Last week I had the distinct pleasure of heading down to Austin to visit some old friends. The trip coincided with STAPLE!, Austin’s independent media festival. (I had originally thought about tabling at the show, but in the end it was best just to visit as a fan! Of particular interest for me were the tables hosted by Mattchee (I’ve been a fan for a couple years!), J. Michael Stovall (Who I feel like I should have been a fan of for years), and Logan Beecher (new artist to me, but LOOKIT THAT ROCK N ROLL KNIGHT!!!!) among others!

Of course, I visited some stores as well. There wasn’t a whole lot of time and I was catching up with my friends more than tourist-ing, so maybe not as in depth a comic/record/neat-stuff exploration as I would normally take on vacation. The first stop on recommendation was an antique/curiosity shop called Uncommon Objects. I ended up buying the old photos below, which I’ve already used to draft a ghost story likey to be a zine soon. It was a very cool shop. If I hadn’t been traveling and on a limited luggage space and budget, I could’ve dropped a pretty penny. Highly recommended!

Right across the street from Uncommon Objects is End of an Ear records, which I’m pretty sure was at a different location the last time I was in Austin. Its a very nice shop, and I like the way they have their 45s set up. (I browsed the LPs, but again… Travelling.) This also might result in a zine (Tales from the Crate, though I have two of those I’m currently working on already!) Apologies to whoever tried to hide the white-label-promo copy of ? and the Mysterians’ “(Girl) you Captivate Me” in the cheap section on the bottom shelf. Found it. Bought it. Actually, not sorry.

I had not planned to buy anymore stuff… But happenstance brought me to a strip mall that had a comic shop (Tribe Comics and Games) where I picked up a local book about Bigfoot knowing karate…. Titled “Bigfoot Knows Karate” and a discount collection of old EC Weird Science comics. I was pleasantly surprised that they had a small local section.

Next strip mall over was a Half-Priced Book with a particularly good selection of 45s. Most of those will be fuel for the Sketchbook Picture Sleeves project, but there are a couple of keepers. Dig the art on the Peach Kelli Pop disc!