Postmodern Barney shares more believe-it-or-not moments from the life of a comics retailer, and comics.212.net thanks Dark Horse for thoughtfully re-evaluating their price point… for Barnes and Noble and absolutely no one else.

Over at Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon takes a look at comics shops from the customer perspective. Like Tom, I find a lot of retail experiences irritating, including shopping for comics. I’m pretty fortunate in that there’s a pretty good shop in town. It isn’t perfect, but it’s new, and I think it has the right idea in a lot of ways.

As Tom points out, “the vast majority of the best comic shops get an economic lift from related items,” and the shop I frequent is no exception. The thing is, despite the fairly wide range of stock — DVDs, action figures, trading cards, etc. — the store is organized well. (They could come up with a better way of displaying new TPB and digest releases, but those cycle fairly quickly onto the regular shelves.)

The staff is friendly, and they’re fans with a fairly diverse range of tastes. They’re eager to order something they don’t regularly stock (though it can take some time), and they listen to their customers. When enough people request a title that isn’t on the shelves, you can be fairly certain it will be there before long. (The only exception so far has been Scott Pilgrim, which I did order through the store. I think I’m going to have to go all Team Comics over this, because this is a college town, and keeping a regular supply of Scott Pilgrim seems like a no-brainer to me. They know enough to keep copies of My Faith in Frankie on the shelves.)

While I try to confine most of my purchases to this shop (in part because I like these people, in part because I’d rather support a small business than a big chain), I still can’t resist the lure of the big box all the time. They have the advantage of volume and space, and they can keep more on the shelves than a small shop can. I went to Borders this weekend and, every time I’ve gone there, they’ve had a full run of Kindaichi Case Files on the shelves. And since I’ve purchased the last copy of some volumes from this same store on past visits, they obviously pay enough attention to keep popular titles in stock in as much of a full run as they can. (The sci-fi section is right next to the manga and graphic novels in this store, and my partner was gaping in horror at the ever-expanding manga shelves. “They’re eating the other comics,” he said.)

And I even got a nostalgia burst at the racks of pamphlets Borders keeps, watching little kids flip through the super-heroes and Archie Comics and what have you. But then, reminding me that it was 2004, I heard a father say to his son that he could have two of the comics he was browsing or one of “those Japanese comics upstairs… your choice.”

I love mystery novels of almost every variety, from gritty police procedurals to forensic thrillers to refined, drawing-room mysteries. I don’t think I can fit all my favorites into one post, so I’ve broken the list down by gender. Ladies first.

Mystery novelists (and readers) everywhere owe a great deal to Dorothy Sayers, who introduced aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey to the world. Wimsey routinely gets called in to investigate bizarre, high-profile murders that are both elegantly constructed and psychologically complex. The best of them feature Wimsey’s neurotic love interest, Harriet Vane. A mystery novelist, Vane meets Wimsey in Strong Poison. She’s the prime suspect in that case, and Wimsey sets out to prove her innocence. The course of romance doesn’t run smooth between the two, as each is too guarded and troubled to trust easily, but their chemistry is wonderful. They cross paths in Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night.

P.D. James has a lot in common with Sayers, though James leans away from the foibles of her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, focusing more on her revolving casts of suspects. That isn’t to say that she ignores her sleuth altogether, but Dalgliesh’s character development is more measured. The mysteries themselves are twisty, locked-room affairs, driven by dark, personal secrets, passions, and jealousies. They can seem a bit frosty at times, but the construction is generally fascinating, and James always strikes a nice balance between deduction and exploration of character. A Certain Justice is one of my favorites, along with Original Sin.

Elizabeth Peters isn’t British, but her protagonists are, and they’re wonderful. Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, are full partners in every regard. Their union is blissful, they work side by side in archeological digs in turn-of-the-century Egypt, and they foil sinister plots by tomb robbers, craven aristocrats, and murderous rivals with poise and good humor. They and their extended family are magnets for trouble, as known for their deductive skills and short tempers as they are for their contributions to archeological knowledge. There are sixteen books in the Peabody-Emerson series, and there isn’t a misstep in the bunch. I’d suggest you start at the beginning, though, with Crocodile on the Sandbank, so you can watch the clan expand. And if you like recorded books, any of the unabridged editions read by Barbara Rosenblat can make the most tedious commute fly by.

