Well, I live in the University District in Seattle, which means there are three comic shops within ten blocks of my home, no lie. There's one four blocks from my house. There are at least three more I can reach within twenty minutes by bus. Also, I can go to the library and check out comics, which is of course cheaper. Through the library I was able to read most of Elfquest, From Hell, V For Vendetta, Love and Rockets, Jimmy Corrigan, Milligan's X-Force, some Tezuka, some Eisner, etc. All that while I was broke as hell, eating ramen and couch-surfing.
I do love Seattle.
I can relate to comic famine, though, being originally from Bumfuck on the Great Boring Plains, USA. The only halfway decent source of comics was a trading card shop with a wall set aside for comics. That's five shelves of Marvel crap, three shelves of DC crap, a shelf of bad girls, a couple shelves of Image, and maybe, if I said my prayers and the planets aligned, some Dark Horse in the corner of the top shelf. The store did run pull boxes and special orders, but it was a very hit and miss process. I wouldn't expect a lot of difficulty in getting every issue of, say, Transmetropolitan or Dragon Ball for a person who's guaranteed to buy each and every one, but the woman who ran the shop couldn't manage it.
Then she stopped selling comics altogether.
The moral, kids, is to move somewhere with a bit of culture. Really, a little bit is all it takes. But a lot is nice, too, I guess. |
