhh... there are very few things more exciting than having a bit of extra per-diem money weighing down your wallet and the prospect of visiting a comic book store (or a coin store!). It is a sort of child-like moment of pure joy... the expectation, the discovery, and finally the purchase! It is so much better than visiting the online shop... plus, shopping for books and comics online is such a poop experience unless you are going for something specific... randomly wandering the digital bookshelf is crap, and there is nothing like walking up and down a physical bookshelf and seeing everything there and waiting to see what catches your eye!

Anyway, this visit was a bit of a reward for myself after visiting Uniqlo earlier to get some new pants and clothes. Something that I really really hate doing... but my pants have holes, and so do many of my shirts... most of them are at least 5 years old, and there are few that are nearing about 15 years old. So... I figured it was probably best to get some new stuff before the failed spectacularly on me at an inopportune moment. So... with that done... I headed to the comic book store to reward myself for managing to survive the clothing store... well, actually, I didn't really need an excuse, but I figured I should justify it to myself so that I wouldn't feel guilty!

... in a bit of a funny aside, I later showed up to a rehearsal with this bag of comics (I had dropped off the clothes in between the two shopping trips). One my colleagues who saw the other side of the bag (not the one that has KINGS COMICS written on it!) and had asked what I had gotten, probably expecting something interesting... like clothes or some latest hip new fashion accessory (yes, the classical music scene... I feel like a little bit of an oddity). I told that it was a bag of comics... and they were really surprised, until I said... "really, this is me... what did you expect!".

So... leading the pack of purchases.... as a dutiful father, I first looked to see if there were some interesting comics that I could get for my girls. Much in the same way that I'm approaching video games, I really want them to really get some high quality and interesting comics to read. It is also the sort of thing that we do with books (novels) and films and everything else.

So, the Sweaterweather book seems like a cool little book for my younger daughter. She has really just started taking off in her reading and is just devouring books everywhere... so, I think she will be pretty into this one! It looks cute and not too frightening...

Meanwhile, the Marvelous land of Oz seems like a decent re-imagining of the famous story... it appears to be a sort of new story set in the Land of Oz, and not a retelling of the original story. Sadly, this is the second book in the collection and so if my older child does like this... I will have to find the first book as well. This is what you get for clearance sale diving!

... but speaking of which, I just remembered that I had ordered the Amulet series as well... on a recommendation from a colleague who said that her daughter was really crazy into it. So, that is also coming... but I had ordered that online (as I knew what I was getting and not just browsing!).

... and one more! This looked pretty cool and something that my oldest daughter would also appreciate. Somehow, the title seems a little bit familiar... and I wonder if she has either read it already (borrowed from a library....) or if I have a digital version of it? Speaking of which, I really need to print the digital versions. It is great to have them, but I don't read them unless they are nearby... perhaps it is time to invest in a dedicated comic book e-reader/tablet.

Meanwhile, after browsing through all the sale items in the store... and studiously avoiding the full price stuff... well, I found a new batch of comics set in the Grimm Tales universe. This is a new one for me... and I was a huge fan of the Fables series. So, I was pretty keen to see how this particular story universe did the fairy-tale retelling...

... as usual, I'm usually pretty keen to jump on into a comic set after they release collected volumes. I really hate buying single issues, and then even worse... I really dislike buying a current unfinished series as I will often completely forget what is happening or just lose interest. It is the same sort of feeling when I'm looking for something to watch on a streaming platform like Netflix... I want to watch something that is finished, and I don't really want to go on tenterhooks waiting for the next episode or season. Of course, there are always going to be exceptions to this... and that would be the Witcher and Arcane!

... oh, and I couldn't resist a second trip to the comic book store again yesterday. I had a few hours to kill before the rehearsal... and I was sort of in the area... well, I was if I went to the rehearsal venue early!

I ended up picking up the pretty cool looking alternate history comic in the middle for my daughters, and the outer two initial volumes (Vol 1 and 3) for the Robyn Hood series that I had picked on the previous visit. Sadly, it is missing the 2nd volume of the trilogy... I guess that I can always just keep an eye out for that... or just order it in if I end up really liking the first volume!

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