Holiday gifts?

[JohnMayo]

What did you all get as gifts for the holidays?

I got the DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster book and the 2011 Marvel Heroes calendar from my parents.

From Bob I got the Stan Lee's Amazing Marvel Universe hardcover. (This is the one with the audio commentary by Stan Lee.) I also got the first three volumes of The Chronicles of Conan trade paperbacks. These were done by Roy Thomas (who I think did great work on DC's Earth-2 properties in the 1980s) and Barry Windsor-Smith with Gil Kane doing some of the art in the third trade. I think this is Bob's way of encouraging me to read Conan. So, if we end up covering the first volume on a future Back Issue Spotlight, this would be why. And, rounding out the gift from Bob are some cool variant cover versions of Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates #1, Ultimate Armor Wars #1, Ultimate Enemy #1 and Witchblade #89. The Ultimate Comics ones are all chromium pin-up shot covers while the Witchblade cover is a pillow fight among some of the female characters.

And, of course, Bob's gift that keeps on giving (both to me and to everyone who listens to the podcast) is his acting as my co-host on the podcast. Doing the podcast takes a ton of time and effort and having someone along on the ride is a *huge* help in getting the episodes up each and every week. I can safely say that I couldn't do the podcast by myself. So, thank Bob.

[BobBretall]

I also got the first three volumes of The Chronicles of Conan trade paperbacks. These were done by Roy Thomas (who I think did great work on DC's Earth-2 properties in the 1980s) and Barry Windsor-Smith with Gil Kane doing some of the art in the third trade. I think this is Bob's way of encouraging me to read Conan.

A transparent gift

[Trev]

No comic book related items under the tree for me this year. My big gift was LOST complete series on blu-ray.

Just before the holidays, I bought for myself ASM 238-300 and a bunch of dollar books now that we have a store solely devoted to dollar books. Not sure how much longer it will last, but it's a fun way to go and spend $20. Probably the most interesting dollar books are most of MacFarlane's run on Infinity Inc.

And I booked a back up hotel for San Diego, which is my comic book Christmas in July. I couldn't find anything in the area of the convention center, so booked out at hotel circle just to secure something. Funny that all the hotels are sold out before the tickets are!

[JohnMayo]

No comic book related items under the tree for me this year. My big gift was LOST complete series on blu-ray.

Just before the holidays, I bought for myself ASM 238-300 and a bunch of dollar books now that we have a store solely devoted to dollar books. Not sure how much longer it will last, but it's a fun way to go and spend $20. Probably the most interesting dollar books are most of MacFarlane's run on Infinity Inc.

And I booked a back up hotel for San Diego, which is my comic book Christmas in July. I couldn't find anything in the area of the convention center, so booked out at hotel circle just to secure something. Funny that all the hotels are sold out before the tickets are!

Which store is solely devoted to dollar books here in Austin?

[Trev]

No comic book related items under the tree for me this year. My big gift was LOST complete series on blu-ray.

Just before the holidays, I bought for myself ASM 238-300 and a bunch of dollar books now that we have a store solely devoted to dollar books. Not sure how much longer it will last, but it's a fun way to go and spend $20. Probably the most interesting dollar books are most of MacFarlane's run on Infinity Inc.

And I booked a back up hotel for San Diego, which is my comic book Christmas in July. I couldn't find anything in the area of the convention center, so booked out at hotel circle just to secure something. Funny that all the hotels are sold out before the tickets are!

Which store is solely devoted to dollar books here in Austin?

The Austin Books Sidekick store. I think it is only around until March or April, but it's been open everyday since black Friday. Last weekend was extra 10 percent off so I went in and bought a few books. Got that macfarlane run for 90 cents a book. Not bad.

[JohnMayo]

No comic book related items under the tree for me this year. My big gift was LOST complete series on blu-ray.

Just before the holidays, I bought for myself ASM 238-300 and a bunch of dollar books now that we have a store solely devoted to dollar books. Not sure how much longer it will last, but it's a fun way to go and spend $20. Probably the most interesting dollar books are most of MacFarlane's run on Infinity Inc.

And I booked a back up hotel for San Diego, which is my comic book Christmas in July. I couldn't find anything in the area of the convention center, so booked out at hotel circle just to secure something. Funny that all the hotels are sold out before the tickets are!

Which store is solely devoted to dollar books here in Austin?

The Austin Books Sidekick store. I think it is only around until March or April, but it's been open everyday since black Friday. Last weekend was extra 10 percent off so I went in and bought a few books. Got that macfarlane run for 90 cents a book. Not bad.

I haven't made it over to the Sidekick location yet. Is most of it stuff from the last decade or so or is there older stuff there too?

