The only thing that makes living in Arizona tolerable is the handful of used bookstores scattered amongst the multitude of meth labs and Sonoran hot dog/ammunition stands that litter the landscape like so many would-be-immigrant bones in the Nogales Desert.

I don’t know how they survive in the state ranked 49th in the union for education and whose border militia dwarfs the Democrat population 6 to 1, but thank Rao that they do, ‘cause I don’t think I could make it through the week without them.

My absolute-hands-down-favorite of the lot is the Bookmans Entertainment Exchange stores, because entering one of their locations is like stepping through a stargate into a parallel world, wherein the concept of pawn shops was pioneered by a gang of good looking hipsters.

The usual sad heroin addicts cashing in their mother’s wedding ring for a fistful of change to fund their next hit are replaced by scores of fashionably aloof heroin dabblers trading in their father’s Frazetta posters and Mack Bolan paperbacks for a The Velvet Underground vinyl and first-edition copies of "Dharma Bums" that are just big enough to peek out of the inside pocket of their secondhand leather jacket when they’re introducing themselves to that pretty girl with the ironic cat tattoo at Optimist Club for the first time.

There are conveniently-already-annotated art text books, Grishams, Gaimans & Ginsbergs of all shapes and sizes, blacksploitation flicks on laser disk, confederate war medals, Tolkien-themed chess sets—-anything and everything you’d ever want to see at a resale shop--and some locally constructed hemp crafts to boot.

But, most importantly: there are comic books for fifty cents a pop.

That’s right, Mod Myth Menagerie, you heard me correctly: fifty measly cents—right across the board.

Overstreet Price Guide who? Come again, Becket’s Cards & Collectibles? Wizard Magazine say what?

No matter if it’s Amazing Fantasy #15, Action Comics #1 or Youngblood #26: Fifty teensy tiny cents.

It’s enough to make a semi-literate Arizonan lose his mind. I’ve seen grown men (sure, in Flash T-shirts seven sizes too small, but technically, biologically at least, grown men nonetheless) tear through the aisles like they were going to find a reason to live within whatever was sandwiched between Betty & Veronica Double Digest #126 and Omaha The Cat Dancer #4.

And it’s in that spirit that I took home issue #3 of The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.

...to be continued

Eric M. Esquivel is the author of the critically acclaimed graphic novel “Horrible Little People”, the critically tolerated “Adventures of Bikini Automatic”, and the critically despised “Childish Delusions of Grandeur and Superiority”.  He also wrote a whole bunch of mini comics that the critics know nothing about, and can be found at www.ModernMythologyPress.com.

His upcoming works include “Calabrese!” for Spookshow Records, “Pop! Science” for Modern Mythology Press, and “Statuesque” for whomever will give him money for it.

His column “Post-Modern Myths” runs every Tuesday on the quirkily British www.BleedingCool.com.

Tony Isabella and members of The Arizona Citizens Militia: Eric can be reached on Twitter @ericMesquivel or by email at ericMesquivel@gmail.com.