Up next, the boys.

I’ve been a Food Network zombie this morning, so I thought I’d take that as an excuse to talk about some of my favorite books about eating.

At this time of year, I almost always stock up on the better food-porn cooking magazines, and Gourmet is always a reliable choice. The magazine’s editor, Ruth Reichl, is a wonderful writer. She had a long stint as the restaurant critic for the New York Times, and she has two collections of biographical essays that are great reading, even if you think the most important ingredient to keep on hand is a selection of take-out menus. Reichl’s first is Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, where we meet her mother, a disaster in the kitchen, and see Reichl start to explore the world of food. In the follow-up, Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table, where she starts to cultivate a career as a food writer. Reichl is anything but a culinary snob, and her stories have a very warm, expansive feel.

From the snarky side of the equation, there’s Anthony Bourdain, chef provocateur. In Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, he painted a vivid and sometimes terrifying picture of what goes on in the kitchens of high-end Manhattan eateries. I normally find this kind of self-indulgent gonzo stuff grating, but Bourdain is just self-aware enough to keep things on an even keel, and he’s got a great ear for an anecdote. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisine is a different animal entirely, and it’s even more entertaining. Bourdain goes to the ends of the earth for defining dining and provides an exciting, illuminating travelogue from his crusty perspective. (And he obliquely rags on Food Network darlings like Emeril, even as he inches towards becoming one himself.)

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I couldn’t put down Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. It’s an inclusive history of the food industry’s attempts to dumb down the American palate even as it pretended to liberate homemakers from the drudgery of food preparation. That last sentence makes it sound like a screed, but it isn’t. Author Laura Shapiro has a wonderful sense of humor, a strong command of facts, and a wonderful way of analyzing events and personalities to create a terrific portrait of a transitional moment in cooking.

On the cookbook front, you can’t go wrong with Julia Child. I turn to Baking With Julia all the time, and Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home (with the wonderful Jacques Pepin) is a great textbook for classical techniques, but it’s completely accessible. I love the way Nigella Lawson combines flavors in no-nonsense ways, and her How to Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food is a pleasure to read and cook from. She’s the polar opposite of frosty Ann Willan, but Willan’s From My Chateau Kitchen is food porn of the first order, with plenty of French countryside wish fulfillment thrown in the mix. I don’t cook from it that often, but Willan’s prim, sly way of writing is a treat.

Now Ed Cunard’s got me going on about books… without pictures. I ask you!

I’ve found some of my favorite authors through National Public Radio, actually, Sedaris being one of them. Naked is probably my favorite of his collection of essays, but that’s like picking the best slice of pizza. Since that time of year looms, Holidays on Ice would be an excellent diversion from all of the pesky love and good will, and it has a pretty good audio version. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have Julia Sweeney’s reading of “Merry Christmas to Our Friends and Family,” but check your local NPR listings to see if they’re re-broadcasting “A Very Special Sedaris Christmas” from This American Life. (The show’s site seems to be on the fritz, or I’d link to it. It has a pretty good audio archive.)

Another frequent This American Life contributor is Sarah Vowell, who also provided the voice of the daughter in The Incredibles. She’s a fine essayist, judging by Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World. (She can get a little grad studentish when she talks about subjects like Sinatra and the The Godfather, but even her weak essays still have some great material in them.) I keep meaning to pick up The Partly Cloudy Patriot, her second collection.

Last, but not least, is the woofy but clearly disturbed Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors: A Memoir. I can’t begin to describe that book to you, but it will make you feel a lot better about your own childhood, take my word. Exciting as that collection was, I think Dry: A Memoir is a lot better. It’s much more focused, with a better control of tone. He’s got a new collection out, too, called Magical Thinking: True Stories. (It’s on the list.)

