OK, so I missed yesterday as I was in iPod Jack most of the day... erstwhile Isotope bon vivant Ian Yarborough named our other car thusly in a faux-Aussie accent... sped down to LA for a quick meeting but an even more enjoyable time at my friends' shop, the Spirit of Retailing Eisner Award-winning comics store Brave New World. Atom! and Portlyn were consummate hosts, as usual, and I don't know who was more happy for them to show me around their new(ish) digs, me, or them. Man, that store is kick-ass. Fourteen-foot ceilings, a comics art gallery and showplace, where they host live-figure drawing classes, and kids-art days, and drink-and-draws, and just about everything for everyone.

And yesterday, I got to hang out with the cool cats there and shake some hands and sign some autographs and generally just be treated like visiting royalty, and, I ask you, who's not going to love that? Those guys really know how to put on a show, I can tell you.

Portlyn took some great "signing" pics, and I haven't seen 'em yet, but I wanted to throw up a couple I got from my battle-damaged Canon PowerShot:

First off, the best part of the thing for me was seeing my good pal Andy:


Andy's a long-time fan of our stuff; so much so that four years ago he dressed up as Moustafa from The Couriers for Halloween. On the right, there, is what that lady-killer looked like yesterday. Andy is keeping it real, doing photography old skool style with the darkroom and the developing and the chemicals and the whatnot. Look out for that silver nitrate, Andy! Super-cool to see you, and thanks for hanging out the whole time. Yer the coolest!


Here's Atom! Freeman wheelin'and-dealin' on the store floor. I didn't get a really good picture of this, but their middle-of-the-shop cashier's island is a friggin' monument to good use of space. There wasn't a customer who wasn't available to Atom! or Portlyn or Kyle or Brendan the whole time I was there. Man, if I was to give an award to a friendly, welcoming, airy and enticing comics shop... oh. Wait. Yeah, they got the Eisner already. Never mind.


Here's me with Kyle (not 4 O'Clock Kyle, but Customer Kyle) and... Travis? No. Brandon? No. That's the pizza guy. Or the morning guy. Dang, I was in the car a long time, and I forget. Never been good with names. Sorry, guys. I know it's not Jacob Norman Blaha, because he's the only guy ever in ten years who's asked me to sign his book with all three of his names. I know it's not Michael, because his dog's OK and he's been shopping at BNW since he was five. I dunno. The guy in the red shirt; you're Customer Kyle's pal. Sorry. But I really appreciated how psyched you seemed to pick up a Black Diamond trade.


Here's Hardy taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. In true 21st Century fashion, we then flopped our digital cameras around at each other and showed each other the pictures that we had just taken of each other seconds ago. Hardy's only four, but he's already a better photographer than I am. I'm guessing it has something to do with his mom, Portlyn, being a professional photographer. But that's the limb I'm going out on.