Instead of a new story, your getting a "story" I recently posted over on my Blog, My Longbox Life (http://stuffbybrian.blogspot.com/). Enjoy.

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For about a month back 2009, I got the chance to go to Australia & New Zealand as part of tour group. Among the things I wanted to do while I traveled abroad was to get some local comics to add to my collection. I already owned a few international comics, most of those comics I got from my Sister who had traveled the world a bit more then I have. This was my first chance to get some myself. Sadly, Australia nor New Zealand does not produce their own "home grown" comics (I was told it was just easier to ship in comics from either the U.S. or Europe then to make their own). This saddened me a bit but did not stop me for buying some comics while I was there. The best comic purchase of the whole trip was Amazing Spider-Man #121, the story there in is entitled "The Night Gwen Stacy Died!"

I found the issue on our 1st stop in New Zealand. We were in Christchurch & would be there for a few days. While in the city we would have some planned out activities & we would also have free time to fill as we wanted to. I'm not really sure what part of Christchurch were were in. We were pretty centrally located & we're walking distance of a number things.

Among the things I found as I wandered around was a comic book store Comics Compulsion, a nice little shop. I bought a few books from their clearance bins. Comics Compulsion was not where I got Amazing Spider-Man #121, that was down the street a bit.

I found it at Smiths Bookshop. As the sign out front of the store said they had "3 floors of books". I would have just stopped in just because of that but another sign outside their store listed a whole bunch of things they sold beside Books: Vinyl Records, Sheet Music, Maps, Charts, Posters, Cigarette Cards, Trade Cards, Old Newspapers & Magazines. The Magazine thing caught my eye because I've come to find out a number of books stores will consider Comic Books to be magazines.

So... I walk in the place, not really planning on buying anything. The place is packed with books. Books as far as the eye can see. Books on shelves, Books on tables, Books under tables. Basically ever inch of the walls are cover in shelves holding books. A few feet into the store on the corner of a table is a pile of comic books & other magazine. Just sitting there in a big, neatly stacked pile. I made a note to return to that pile. I walked up the stairs (which were lined by with shelves of books). On each floor were books. I wondered the narrow aisles of book cases, stopping ever so often to look at something.

On the 3rd floor I there was a room where they kept their sheet music. I poked my head to see a man seated at a table. The table was covered in sheet music. He looked up at me as a poked my head in & then went back to what he was boing before.

I walked back down to to main floor to check out that pile of comics. Midway down the pile of comics, I found a book that registered in my mind: Amazing Spider-Man #121. At the time I wasn't sure why it registered in my mind but I knew I recognized it from somewhere. I took it out of the pile, along with a few other books. I flipped through the other comics to see if I wanted to buy them. I didn't with Spider-Man, I just knew I was going to get it. The was the most interesting thing in the pile & I didn't even look at it.

I took what I was going to buy up to the counter: Amazing Spider-Man #121, Planet Comics' Giant Superman Album #24 (a reprint of a number Silver Age DC Comics in black & white) & Survival in the Atomic Age (a book from 1958 by a naturopathic nutritionist about.. the future or something. I've never read the book fully, I just thought it looked cool.) I payed my 22 New Zealand dollars (5 dollars for Survival in the Atomic Age, 8 dollars for the DC reprint & 9 dollars for Spider-Man). I put the books in my travel bag & left the store to wander around a bit more.

Once I got back to my Hotel room, I got all settled in to read my comics. I think I left Spider-Man for the bottom of my stack. But when I got to it I couldn't believe what I had & how little I paid for it. I'm not sure what the exchange rate is between U.S. & N.Z. dollars. But I knew that if I was to find that books at a comic book store or a comic book convention I was going to pay a whole lot more then 9 dollars for it! The comic isn't in the best condition but I didn't care. The comic is exactly the same kind of comic I would have found at home. It's wasn't a special foreign edition. It was a U.S. copy, I just found it in a foreign country.

As I continued the rest of the trip I continued picked up some other comics at a number of different places but none matched up to what I found that day at Smiths Bookshop. The day I found Gwen Stacy in New Zealand!