What’s the saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun”? This year has just zoomed by for me. My last blog was in June, I had hoped to write more often but well, life you know. My comic collecting has really taken a back seat to other things. I know that this is largely due to not visiting a local comic shop for New Comic Book Day each week. I’d tried several mailing services but the books arrive really late and often I didn’t track what I was ordering very well and ended up with duplicates. Which is frustrating because I rarely had duplicates of a hot or rare book, just the regular stuff and I couldn’t exactly return those.

I haven’t stopped collecting completely, just it’s not nearly as often. For my birthday this year I visited a slew of comic shops in Eastern PA. I filled in the gaps of some series I was missing and bought some variants I wanted. Since the cancer, I’ve made an effort to treat myself on my birthday, the logic being I made it to another one. 😉

Though I can’t visit a new shop every week, when possible I go on an adventure. I visited Fat Moose Comics in Whippany New Jersey. The shop was clean and well organized. I found plenty I wanted for my collection. I didn’t take pictures once inside because I’m rusty and forgot (next time y’all).
My purchasing experiencing will likely keep me from returning to this store; here’s what happened. I picked up two Funko Pop figures, the same figure but with two different prices. After making my final selection of comics, I approached the person behind the registered and asked about the price on the Funkos. He offered to charge me the cheaper of the two prices, I agreed. What I didn’t realize is that he rang me up for both, only after paying him and he was bagging both did I say, ‘hey I didn’t want both figures just wanted to know which price I was to pay.’

The Funko was $7 versus $12, that it would not break my bank but again, conflicting prices. So the gent behind the counter says ‘oh’ when I said I didn’t want two of the same thing. He looked dumbfound as to what to do, he didn’t offer a refund or anything; so I suggested, “no worries I’ll pick out something else and pay you the difference”. He agreed. Now I just counted about $200 in cash for the initial purchases (variants, man, I’m addicted). I just picked something he had on the shelf – an Amazing Spider-man he had marked for $25. I said I’ll pay you the difference on this book. I had a $7 credit, I was expecting something like $18 or $20s, instead homie said the book was $25 no tax. I should have bulked but I didn’t, I paid. Seven dollars really isn’t a lot of money, but when this guy messed up the original sell, I didn’t demand my money back, I picked something else to buy. He didn’t ask me if I wanted both Pop figures, he assumed, and when he realized a mistake was made, he didn’t attempt to fix it. There are so many awesome shops out there still to see, I see no need to ever return to Fat Moose Comics.

Anyway, here is a pic of me in the front of the store. Here’s a pic of the comics I purchased (yay I now have a complete set of the John Christopher Tyler’s Phoenix Negative Space covers).

I have to keep myself off WhatNot!!! I bought these convention exclusives during C2E2; that app has me spending money (fortunately it’s money I have but still). I can’t wait to go to comic con again.

Lastly, I have recently watched Demon Slayer on Netflix. OMG!!! I am in love with this anime. I considered buying the manga but can’t find a complete set other than on Amazon and I loathe that company’s business model so I have been trying to find an actually shop to purchase the set from. In the mean time. Here are my latest Funko Pops!