Too Much Coffee Man Opera. Hm. Nah.

I went to Excaliber Comics's most 3-day holiday-held "50 Percent Off" sale this weekend. It has been probably over a year since I last went there.

I looked through their supply of "Sugar and Spike". A curious thing that. When I walked in a couple years ago to buy the DC reprint of the first issue, I looked around then asked a store clerk if they had it. The answer, a fairly course "Surprisingly, Sold out." Later I would buy some back issues, and the store owner -- a hippy-ish product of the 60s, said, "Ah. Sugar and Spike. These are hard to fine." The bottom line is the comics in the back issue bin appear to have roughly doubled in price, leading me to wonder if I'd prefer the first guy control the price.

I ponder why Josie #22 is marked on the outside with "First Appearance Mighty Man". Whatever the attraction of the "first appearance of Mighty Man", that appears to have been deemed worth an extra $2 ($1 in half off ville). A goofy story that makes no sense, Alex Cabot and Valerie dress up as Superheroes to impress their unrequited loves -- Josie and whatshisname. They are unimpressed, at which point Melody and Pepper decide to become villians as "The Mudslinger", and follow Alex and Valerie (Mighty Man and someone else) around, dropping mud on them. (The other two stories are disappointing in that they can too easily be rewritten as Archie stories.)

Yeah, I bought a couple other things. Some reprint anthologies from the Mr. Monster banner. Dick Briefer's Frankenstein and 50s Commie-Union Zombies. I lack imagination.

I've eyed a book at Powells as of late. A thin worn green book with a moose on the cover and a Yiddish name by Milt Gross. $10. I have a gut feeling it would be disappointing, and I'd rummage through it to see a half dozen charming pictures and a couple of rhymes or something. Thus it remains -- for me to ponder.