The great Comicshop store at its new West 4th location in Vancouver

I must spend more money per minute at Vancouver’s Comicshop than anywhere else, especially when I haven’t been there in awhile. This afternoon I picked up a big bunch of books, including new titles — love stories — by two of my favourite artists and storytellers: Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes and Scenes from an Impending Marriage: A Prenuptial Memoir by Adrian Tomine.

“Scenes” is a winsome and sunny little sketch of a valentine Tomine wrote at the request of his fiancee (now wife).

“Mister Wonderful,” originally serialized in the New York Times, of all places, is quite a bit more baroque and neurotic — we love Clowes for his ruthlessness — but, unlike any of his recent work, it isn’t *disturbing*; he keeps the doors open.