Labor Day weekend meant that my local comics shop – Austin Books and Comics – had its annual sale on selected hardcovers, complete series’ sets and trade paperbacks. Being an American and therefore a consumer, I went to see if they had anything I couldn’t live without. At first, there really wasn’t, though I lingered on a complete set of Scurvy Dogs for about twenty minutes longer than was necessary for the staff to come back and check on me several times. Then I saw Absolute New Frontier.

Oh my.

When New Frontier debuted, I looked at the issue, but didn’t really have any abiding interest in the series. It wasn’t until I saw the animated movie that I realized what a work of genius the story was. I got the set on eBay that night. Now, I was confronted with an Absolute edition of this great story, complete with annotations. ooOOOh. Nothing makes me wetter than annotations; they’re like secrets told around the water cooler, historical rumors. And the price of all this deliciousness was $75.00.

And that popped the balloon. There was no way I was gong to spend $75 on this book, no matter how cool. There went my dream of having the Gaiman library. If I wasn’t going to commit the money (my money, at least; should a sugar daddy come along, I’d have no problem spending his money), there was no way I’d be able to fill a single room with books, let alone a whole basement.

That was, until I went to Amazon.com later that week.

To be continued…