Okay, for the longest time I've been claiming Blister in Nihonbashi was the only place to get American comics in Tokyo. By comics I mean the newest monthly issues, not the trades; tons of those can be had at Tower Records (Shibuya) and Kinokuniya (various, but Shinjuku is probably the one you want). I'm happy to say I was (more than likely) wrong about that. I have to go to Tokyo for some official business this weekend and since Blister is closed the days I'll be there, I started doing some Internet searches for other possible sources for four-color amusements of the Cassandra Cain kind. Or possibly the Hellboy-ish.
To get to the point, I found a nice blog by someone named Filipo who apparently lives in Japan and collects comics. Filipo missed a chance at Blister (the dreaded orange wall of closure gives me the willies), but found a place called Monster, located in Ebisu. Monster is mostly a toy shop but they have a small selection of American comics. Actually, from Filipo's description, Monster seems pretty much like Blister. Maybe not as ambitious as the original Blister, which was freakin' geek paradise and a must-stop for those tripping through Japan with comic book print running in their veins instead of blood. But still Blister-esque as far as the current incarnation of Blister goes.
I'd been planning to keep things simple-- I would have been satisfied with finding Manga no Mori in Ikebukuro-- because this is really a business trip, but now I'm going to have to stop at Ebisu and find Monster just to see if it's worth making it a regular destination.
Also, if they happen to have any Cass Cain Batgirl back issues, I'll be buying every single one of them.
Showing posts with label Blister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blister. Show all posts
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Lillian Chan's Batgirl Project and memories of my own
And over at Empty Bamboo Girl, Lillian Chan-- an ace cartoonist in her own right-- details her ongoing quest to collect all the Cassandra Cain comic book appearances. She's even set up a page to catalog all her finds. It's her Batgirl Project. She's such a fan, she's even going after Batgirl: Redemption Road. That, my friends, is dedication.
This takes me back. I've done the same thing so many times. Love and Rockets, Hate, Nexus, Xenozoic Tales, Gen13, Micronauts. For each of those, I got so caught up in the stories I couldn't stop thinking about them and about my next purchase. Where would it come from? When would it be? On my way to the store, I'd be so pumped on adrenaline I walked twice as fast as my usual pace in my hurry to get there and see what I could find. Along came Cass. Oh man, it was exciting combing the back-issue bins at various comic book shops-- okay, just four comic book shops-- to find a Batgirl here or there. Like a treasure hunt. The rush wasn't quite as intense because, unlike Nexus or Xenozoic Tales, Batgirl was still an ongoing title. Back issues weren't too difficult to come by then. The money to buy them all in one go was. That's a major part of what sustained the quest-like feel: knowing I had to budget myself.
The American stage of my Cass-quest took place in Athens and Albany, Georgia.
The Athens store always made me feel kind of weird about buying superhero comics. I love them, of course, and my Cass addiction drove me to dare crazy things, but this store is up some gray concrete steps, in an old building with worn hardwood floors and intimidatingly stocked with art books, self-published titles and highbrow comics. More of a Comics Journal than a Wizard type place; obviously, I'm being hyper-sensitive and projecting my own silly insecurities. I mean, when I think about it, the owner was always super kind to me. He taught me how to pronounce Kamandi, sometimes slipped cool freebies into my bag, was the source of my first Xenozoic Tales and Love and Rockets comics.
If you bought a Cass Batgirl, he'd ask you if you knew anything about Alex Toth's Black Canary stories and point to the latest issue of Comic Book Collector magazine. I love that kind of thing.
The Albany store, way down in the deep, deep south, is more of a sports card/NASCAR collectibles place that happens to carry each month's mainstream books. A shopping center retailer. Which, for me, took a lot of pressure off to maintain the pose of the sophisticated, urbane graphic novel reader. I didn't feel the need to add a copy of Eightball to my purchases. The two women who ran it back then-- they still do, as far as I know-- were chatty about baseball and softball and what cards were moving that month.
If you came to the register with a handful of Batgirl issues, they'd offer to call their other store and see if they could have more shipped, just for you. I love that, too.
