The Great Comic Book Quest of 2025

    I have been reading comic books for almost all my life. They are one of the reasons why I was able to read on the day my mom signed me up for kindergarten.  (I was five though, so I was technically a little older than some of the other students.) For thirty years now, I have been getting most of my comic books from Page-3 Game Zone. Sure, I lost most of those books in the 2003 flood, but I have made up a lot of ground since then. This tragedy was reflected this past February when Page-3 got hit bad in the 2025 flood. At first, I had the naive thought that they would be storing the new comic books off-site until they could get the store in order. I mean, they were posting pictures of new trading cards they were getting in. Well, I could never coordinate my schedule to go in at the irregular times they were open until late April. (They were also having problems with their phones and Messenger service, so I didn't know of a good way to contact them sooner.) I was able to meet with the owner and found out they stopped getting books until they could fully open back, either in late June or July. At that time, that meant I was now over two-and-a-half months behind on my books, and getting further behind by the week. I immediately began to come up with ways to get my missing books.

    I would have started that weekend, but a relative had just died, so I waited until after that weekend to start planning. I was going to start out at a shop just over the state line in Virginia, when I heard about a store closing at the Huntington Mall complex. We had only started to go to the Drug Emporium a few years ago, it quickly became a favorite destination. Unfortunately, it ran into some deep financial trouble and was going out of business.  Since it had some unique products that were hard to find, we decided to go there first, and I would check out the new comic book shop/ice cream parlor Super Hero Creamery, that recently opened up. The bad news was that the very products we were looking for had already sold out, including one just a day or two earlier. The good news was that I got about seventeen of my missing books that day, and I could've gotten more. I turned down two books as they were only in the more expensive variant covers, and I wanted to save some money. I turned down four issues of a new series, thinking it would be easier to collect them when they came out in trade if I had further problems finding comics. That is also why I turned down a new first issue as well. Finally, I skipped one last book because they didn't have the previous issue, and I didn't want gaps at that time. At least I got the last issues of three titles that ended in the time. That was just about the only things that weren't food we got that day.

    A little over a week later, we made that trip out to Norton to check out what Cavalier Comics had.  We went through Knott and Letcher counties, and some roads were still in need of repair from the '22 and '25 floods. At least I got to see some animals, such as a deer and a bunch of buzzards.  Cavalier had a fairly decent amount of comics, and I was about to buy nine titles I was missing, including getting fully up to date with three of them. I would have gotten twice that amount if it wasn't for my "no gaps" rule. What surprised me was that they had some titles missing from the much larger store at the Mall, but some titles were still missing, either by being sold out or never there.

    After that, I stared making plans for my big annual summer shopping trip to Lexington. I began to study the various comic book stores in town. I quickly eliminated some that were closer to my regular shopping route, but weren't as likely to have the newer issues I needed. That basically narrowed things down to the big three. Well, four, as one of them has two locations. I decided on Comic Interlude because it wasn't that far off my route, had a large amount of titles, and have an online shop. I also planned my other shopping, to save as much time as possible so that I could search for comics after my main shopping.

    Well, we wound up being late all day. At least I got two new Murano shirts, in Magenta Berry and Ocean Green. (The second one being foisted on me by my mom. I would have much preferred the Midnight Blue.) Anyway, as we left the mall, I made the mistake of saying we could forego my comics if she was feeling too bad, this after she dawdled almost fifteen minutes talking with cosmetics and fragrances salespeople. Well, she took me up on my offer, saying that she thought that my plan was to shop online all along. WRONG! Still, I was stuck. Worse, she had talked me into waiting to money onto my online only reloadable credit card, thinking I might need more money for other things besides my comics. This meant I had to wait another day to place my order.  Still, Comic Interlude had all but eleven of the comics I was missing. Ten if I ignored some gaps. I realized at the last second that I didn't have enough money on my card, due to a mistake on my part involving "free shipping." I had to put more money on the card before I could complete the order. In the interim, five comics had sold out, including the last minute title I ordered that had put me over the total I planned on, although I could get an alternative cover for one of them. It took two days for them to process the order. They contacted me on Saturday saying more comics had sold out, leaving me with twenty-three of the original thirty-six. I emailed them back saying to continue the order, even though it left me with a lot of gaps. 

    The order came in earlier today. It is a big reason why I'm late with this week's blogcast. This is only about the fifth time I've gotten over twenty comics in one day. Now, I started making new plans over the weekend about how to get the missing nineteen titles. Make that twenty-one as of this Wednesday. The best bet is to try another online comic store, this one with physical shops in Louisville and Florence, Kentucky. Between the two, I might be able to get all of the ones I'm missing, if they will still be in stock when I place the order after the holiday weekend. Otherwise, I have to go with one of my other alternatives, some of which aren't as lucky sounding.