[80sJunkie]

I got myself a copy of Mark Evanier's bio of Jack Kirby from Half Price Books for $15. They had four sealed copied at a Dallas location, so I'm betting the HPBs in Austin have them too, if you're interested.

Got Frank Rincon from the Half Hour Wasted podcast an Axe Cop sketch. (www.axecop.com, check out the madness!)

Got my niece four how-to-draw Manga books to go with my old bin of art supplies. Man, I must have $300 to $500 worth of pens, markers and drafting tools in there. Was just collecting dust, since I don't draw any more.

Here's hoping everyone had a safe and merry Christmas. I still have another week to spend with my wife and kid before schlepping it back down to San Antonio.

[Trev]

Which store is solely devoted to dollar books here in Austin?

The Austin Books Sidekick store. I think it is only around until March or April, but it's been open everyday since black Friday. Last weekend was extra 10 percent off so I went in and bought a few books. Got that macfarlane run for 90 cents a book. Not bad.

I haven't made it over to the Sidekick location yet. Is most of it stuff from the last decade or so or is there older stuff there too?

It mostly runs from like 1986 to the present. Though there are some 70's and early 80's books in there too. I picked up Welcome Back Kotter, for example. I haven't seen anything earlier than maybe 1973 or 1974. It's fun to go bin diving there. Usually I don't make it past a dozen long boxes or so before I have to stop and pay for risk of blowing my budget.

[Trev]

I got myself a copy of Mark Evanier's bio of Jack Kirby from Half Price Books for $15. They had four sealed copied at a Dallas location, so I'm betting the HPBs in Austin have them too, if you're interested.

Got Frank Rincon from the Half Hour Wasted podcast an Axe Cop sketch. (www.axecop.com, check out the madness!)

Got my niece four how-to-draw Manga books to go with my old bin of art supplies. Man, I must have $300 to $500 worth of pens, markers and drafting tools in there. Was just collecting dust, since I don't draw any more.

Here's hoping everyone had a safe and merry Christmas. I still have another week to spend with my wife and kid before schlepping it back down to San Antonio.

Merry Christmas! Man, Axe Cop is pretty cool.

[LA Rabbit]

I got the first six volumes of the Charley's War reprints from Titan Books. I think these are really nice collections of the '80s English WW I based comic, written by Pat Mills and illustrated by Joe Colquhoun. If you like war comics, I would recommend trying it out. They are continuing to crank out these volumes and I will keep buying them. I will warn people that Mills is staunchly anti-war and incorporates his views into his writing (strongly critical at times of British Military leaders), but if that doesn't ruffle your feathers, give it a whirl.

[Trev]

Just did Xmas with my in-laws and they got me that huge dc tome by taschen. It is completely awesome and beautiful. I have no clue where to put it, but it's great. Spent about 30 min just leafing through it.

[Wood]

Got four volumes of 20th Century Boys, the Doonesbury Retrospective, the G.I. Joe complete cartoon series box set, two of my recent pieces of art framed and matted, a bunch of video games, a Blu-Ray player and a boatload of Blu Ray movies.

[neenjah]

I got a Harley Quinn Toon Tumbler from Harley and Jarael. Nicki got me a cool Universal Monsters tee (which glows in the dark), some bat-boxers in a cool tin, some Heroclix, an Avatar/Last Airbender art of book (animated), Trick 'r Treat DVD, and a few other things. Her mom got me a really nice carrying case for my Copics and Prismacolor markers- which came in handy doing the sketchcards and I'll be taking to the MSCA Sat-Art-Day get togethers.

She had a "Wonder-full" Christmas-



I was really surprised I could find as much Wonder Woman stuff as I did. Some was from the comic shop or my "prize closet" stash, but I found some cool stuff on-line, at Hot Topic, and a tourist shop on Beale Street. Got her some Batgirl, Star Wars, and Wizard of Oz collectibles, and some Harry Potter Lego sets she really dug. Think I hit all of her fandoms!

[BobBretall]

Janine got me the big Wednesday Comics HC (and I actually like it a LOT better in this format than the original page-a-week newspaper format that never really folded flat). Seeing the Metamorpho "periodic table" pages right next to each other in the HC is really cool. Kamandi is really nice here too. If they ever do this again, I'll skip the weeklies and wait for the HC.

Stephen got me the Sergio Aragones: Five Decades of His Finest Works HC, this is really nice for any fan of Sergio & came as a total surprise. I didn't even know this one existed until I opened the present.

Got a pile of Blu-Ray movies from my In-laws & Janine's sisters:
* A-Team
* The Expendables
* Whiteout
* Legion
* Public Enemies
and...an Amazon gift card.

[JohnMayo]

My sister got the A Team movie on DVD for Christmas and we watched it the other day. Very fun movie and surprisingly faithful to the television series.

We also watched Knight and Day which I though was an excellent action film/romantic comedy.