Saturday, September 15, 2018

National Batman Day 2018 Austin Books and Comics Haul


I dropped by Austin Books and Comics today to take advantage of their buy 3 get 1 free on Batman tradebacks sale that they were having for National Batman Day. I was mostly looking for Descender Volume 6 (not Batman related) and the Batman: A Lot of Li'l Gotham (featured here). The local shops here in Texas haven't received their shipment of Descender yet, but I did find some other goodies that I've been meaning to read.


I knew that I wanted to pick up Batman: A Lot of Li'l Gotham after seeing it on Dustin Nguyen's Instagram. It collects the entirety of Li'l Gotham, which we already have in the form of the 2 trades, but this collection comes with some bonus content including rough drafts, cover sketches, and even a couple original stories that came out before Li'l Gotham was even a thing. We're always happy to support Dustin Nguyen in all that he does.


I've been holding out on reading the more recent The Dark Knight: Master Race issues from Frank Miller. It's finally collected in a tradeback so I figured I had to pick it up to see how The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again continue since those trades are so popular.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I'm not really a fan of his style or take on Batman. I appreciate what he's added to the character's history so I still read his stuff to keep myself up to date!


I tried looking for Batman: Vampire since I've never read it, but I think it's old enough where a lot of my local comic book shops aren't carrying it anymore so I'd have to special order it. What ISN'T old though is Scott Snyder's Dark Nights: Metal which is now available as a trade. I was glad to see it on the shelves. I asked the store attendant on where to start since I haven't read any of it and he told me this deluxe edition of Dark Nights: Metal features the main storyline and is a great place to start. For anyone not familiar, I think the gist is that there are 7 evil versions of Batman in a dark multiverse that's just been discovered. That's all I got. I'm just curious how Batman is going to handle it. I'm excited to dive in!


The store attendant also told me that Dark Night: Metal: The Resistance is a storyline that happens at the same time as the main storyline in the other trade I purchased. It shows you what a bunch of other more "minor" characters (featured on the cover) are up to during this whole ordeal.

He told me that there are 4 books total. The other 2 that I'm missing are a prequel and an epilogue of some sort so I'll be keeping an eye out for those once I'm done with these.


As I checked out, one of the employees (whose name I regret and apologize for not getting!) asked if I was Tiffany. When I confirmed, he handed me this cool vintage comic book issue, Batman #195 The Spark-Spangled See-Through Man according to my quick search! He thanked me for always tagging and mentioning them and I guess he saw my birthday post on my IG because he said it was a small token of their appreciation and also a little birthday gift. It was such a nice, unexpected surprise!

If you're reading this, good sir, I'm sorry for being such an awkward weirdo and not properly introducing myself and getting your name at the time! Thank you so much for your kindness!

If you're a comic book reader and you've read any of the trades I picked up above, please let me know what you think! Do you have opinions of any of the above? Anything else you think I should pick up next time? I'm waiting for Super Sons Volume 3, the Batman: White Knight trade, and the Batman: Hush omnibus (which doesn't come out until next year) and I've still got my eye on the Batman: Vampire trilogy, but I'm always open to recommendations! Hit me up in the comments.

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