Then I moved to Japan, where American comics are difficult to find. Not impossible, just rare and expensive. The first city I lived in carried Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and one or two of the X-Men titles and they ran about six bucks each after they factored in the exchange rate and import fees. The second city had the same comics. So I did a little Internet research and found better sources. After a few trips to Blister in Tokyo (Manga no Mori Presents American Comix died abruptly and I still mourn; the Manga no Mori in Ikebukuro carries very few English-language titles), I'd manage to corner the market on Cass here.
I bought every single issue of Batgirl available in Japan. You cannot find any because I own them. If James Bond's greatest foe was Goldfinger, then I became Batgirlfinger. The only thing I wouldn't do is irradiate someone else's collection to make mine more valuable. The value is in the reading and sharing, involving others in Cass. But that's the only difference. I even cheat at golf. Miniature golf.
Soon after, DC cancelled Cass's book and that was that. I held onto the comics and started buying the paperback collections. These I could get from Amazon.jp and from Tower Records in Shibuya. Eventually, those fell out of print. Blister-- now in a more isolated, difficult to reach, location-- continued to stock Batgirl: Fists of Fury, but since I owned that and the issues it contains, for me the hunt seemed over.
Until I discovered Comixology. Then the obsession started all over again. And this blog. I started buying Cass again from the beginning. I even expanded my collection by buying some other comics in which she appears, ones I'd overlooked.
Anyway, that's the story of my own Batgirl Project. I'm going to keep up with Lillian Chan's and hope she keeps going with it. The excitement is infectious and really brings back a lot of fun memories. Maybe someone at DC will notice, too, and put Cass in a new story. I'm pretty sure there are at least two people who would buy it.
Oh, and if anyone's interested in getting his or her geek on in Tokyo, here's a link to a nice list of comic book and hobby stores. You can see for yourself how few carry American titles. Finding Cass in the wild seems as likely as shaking hands with Sasquatch. Also, I've been there before you. But warning-- I'm not sure when this was compiled so it may be VERY outdated by now. Your best bet for mainstream American stuff is still Blister. Which has very limited hours and where you'll only find Fists of Fury and maybe Destruction's Daughter.
This takes me back. I've done the same thing so many times. Love and Rockets, Hate, Nexus, Xenozoic Tales, Gen13, Micronauts. For each of those, I got so caught up in the stories I couldn't stop thinking about them and about my next purchase. Where would it come from? When would it be? On my way to the store, I'd be so pumped on adrenaline I walked twice as fast as my usual pace in my hurry to get there and see what I could find. Along came Cass. Oh man, it was exciting combing the back-issue bins at various comic book shops-- okay, just four comic book shops-- to find a Batgirl here or there. Like a treasure hunt. The rush wasn't quite as intense because, unlike Nexus or Xenozoic Tales, Batgirl was still an ongoing title. Back issues weren't too difficult to come by then. The money to buy them all in one go was. That's a major part of what sustained the quest-like feel: knowing I had to budget myself.
The American stage of my Cass-quest took place in Athens and Albany, Georgia.
The Athens store always made me feel kind of weird about buying superhero comics. I love them, of course, and my Cass addiction drove me to dare crazy things, but this store is up some gray concrete steps, in an old building with worn hardwood floors and intimidatingly stocked with art books, self-published titles and highbrow comics. More of a Comics Journal than a Wizard type place; obviously, I'm being hyper-sensitive and projecting my own silly insecurities. I mean, when I think about it, the owner was always super kind to me. He taught me how to pronounce Kamandi, sometimes slipped cool freebies into my bag, was the source of my first Xenozoic Tales and Love and Rockets comics.
If you bought a Cass Batgirl, he'd ask you if you knew anything about Alex Toth's Black Canary stories and point to the latest issue of Comic Book Collector magazine. I love that kind of thing.
The Albany store, way down in the deep, deep south, is more of a sports card/NASCAR collectibles place that happens to carry each month's mainstream books. A shopping center retailer. Which, for me, took a lot of pressure off to maintain the pose of the sophisticated, urbane graphic novel reader. I didn't feel the need to add a copy of Eightball to my purchases. The two women who ran it back then-- they still do, as far as I know-- were chatty about baseball and softball and what cards were moving that month.
