happyMy normal comic store, Flying Colors, is very much a family establishment, and the owner, Joe Fields, doesn't order anything of an 'adult' nature. This is a good thing, as there are a lot of unsupervised kids browsing at just about any given time. This is a bad thing, because when they advertised the new Hack/Slash special issue -- a crossover with the Suicide Girls -- it got listed as 'adult,' and was consequentially not ordered. (Believe me, I made sad noises when I got to the store on Wednesday and discovered this dismaying fact. I sort of figured that the existence of the title 'Hack/Slash' would make it an automatic order. Sad cat...is trekking to her alternative comic book store in Berkeley.)
Luckily for me, I have a backup comic store: Comic Relief, which has the added bonus of being located right next to the Other Change of Hobbit. I stopped in yesterday, and was gratified to find that yes, they had the issue in question, even as I confused the heck out of the on-duty staff, who see me about once every three months (when Flying Colors either sells out of something or, as in the case of my Hack/Slash-with-boobies issue, fails to order it). If they didn't know me from local comic conventions and geek meets and forums, they'd probably think I bought six comic books a year. Tops.
With the latest installment of the adventures of Cassie Hack (more on this later) firmly in my possession, I went next door to let Will know that I'd been assigned a cover artist. He and I (and some random store patrons, that being the way at the Other Change of Hobbit) had a fairly vigorous discussion of cover design about a month ago, which covered everything from 'marketing,' 'eye-catching design,' and 'current trends' to 'yeah, but that looks stupid' and 'I just can't understand why all these ass-kicking heroines have nothing better to do with their time than go around crouching on rooftops while wearing uncomfortable-looking latex catsuits.' (My ass-kicking heroines -- I'm currently working with three -- wear, respectively, jeans and T-shirts, track gear, and whatever she can manage to grab before the goddamn flying monkeys break her bedroom window again. Note the lack of inexplicable latex catsuits.) Anyway, as a consequence of this conversation, I wanted to tell him who the Toby cover artist was going to be.
Pathetically, as soon as I finished waving my hands and going 'we got a cover artist and he's awesome!', I forgot a) his name, b) Jim Butcher's name, and c) the name of the series Butcher writes and McGrath draws the covers for (IE, the Dresden Files). We eventually managed to fix this, and then there was much joyful dancing in the Other Change of Hobbit.
I was sitting down to spend some quality time with the two loaner kitties that the shop cat-sits for during the week -- Clearsword and Patch, a Siamese and his Oriental shorthair brother -- when Patch went Very Still And Quiet. I turned around to find myself looking at...
...a dog. A truly awesome dog, of a breed that I had never seen before. She was short-haired to the point of seeming to be made of suede, except for the ridge down the middle of her back, dark blue in color (which, for non-pet-people, means she was a very pretty sort of gunmetal gray), and had a long, intelligent face that made her look a lot like artistic representations of Anubis. I promptly threw myself upon the altar of dog-worship, and grilled her owner about her origins. Turns out she's a Thai ridgeback. So. Cool.
Yesterday, I got a new comic book, a happy dino dance party, and a new dog breed.
How was your Thursday?
July 25 2008, 18:33:01 UTC 8 years ago
My Thursday included great mail: a hand-dyed purple scarf and a used copy of one of my favorite books from when I was a preteen.