Comic Musings

I've never been a huge comic book guy. Still, when it was found that the town we were in had one I felt the need to accompany my friend Scott with him on his next journey.

Amazing Fantasy, as it is called, was fairly small, but substantial for what I assume was a starting business. Not being a Comics guy, I had seen things on the shelves never imagined, from themes unexpected to established franchises I'd not even thought would have branched into a comic book run.

And of course at the back a couple bookshelves of manga. This store is how I'd gotten ahold of much of GTO.

It was a few times later I had picked up a couple Lenore comics. They were different and dark but with a self-knowing humour to it. If that's the right way to put it. Take a vampire which is reincarnated into a stuffed toy, much to his annoyance. There was even talk of a movie, and Sony commissioned a whole load of animated shorts.

Anyway one afternoon my eye had been caught by the a small poster as the till. "Coming Soon," it teased, with a funky looking poster.

When it arrived I picked it up on a whim. I certainly dug the art in it, and for that alone I had thought it a good purchase. I'd passed by much of the dialogue so was not going to be familiar with it when I started. Now, hold on for a moment, but to sum very quickly the main character, Serenity Rose herself; she's a goth, a lesbian (as far as it's mentioned), a big sister, and a witch. It's certainly not trying to bond with the reader in a "you must like goth and be angsty and dark to like this" so if the above has scared you then worry not.

I mean, I'm none of those things and I was anxiously waiting for the next one to show up on the shelves. It was recently re-released in bookform with the original run in book 1 and more in book 2. And you can read it now FOR FREE. A 3rd and final book out is in October. So that's nice.

I even went for the Silent Hill comics, again drawn in by the art and eagerly waiting to see what twisted portrails of the psyche it could display for us. It was short, and not quite what was expected. But okay.

Anyway when I had stopped by a couple years ago the store had closed and was dark and so sad in it's little side-street. I had felt sad about that, and reminisced about the times spent there and the good things it had brought us. Thoughts of over how the internet and the invention of the JPEG, followed by the Kindles and iPads of the world, had taken from us another bricks-and-mortar store where care with collecting and collating prints items in their plastic sleeves on their displays had a quality to it which was lost to time and how digitisation with convenience may have bred a society of throwaway entertainment where he time and effort spent on something was now void of value.

Of course when writing this I found out it's still around and has a website and internet ordering and everything. So bugger that.