Bonanza

As I've noted here recently, I've actually found myself following not one but two different storylines currently running in Batman comics, which is something I almost never do now that I'm, well, way too old for that sort of nonsense. It dawned on me that the final issues of both the Red Hood saga in Batman #635-638 and the revamped-Riddler tale in Legends of the Dark Knight #185-189 might be available by now, so I stopped by my local shopping-mall Waldenbooks today to find out. (In this era of instant gratification, there's something to be said for having to wait for a new issue of a comic, just like I had to in 1967.)

Found the Red Hood issue but not the Riddler one. That in itself is not particularly blogworthy (the long-delayed revelation of the Hood's identity is ... well, just kind of weird, and I'm pretty sure they've tried this one before, but... ah, I'll say no more; main disappointment is, there are no more images of the unmasked Batman that drew me to this thing in the first place, dammit). No, the exciting part is that when I arrived at the bookstore, I discovered they had put their entire selection of graphic novels on sale: buy 2, get 1 free. Fortunately, I found exactly three items I wanted: the second volume of the collected Hush, the first volume of the hardcover Dark Knight Archives (the first four issues of Batman from 1940-41), and the first volume of the new paperback Batman Chronicles (the first twelve issues of Detective from BM's first appearance, 1939-40). That last one contains the earliest Monk and Hugo Strange encounters, which I already own; in fact, I seem to have a lot of this stuff in other compilations, but at this price I'm not complaining.

Obviously I'm telling you this to encourage you to check out your own Walden; I have no idea whether this is a local thing or a chainwide phenomenon. If it's the latter, now's your chance to stock up on some goodies--DC, Marvel, manga, and more. (If you do find the sale going on in your town, why not post that news in a comment here?)