Uel is doing a lot of work cleaning up the store, but ironically that means we need to get rid of the beloved Fantastic Bucket and Mop, which may or may not be a Comic Relief-era hand-me-down, and so may or may not have weirdly specific collectible value for possibly mopping up a post-bacchanalian Neil Gaiman’s DNA, but more definitely has wiped up after Gizmo. It’s yours for $20.
But back to books.
Guess which one is the All-Ages Title
Jeffrey Brown has long since carved an all-ages niche working whimsical takes of big properties like Star Wars and DC heroes from his tawdry indie stuff, and let’s face it, that’s a perfect fit for his clean-wiggle style. Also a perfect marriage of style and content is Beneath the Trees for exactly the opposite reason — if you look on the shelves there’s no shortage of dark stories but the discordance in the kid-friendly style and kid-unfriendly content really makes this title stand out. Get them both for maximum cognitive dissonance!
Immortal Sergeant
We’ve sold out our initial stock of this trade by Joe Kelly and Ken Niimura of I Kill Giants fame. If you missed the issues which Uel heavily promoted on the Tuesday Show, Immortal Sergeant features a cantankerous foul mouthed Dirty Harry partnered with his mobile game dev son to bring down a cold case murder while also processing family trauma/drama. Uel is a big booster of this title and will happily order more of it for you.
Manga Manga
As you can see, Fantastic Comics is a little space-constrained when it comes to Manga, which easily gets out of control when even a few series decide that they would like to never end. Say what you want about reboots and infinite crises, but they do allow for natural boundaries where retailers can reasonably retire some volumes from inventory.
But the hit pirate manga One Piece (shop link), for example, is on volume 107! The legendarily long-running Berserk (shop link) is still going on after 30+ years despite having outlived its author. Even if we had Barnes & Noble-level shelf space, keeping each volume in stock would be a tall order.
One of our favorite artists, not just from an art perspective, but also of an appreciative retailer’s perch, is Junji Ito, the dental technician turned horror mangaka who thankfully puts out his work in single volumes that routinely sell out at the store.
A relatively recent release, Soichi (bookshop), features an antisocial and megalomaniacal kid who resembles a demented Calvin without a Hobbes (unless you count the ghouls and zombies), that oddly might be the most all-ages appropriate manga of the bunch (if you discount the mayhem of cheek-piercing stray nails and misanthropic curses). And in a Soichi-like turn, here’s a link to the anime adaptation… in Spanish, muahahahha! (Ahem, I mean, ¡mua-jajajaja!)
Urusei Yatsura
Looks like we’re sold out of volume one of the classic Rumiko Takahashi manga. What’s the advantage of manga over the anime? I can think of one: you won’t be exposed to this ear worm of an opening theme:
You’re welcome! Buy (earworm-free) from our (bookshop)
Chainsaw Man
This hyper popular and hyper violent series about a guy who turns into a Chainsaw-headed Man, a Chainsaw Man as it were, to fight a series of boss battles also has a popular anime adaptation. So how to make the anime seem less attractive than the manga? How about a zero-violence scene of roommates making breakfast?
If that made you peckish, get some croissants at Café Etoile down the street. But for grinding chainsaw action, buy from our (bookshop)
In any case, the structure and space demands of Manga make it a great candidate for guilt-free buying from our online storefront, though as you can see, we’ve got two Lone Wolf and Cubs volume ones sitting right there on the shelf ready to force the mental exercise of whether we should stock volume two if they sell out…
More Auction Madness
We’ve yet to migrate the books from our ill-fated half price experiment over to the auction yards, but consider anything listed there fair game for bidding. If you’ve bought auction credit, feel free to email your bids starting from a dollar to fantastic.comics.store@gmail.com
Thanks to everyone who has bought credit so far — everyone who has was invited to a secret list for secret stuff so check your spam if you didn’t get your invite. In our last poll, the most popular choice to entice people to buy more was to be able to convert auction credit to store credit. The question is, when you should be able to do it?
Whose Birthday is it Anyway?
It’s a mystery birthday for one of these two hairy bros, but we’re not saying who it is. They’re both looking to make it to their next birthday, so if you’d like to bring a birthday treat that is safe for both, we recommend… celery.
Urusei Yatsura bookshop link is broken