The Pickytarian talks about the perils of laughing out loud on public transportation. I was on a plane once reading Naked by David Sedaris, and I entered that state where you realize you’re making a fool of yourself laughing while everyone else is trying to sleep or keep a grip on their sanity in the face of profound personal phobias or not strangle the flight attendant who insists your messenger bag isn’t stowed securely under the seat in front of you. That state, of course, moves on to the next phase, trying not to laugh out loud while still enjoying the thing that’s making you laugh in the first place, so you look even more like an insane person, shaking and grunting. Had this been a post-9/11 world, the plane would have made an emergency landing and I would have been detained.

This also happened to me at a the wedding of an acquaintance. The event itself was extremely heartfelt. And, as you might suspect, I’m not good with heartfelt. When the maid of honor got up to sing Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time,” accompanied by the best man on guitar, I just lost it. Not because she was a bad singer, mind you, but she was precisely the wrong kind of singer to attempt a Bonnie Raitt song. She had this high, reedy soprano with lots of vibrato. And I’m hearing Bonnie Raitt sing this in my head while “I played Jenny Lind in the senior production of Barnum!” is singing it in front of me, and that was just the end of it. I mean, I’m sitting here in some twee country church at the wedding of someone I barely know who’s just trying to pad the gift haul by inviting me, and I found out beforehand that the reception was going to be dry, so it all came crashing down at once. I was attending the wedding with my sister, and she’s even more caustic than I am, and we were very glad we’d arrived late and had to take seats in the back.

Oh, man, then there was the time in college when I got roped into helping out with a video project. (It happened a lot, the curse of the communications major who took acting classes.) We met with the director, and she’s giving her vision for the piece, and she’s telling us the theme is about how men oppress women in our society, and something just clicked in my head that this was going to be scored with Pat Benetar’s “Love is a Battlefield,” so I leaned over to a friend who’d been roped in, too, and told him my theory. (We were going to be playing brutal cops. Can’t you just see it?) So, then she says, “and the music will be ‘Love is a Battlefield.'” And, again, that was the end of that. Eyes watering, body shaking, the whole nine yards.

On the subject of things I’m ashamed to laugh at, have you seen Drawn Together on Comedy Central? I’m usually not one for gross-out, low-brow comedy, but this show makes me laugh the laugh of shame every time I see it. I’m particularly fond of the psychotic, violent Pokemon-ish character, Ling Ling. And my pets are sick of me looking at them and singing, “Go (insert pet’s name here)! It’s your birthday! Not for real-real! Just for play-play!” I shouldn’t like it, I know, but I do. My partner, who hates cartoons of every stripe except for maybe Spirited Away and The Incredibles, loves it too, which is unsettling.

Unrelated to any of the above, except for the fact that both of these gentlemen make me laugh often, Mike Sterling wants to know what your favorite currently-published comic book series is. (I went with She-Hulk.) Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Graeme has returned to the Rampage, and he’s hit the ground running.

I can’t resist a good nitpick when it comes right down to it, so I’m going to drag you through Avengers Finale in terms of who remembers what (and whether it makes any sense). First, I should say that I thought the highlights were chosen well. They offer a nice cross-section of significant Avengers moments.

We start with Iron Man recalling the founding. That’s perfectly appropriate, particularly in light of how much of his personal fortune he’s invested in the team over time. Next, the Wasp identifies the discovery of Captain America as a seminal moment for her. This is fine, too, considering the lasting impression Cap made on the team.

Things get a bit odd from here. Hank cites the Kree-Skrull War, despite playing only a marginal role in it. A better choice for that peak moment might have been Rick Jones, who probably would have attended the last supper, when I think about it. He was the thematic linchpin of the story in many ways, and it had to have been a highlight of his career as a super-heroic hanger-on.

