Comments (0) L.A.'s best comic book shops: Best Overall - 2008
Meltdown Comics and Collectables
If you're in a hurry on a new-release Wednesday and don't have the time or desire to make the rounds to the many small suppliers that dot the city, Meltdown is your one-stop shop, the Amoeba of the L.A. comic scene. Walk in and drown in the colors that pour from each rack, the Smiths' "Girlfriend in a Coma" on the sound system, visuals bombarding. At Meltdown, each subgenre — underground, classic, graphic novel, superhero, manga, whatnot — is represented. Rejoice at the bounty of Tin Tin posters filling the west wall, and appreciate the depth of the employees' enthusiasm. The beautiful Chris Ware display in the back holds the artist's geometric work. An entire shelf is devoted to the Optic Nerve series by Adrian Tomine; another to the many moods of booty-loving Robert Crumb. Peruse the wildly successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer series in all its glory. All the Krazy Kat reissues are lined neatly in a row (drawn by the genius George Herriman, who spent his last days just up the road from Meltdown in the Hollywood Hills), a graphic affirmation that life is worth living.
But if that crap's too brainy for your sci-fi-loving ways, Meltdown also offers only-in-Hollywood temptations like an $18,000 limited-edition bronze Darth Vader statue, Clive Barker–approved Demon in the Blue Grass prints, all the DC, Dark Horse, Marvel and Vertigo comics you can put your French-fry-greased fingers on, and a very deep and imposing selection of Japanese manga. (Manga is a world in and of itself, and wise is the writer who admits his relative ignorance and moves along.) And, of course, all of L.A. Weekly's recurrent comic artists are represented: Lynda Barry's newest thrill, What It Is. The freako-surrealist Kaz strips, Tony Millionaire's boisterous Maakies series. There's even Meltdown University, a 13-week course in the craft of pictorial storytelling, so you, yes you, can be a major player (and soon thereafter, major chick magnet) in the glamorous world of comic art.
—Randall Roberts
