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09/05/2003: comic stores
I'm annoyed with my comic store this week. I didn't get my whole order. Some wasn't too bad, they still had extra copies of Superman: Birthright #3 and Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #5, so that was easily fixable, but I ordered Supreme Power #2 and it wasn't in my order, nor did I see any extra copies when I browsed through the box with new stuff, yet it was due this week. Now I have to try to track it down somewhere, which sucks. I mean, I was looking forward to reading the second part. I'm also fairly sure I ordered Superman/Batman Secret Files #1, which also was nowhere in evidence. And I know I ordered the JLA-Z #1 guide to the JLA, which also didn't arrive. Actually I didn't inquire about Supreme Power, the Secret Files or JLA-Z because I'm not always sure in which week what is due to arrive, and since I didn't see any copies when I browsed through the new arrivals for any of them, some or all could just be late, as it sometimes happens, however I don't think so, especially not with the other problems with my order (about which I did complain, so it didn't went totally unnoticed anyway). Has someone else bought these comic books this week and seen that they arrived on their due date? On the bright side I got the last available copy of the JLA/Avengers #1, which I hadn't ordered. Still.
Now I have to go to the only other comic store I know carrying US comics, the scary* one in the basement with the huge dog, which somehow is never open even during their opening hours, in the hope of finding some extra copies there.
(*)Note that I'm not easily intimidated by comic stores that are worse than the one in the Simpsons, these guys somehow really don't want to do business with regular or even geeky customers. When I was looking for some Batman backissues and wanted to browse there, there was tons of stuff (mostly packages with action figures) on top of the boxes with comics, and it was extremely cramped, and I mustered the courage to ask the person behind the counter, who was listening to some awful trash metal and talking with a friend about, I think, porn movies, saying something along the line of "I'm looking for some Batman comics..." and then this guy asks me in a disbelieving tone whether I'm looking for US Batman comics. Snort. No I just ventured into a dark cellar with a sign advertising US comics, walked through a narrow even dimmer corridor littered with boxes to arrive inside a one-room store that obviously only has US comics and merchandise, because I'm looking for German editions, which I could have gotten in that friendly, bright ground level comic store around the corner. *eye-roll* Anyway, after I convinced the guy that I'm really looking for what they are supposedly selling he explains to me, that it would be really difficult to get to them, because they hadn't put away the merchandise lying on top of it, and that Thursdays and Fridays are really a bad time to come to their store to browse through the older issues. Note, however that when I came back on Tuesday it was closed, despite their opening hours, and on Saturdays and Wednesdays there always was still stuff lying on the boxes just marginally less stuff, so I could sort of shift around things a bit. And as I mentioned there's also this dog over which you have to step... Anyway, it is not a pleasant shopping experience, and I try to avoid it whenever possible.
