I drove to the comic/used-bookstore today. I always enjoy browsing through this particular store. In order to correctly visualize the shop, allow your imagination to paint vividly my following description: the windows and walls of the store's outside are covered in life-sized painting of various comic-book and television characters, such as Doctor Strange, Tuvok, Batman, and many more. After pulling open the door, you are greeted by a friendly clerk and an immediate entrance to the immersive collection within. Several rooms are filled with countless comics ranging from classics published decades upon decades ago to brand-new issues of Marvel's Civil War miniseries. Open-lidded boxes full of comics crowd old tables, and brushing the ceiling on the top shelves, as well as hanging from the walls in copius quantities, are innumerable action figures, little plastic renditions of familiar heroes and villains.

Even more treasures are hidden within. Themed board games and Star Wars model kits are nestled among inflatable Spider-Men. A bookshelf full of hardcover graphic novels lies to the right of a display containing countless assorted DVDs. To the far right lies three rooms filled to the brim with books of all varieties. There is no end to the fun found here.

I walked out of the store satisfied, with two Amazing Spider-Man comics featuring my all-time favorite villain, The Lizard (issues 313 and 365, the latter of which was an eighty-page thirtieth anniversary celebratory issue with a holographic cover) and a graphic novel adaptation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Hamlet.

Already, I find myself wanting to go back. There is always so much to discover there, and never a short supply of entertainment. It's all in the pages, be they textual or graphical.