Wonder Man mentions the wedding of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, despite his being in suspended animation at the time. It’s also odd in that he routinely undermined the relationship. When the Vision was deprogrammed, Simon declined to restore Vision’s personality. Simon also pursued a romantic relationship with the Scarlet Witch on a number of occasions, only vaguely cognizant of how his “brother” might feel about the turn of events.

The Beast might have been an interesting choice for this, even though he wasn’t yet an Avenger, and he could have easily cited the marriage of the couple as opposed to their wedding. In terms of being an out-and-proud mutant and public figure, Wanda beat Beast to the punch by several years. It might have been inspirational to the Beast, having just recently left the mutant ghetto himself for Avengers membership, to see a mutant finding happiness on her own terms and serving the public without evasion or apology.

Unfortunately, the Beast gets to recall the battle with Korvac, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t present for it. (He had gone to rescue the missing X-Men from Mesmero and was later kidnapped along with the team by Magneto, resulting in his absence during the last half of this arc.) Again, a different, more appropriate Avenger is right on hand. This was Warbird’s first significant adventure with the Avengers (in her days as Ms. Marvel). Beyond the scope of the event itself, it could be portrayed as a liberating, legitimizing event in the early days of her heroic career.

Maybe the clumsiest of the lot is Jarvis fondly recalling the Siege of the Mansion. It’s not that I don’t think the choice is right, but there’s something about his tone as he describes the event. I remember those stories, and it was a significantly traumatic event for him. He was badly brutalized by the invaders, hospitalized, almost lost an eye, and almost quit service to the team as a result. His “you sure showed those ruffians” retelling is rather odd and seems to trivialize the experience.

Apropos of nothing, the Falcon harkens back all the way to… um… Ultron Unlimited. He wasn’t present for it, hadn’t been an active member for some time, and hadn’t yet returned to active membership in volume three. It’s also one of those world-saving moments that generally make him uncomfortable or at least reaffirm his commitment to street-level super-heroics. The problem with Falcon, though, is that he’s served very short stints with the team, usually in the in-between periods. He could have nicely talked about the team’s evolving relationship with longtime pest Henry Peter Gyrich, as Gyrich forced Falcon’s introduction to the team and later worked closely with Falcon to redeem himself.

This isn’t to say that Ultron Unlimited wasn’t an appropriate inclusion to the “Best Of” list. A finale without reference to Ultron would be odd, to say the least. But why not give Hank his moment? (Even Falcon wonders why Hank didn’t choose this turn of events.) Or bring in a hero or two who were actually there, like the Panther, Firestar, or Justice? (It was Panther’s first outing with the team after a fairly serious interpersonal rift, and it was the point at which Justice and Firestar truly found their footing as members of the team.)

Ultimately, I think Avengers Finale was reasonably well intentioned. Some thought went into it, but I do think there was plenty of room for more. When relevant characters are available and would be motivated to attend an event like this, it doesn’t really serve any purpose to exclude them, particularly when they can carry a moment better. I’m not saying everyone from Firebird to Stingray should have attended, but if you have a list of points you want to make for the sake of resonance and closure, why undermine them with utility casting?

Okay, I could have thrown this in with the earlier post if I weren’t so scatterbrained, but there you go. Two new links in the sidebar!

The Pickytarian appeals not only to my appreciation for incisive comics reviews but to my rural fascination with efficient public transportation. (He reads comics on the subway, which I would totally do if I lived someplace that had a subway system.) Take a look at his review of Ocean 2.

I have no idea what a Trusty Plinko Stick is, but it hasn’t stopped me from enjoying Bill Doughty’s blog of the same name. Hm… maybe I’ll pop by the Internet Anagram Server and see what comes up… I think I like “sick list punky trot” best.

Great, now I feel compelled to do my own… Figures. Gibberish.

Ahhh, now that’s a Wednesday at the comic shop. Oddly enough, my giddy joy comes from titles that have been out for a while as opposed to anything new, but who cares? It came, I bought, I smiled.

