Yesterday morning, Alba and I went on a walkabout all over Orlando. We started by wandering down Colonial and checking out Leedy's Books -- a messy, crowded, friendly used bookstore run by a nice young man and an accompanying nice old lady. The children's book section was bible-book heavy, but I encountered some vintage series that reminded me of the reading of my youth (I think I read every single Nancy Drew mystery).
Later in the day I picked up a Best of Orlando 2009, and noticed on the first few pages that "A Comic Shop" was considered one of the top-rated geek hangouts in Orlando (Website here). Great, I thought, I'm a geek! Alba and I went there, getting rather lost because S. Semoran is somehow north of Colonial... Finally we ended up there, and I realized that it was comic geek mecca.
There was a profound lack of manga. I noticed this especially, but with places like Barnes & Noble focusing upon manga, I was kind of glad to see this shop concentrating on English-language comics. They had it all, seriously. Rows and rows of your old favorite DC and Marvel, as well as independent stuff, graphic novels, weird shit (like Y the Last Man on Earth), and soap-opera stuff (like Strangers in Paradise).
A Comic Shop also has a selection of "for rent" comics -- a great one. The renter buys points on a card and rents each book for a fraction of the cover price. If the renter likes it, they can make up the difference. The renter can also trade in used graphic novels for points... An awesome system, and one that I think will actually save the comic shop genre of store from sad extinction. I give the place an A+, especially for the friendly cadre of geek boys who didn't look askance at a 30-something mama and child.
(We walked out with a Teen Titans comic for Alba. She has good taste.)
Cross-posted on Under Orlando
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