If you came to the register with a handful of Batgirl issues, they'd offer to call their other store and see if they could have more shipped, just for you. I love that, too.
Then I moved to Japan, where American comics are difficult to find. Not impossible, just rare and expensive. The first city I lived in carried Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and one or two of the X-Men titles and they ran about six bucks each after they factored in the exchange rate and import fees. The second city had the same comics. So I did a little Internet research and found better sources. After a few trips to Blister in Tokyo (Manga no Mori Presents American Comix died abruptly and I still mourn; the Manga no Mori in Ikebukuro carries very few English-language titles), I'd manage to corner the market on Cass here.
I bought every single issue of Batgirl available in Japan. You cannot find any because I own them. If James Bond's greatest foe was Goldfinger, then I became Batgirlfinger. The only thing I wouldn't do is irradiate someone else's collection to make mine more valuable. The value is in the reading and sharing, involving others in Cass. But that's the only difference. I even cheat at golf. Miniature golf.
Soon after, DC cancelled Cass's book and that was that. I held onto the comics and started buying the paperback collections. These I could get from Amazon.jp and from Tower Records in Shibuya. Eventually, those fell out of print. Blister-- now in a more isolated, difficult to reach, location-- continued to stock Batgirl: Fists of Fury, but since I owned that and the issues it contains, for me the hunt seemed over.
Until I discovered Comixology. Then the obsession started all over again. And this blog. I started buying Cass again from the beginning. I even expanded my collection by buying some other comics in which she appears, ones I'd overlooked.
Anyway, that's the story of my own Batgirl Project. I'm going to keep up with Lillian Chan's and hope she keeps going with it. The excitement is infectious and really brings back a lot of fun memories. Maybe someone at DC will notice, too, and put Cass in a new story. I'm pretty sure there are at least two people who would buy it.
Oh, and if anyone's interested in getting his or her geek on in Tokyo, here's a link to a nice list of comic book and hobby stores. You can see for yourself how few carry American titles. Finding Cass in the wild seems as likely as shaking hands with Sasquatch. Also, I've been there before you. But warning-- I'm not sure when this was compiled so it may be VERY outdated by now. Your best bet for mainstream American stuff is still Blister. Which has very limited hours and where you'll only find Fists of Fury and maybe Destruction's Daughter.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Incredibly, against all expectations, there was Cass to be had in Tokyo!
Whenever I'm in Tokyo, I try to find American comics (or even Japanese comics translated into English). The best place for this is Blister, a small comic book store in Hamacho. They're only open a few brief hours during the week but we managed to fit in a stop there during our busy holiday ramble. And what did I find?
The Batgirl: Destruction's Daughter trade paperback collection and yet another copy of Batgirl: Fists of Fury. I believed DC let all their Cass Cain Batgirl collections go out of print-- and also that I'd bought the last Fists of Fury available in Japan earlier in the year-- but these two may actually still be alive out there somewhere. Seeing them was a happy surprise. Since I have sworn to buy everything Cass I come across that I don't already own, I immediately bought Destruction's Daughter, even though I find for everything cool within there's something equally lame. Fists of Fury is superior in almost every way. That's not to say Destruction's Daughter is all bad. We'll discuss this at a later time.
How much did I pay for this gem? A mere 2000 yen. As of today, that's 23.29 USD, three bucks and change over the SRP. In Japan, when we're talking imported comics, that qualifies as a bargain. I'm not sure how much Fists of Fury was retailing for this time around.There are no copies of the monthly series at Blister. If there had been, I would have bought all of them. There are plenty of the Stephanie Brown Batgirl and the New 52 Batgirl to be had. This is because they're of a more recent vintage and I'm not into them. For me, it's Cass or nothing.
Tower Records in Shibuya and Kinokuniya in Shinjuku had no Cass books whatsoever. Perhaps she's a guest star in something with Robin or Red Robin or Batman, but I'm not into any of those, either, so I didn't check.
In related news, I finally signed up for Comixology so I can participate in some of these pro-Cass campaigns. It's difficult for me to wait for the official days, though. I'm seriously considering just jumping the gun and buying some digital Cass while I'm all fired up about her again!
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