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National (Comic) Book Store

National Book Store, Greenbelt 1 now has a bin filled with P25 comic books and trade paperbacks that range from P150 to P200. I don’t know if they’re got the same type of comic book bin in the other National Book Stores, but if they do, it might just usher in a new batch of comic book writers and artists.

Back in the 80s, National had a lot of badly reprinted Marvel and DC Comics. But the great thing was, they brought in a whole bunch of British and European comic magazines and graphic novels. They must have bought it from some wholesale bargain bin, because we ended up with issues of WARRIOR and TRIDENT, which contained the early works of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Neil Gaiman. We were also able to get Mobius graphic novels and some odd numbered, water-damaged issues of AKIRA and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Now that I think about it, National Book Store didn’t offer a single issue of manga.

I still have a theory that the reason the 80s kids didn’t get into their whole draw like manga and anime is because Marcos cancelled all the so-called violent Japanese robot anime and we ended up with “Care Bares” and “The Smurfs”. With the cancellation of those 80s anime, manga never got a foothold on the local comic book reading market. So, we ended up digesting all those Western comic books. (Of course, the opening of stores like Comic Quest and Filbar’s in the late-80s helped mold us into Marvel Zombies and DC Disciples.)

If you go to National Book Store now, the comic book bin contains a mix of DC Comics, Dark Horse, Milestone, Wildstorm, and Shonen Jump. Add to the fact that kids today are collecting all those P80 “true Filipino ghost stories”, I can only hope this will result to some really interesting, never-before-seen Filipino comic books and graphic novels.

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