Saturday, May 10, 2008

A PLACE WHERE EVERYONE DARES TO GO... THEY CALL IT ZANADU!

ITEM! This being the week of the big Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, Yours Truly figures it’s time to hand out another Excelsior Award for Comic Shop Excellence! This one goes to two of the best comic shops serving the West Coast since 1975 — Zanadu Comics!

Zanadu has been supplying the Greater Seattle area with not only a monstrous melange of mainstream Marvel comics, but one of the most scintillating selections of alternative and underground books since Robert Crumb was knee-high to a Yippie. They even sell Brand Echh comics, if you’re in to that sort of thing... While your Uncle Stanley has never been there, I recently had the occasion to send Irving Forbush on a mission there while we were in town. I was on the road myself and without my leather-bound copies of Tales of Suspense, and the boy-chiks at Zanadu Comics (at the hipster University of Washington location, natch) hooked Honest Irv right up with a copy of GIT’s out-of-print Iron Man DVD-ROM collection! 

Irv also brought me back an unsolicited copy of the Jesus Hates Zombies trade paperback ‘cause he thought I would dig the Amazing Fantasy #15 tribute cover (and what can I say... I’m a sucker for the sincerest form of flattery every single time). Did I mention that Irv also brought me back a few choice 1960s Playboys too? Yup, they got those too! Zanadu’s is one of those ever-rare old-school kind of comics shop that has it all, pilgrims.

So congratulations to Perry “Livin’ the Life” Plush and his crew on winning a well-deserved Exy! It’s a virtual award to be sure, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make you the envy of all your fawning fans and frantic friends! Just remember to keep shelving the Marvel and Virgin comics up front where the True Believers can find ‘em! 

Excelsior!
Smiley

2 comments:

Stephen Lindsay said...

And what did you think of "Jesus Hates Zombies"?

(it's my book...) :)


~ Stephen Lindsay

Stan the Man said...

Hey there Stephen!

No one knows better than Yours Truly how hard it is to create a really great alternative comic book. Heck, even the Smilin' One and Dennis Kitchen couldn't pull it off way back when Marvel decided to jump into the cultural fray with Comix Book. But I have to say, nicely done! A 21st century slasher-flick rift on Frank "Foolbert Sturgeon" Stack's classic "The New Adventures of Jesus" is how I read it, with a little post-modern Harvey Pekar realism thrown in for good measure.

We almost went in the same direction with the about-to-be "Savage" Silver Surfer (Marvel's very own copyrighted Christ-figure) towards the end of his first run of books. Unfortunately back in the those days of The Code, zombies were still as taboo as voodoo, and the book got cancelled anyways.

Still, I quite enjoyed "Those Slack-Jaw Blues." Keep up the good work!

Smiley