I made my way to the Village with Josh and Cait to go see Spiderman 3. It wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't a bad one either. Josh says I still have sticker shock from having to pay $11 to see a movie - on a Saturday afternoon, no less - but the all of ten minutes featuring Venom, and the scene featuring Bruce Campbell made it worth it.
Though Josh and I being surprised by Cait with two large drinks, an order of nachos and a bottomless bucket of popcorn was fun, the real fun started once we all left the theater. Josh and Cait took me down to The Strand, a three story used book store where the music section is next to the Germanic history section and the aisle itself has a Philip K. Dick end cap, there's a Tears for Fears video collection on the same rack as a used copy of Brokeback Mountain, and all three floors are chock full of NYU girls.
I perused the selection and stumbled across a book on Charlton Heston, a Warhol collection, the new Palahniuk novel, and an entire section dedicated to the artwork of men's magazines. I considered buying a couple "not for tourist" guides to sections of the city, but let it go for the time being before making a stop at the box sets, and the $1 book carts on our way out the door.
After The Strand, Cait left Josh and I to go to a book reading, and before taking a trip to the local Walgreen's to see if we could hunt down Ben & Jerry's "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream" (we couldn't), we decided to stp by Forbidden Planet - the local comic book store.
Now, I admit to not being much of a comic reader. I've read a few Batman comics, used to have some Spiderman comics when I was younger, and have read a good bit of Frank miller's Sin City, but what I love about comic book stores is geekiness of it all.
The first thing I saw when I walked in was the T-Shirt options hanging from the wall, but I was quickly distracted by the life-size Batman statue worth $2400 that was being raffled off. Making my way down aisle after aisle I came upon action figures from Buffy, Star Trek, and CSI: NY just to name a few, not to mention the loads of other memorabilia encased as well.
On top of the memorabilia, the comic selection appeared to be extensive, although some things seemed out of place or hard to locate (there were Marvel comics on the DC Vertigo stand, for instance.) That aside, however, another thing I love about comic stores is that even if it's been a while since the last time you've been in one, you can almost always find something that catches your eye. This time around I found the comic version of the movie Se7en - the "Pride" killing to be specific. I considered buying it, but thought that going back when I had more time would lend me both the opportunity to see if I could find the issues I had missed, as well as the opportunity to see more hot, geeky, comic book chicks.
Geek out.