I can’t say enough good things about Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life from Oni, and hopefully I’ll be able to narrow the list down to a manageable length when I get around to reviewing it. (In the meantime, why not take a look at what folks like Rose Curtin, Greg McElhatton, and Kevin Melrose had to say?)

The only downside to the Pilgrim love is that it’s kept me from perusing the latest volume of Sgt. Frog. All things in time, though. I laughed out loud at the cover, which looks like nothing so much as a snapshot from a Manga Archetypes High School Reunion.

Also showing up late (Diamond shorted the shopkeep) was the second issue of DC’s Adam Strange, which I liked even better than the first. Andy Diggle has such a fresh take on the character, while taking the best of his foundations, and art by Pascal Ferry is glorious and perfect, from the slums of Gotham to the remote reaches of outer space. (And no prior appreciation of the character is required for admission. Just ask Paul O’Brien.)

And, okay, it was really self-indulgent of me, but it’s my birthday and I needed something to counteract the autopsy, so I bought myself the second volume of Girl Genius, too. Besides, who needs food? I could stand to lose a few pounds.

Did you ever find yourself taking forever to finish a book? Not because you disliked it, and not even for any reason you could really pin down? That’s been my experience with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

And it’s a really wonderful book, don’t get me wrong. It rests in some weird territory between Jane Austen and Neil Gaiman, which is an interesting place to find yourself. At times, it’s ramblingly anecdotal. At others, the plot moves forward with lethal purpose. It can go from archly satirical to tragically romantic without pausing for breath. (Okay, it’s almost 800 pages long, so there’s room for shifts in tone and pacing, I guess.)

It’s also a triumph of style, as Clarke assumes the pose of a period novelist/historian, complete with archaic usage and footnotes (similar in flavor and function to those found in the Discworld books, but with more of a straight face). She’s gone to great pains to place it in the early 1800s, and the period detail alone is fascinating, focusing on the shifting nature of what is and isn’t fashionable, and having her characters memorably cross paths with Wellington, Byron, and others.

I suppose I should throw in a plot summary: it’s the story of two magicians of entirely different dispositions and motivations trying to revive English Magic after a long, fallow period. Along the way, they encounter war, politics, social treachery, faerie machinations, and their own shortcomings, which have painful consequences for both. Great, dense stuff.

It’s also interesting to view through the prism of current events, as two factions, with seemingly antithetical world views, thump up against each other in every way on every subject. Watching those world views evolve and seeing the various forces that drive them gives the book some real resonance.

Wowzers, there’s a lot of stuff coming out today (including soccer-themed Smurfs, of all things), much of it worth a look.

DC offers Fables, Gotham Central, and the collection of the almost unanimously adored Superman: Secret Identity. There are also critically admired but underperforming titles like Bloodhound and Firestorm, though I haven’t tried either yet.

From Marvel, District X begins its second arc. (I thought the first arc had a weak ending, but I’m still intrigued by the concept.) New Thunderbolts might be fun, though writer Fabian Nicieza often indulges in ridiculously convoluted plotting. Warren Ellis takes over Iron Man, if that’s your sort of thing (Spec: this issue, Tony Stark checks his e-mail… with nanobots!). And She-Hulk gets collected in Single Green Female. (If you haven’t tried the book, this is a perfect opportunity, though it’s probably the easiest book in the world to pick up without feeling lost, so nothing should stop you from sampling one of the monthlies, either.)

Viz has a new chapter of Alice 19th, the seventh, which makes me wonder how I managed to miss Vol. 6. Hm. Tokyopop may or may not have two or three titles I follow, but they front-load their listings at the beginning of the month, and it’s anyone’s guess when the newest Sgt. Frog will show up in specialty stores.

Maybe this will be the week I try Demo, from AIT/Planet Lar. Those are stand-alone stories, aren’t they?

It’s a special week for grim-and-gritty fan-baiting, too. Members of the JSA conduct an autopsy in their latest issue, tears flow like a babbling brook in Identity Crisis 6, and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes get boozy and maudlin in Avengers Finale.