Inner Sanctum

My husband is looking for certain action figures for my son to play with. He's been a little OCD about it, looking them up online, bidding on eBay, and driving all over the place looking for these figures. Today our journey took us to a store that sells comic books and other collectibles. There aren't very many of those stores around anymore, unfortunately.

I have a special fondness for comic books. When I was growing up, my parents were very indulgent about buying my brother and I any sort of reading material that we wanted, and comic books at the time were a quarter. We had a footlocker full of comics, several of them first issues, that I read just about every day. One day we came home from school and they were all gone. We were moving back to the States, and we had to make weight, my mother said. She had taken them all to the base thrift shop. (I still give her a hard time about selling off our college fund.)

This particular store was on the other side of town, and is one of only three or so stores in the San Antonio area. We walked into the store, and it was like we had walked into a cathedral; a reverent silence permeated the place. The people who were in the store spoke in hushed tones so as not to disturb the air of hallowed sanctity. It was such a distinct change that I automatically looked around for the pews, and I expected to smell incense.

Then my eyes adjusted to the lighting inside the store and I saw them. Comic books. On every wall. All of them sealed in those plastic bags with the board in them so they didn't bend. I think that my eyes sort of glazed over as I began wandering about, looking for familiar titles. I found Batman, including issues written by Neil Gaiman(he wrote Coraline), and Kevin Smith(writer/director of more movies than I can name). I found Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and even one of my very favorites, The Tick. It was Nerdvana.

Of course, I wanted to buy them all. Buy them all and take them back to my house, hoard them away. And then tuck myself away into a corner of my room, just like when I was a kid, and read them all. I demonstrated great restraint, and did not whip out my credit card and go crazy. This proves my overall theory that I can behave like an adult on occasion.

I did buy two of the Kevin Smith books. Just the two.