If it were in LA I'd never leave
But if I'd never leave, does it really matter where it is?
Isotope - the comic book lounge is, quite frankly, just about the best place that anyone has ever come up with. I'll start from the beginning:
A few months ago I read an article about an upcoming event at this place in San Francisco called "Isotope," where Ed Brubaker was going to arm wrestle people for comics in order to promote the TPB release of his truly magnificent work "Sleeper." (as a side note, go buy Sleeper vol. 1 and 2) "This place sounds awesome," I thought to myself, "and also I don't live in San Francisco." So due to work constraints I was doomed to miss that event.
But fate would have it that by virtue of art and whimsy I headed up to SF this past weekend with some friends to see the Pop Art and William Eggleston exhibits at SFMOMA, as well as to stop by the Cartoon Art Museum, which is cool, but has an inordinate focus on Raggedy Ann and Andy. This was the moment for Isotope! Liz posits that when you walk in they hand you a Martini and a comic book and sit you down on a plush sofa. Alas it was getting to be later in the day, around 7 pm, by the time we were ready to get on the bus for Isotope. "Will it be open?" inquired my compatriots, doubters all. Hell, I didn't know. I just read about it on the internet. But the arm wrestling thing went til midnight, I remembered, and it is called a "lounge" so surely they're open until 10 or so. We had some very bad luck with buses, but finally got moving around 7:45. Maybe after Isotope will check out the Haight. Lauren tells me there are less people offering you drugs there now, which is too bad because I recall that being a major part of the atmosphere. They were the friendliest drug pushers I'd ever seen. When we get off the bus we turn out to be pretty much right across the street from Isotope. And it looks just like any other comic book store. Hurm.
We walk in and the place is small. Smaller than my comic shop back in State College, PA. But physical size is nothing compared to a state of mind. We are immediately greeted by James, the suave suited proprietor who looks something like Dr. Strange's goofy younger brother. He's even got the Strange costume to prove it. James proceeds to offer us all a drink. "Tonight we're drinking whiskey and coke, would you like that, or something else?" My god. Liz was right. And so we drink. We sit and read and talk and drink. James tells us about the toilet seats on the wall, drawn on by the likes of Brian Wood and Warren Ellis. Now, about halway through my first drink, I introduce myself, at which point I learn that James' name is James, and that the other fine fellow in the store is named Danger Bob.
Long story short (ha ha! This story is already long! I've spared you nothing!) we sat and talked comics and heard naughty stories about very famous comic book type people until about 11:30, at which time we thought it might be good to find some public transportation and work our way back to the car so we could get home. And James offered us a ride to the nearest BART stop. This is just about the nicest fellow that you can imagine, running a comic book store and throwing parties and giving ludicrous degrees of hospitality to total strangers from Los Angeles. What a completely flawless evening.
Maybe it's time to move to San Francisco.
Isotope - the comic book lounge is, quite frankly, just about the best place that anyone has ever come up with. I'll start from the beginning:
A few months ago I read an article about an upcoming event at this place in San Francisco called "Isotope," where Ed Brubaker was going to arm wrestle people for comics in order to promote the TPB release of his truly magnificent work "Sleeper." (as a side note, go buy Sleeper vol. 1 and 2) "This place sounds awesome," I thought to myself, "and also I don't live in San Francisco." So due to work constraints I was doomed to miss that event.
But fate would have it that by virtue of art and whimsy I headed up to SF this past weekend with some friends to see the Pop Art and William Eggleston exhibits at SFMOMA, as well as to stop by the Cartoon Art Museum, which is cool, but has an inordinate focus on Raggedy Ann and Andy. This was the moment for Isotope! Liz posits that when you walk in they hand you a Martini and a comic book and sit you down on a plush sofa. Alas it was getting to be later in the day, around 7 pm, by the time we were ready to get on the bus for Isotope. "Will it be open?" inquired my compatriots, doubters all. Hell, I didn't know. I just read about it on the internet. But the arm wrestling thing went til midnight, I remembered, and it is called a "lounge" so surely they're open until 10 or so. We had some very bad luck with buses, but finally got moving around 7:45. Maybe after Isotope will check out the Haight. Lauren tells me there are less people offering you drugs there now, which is too bad because I recall that being a major part of the atmosphere. They were the friendliest drug pushers I'd ever seen. When we get off the bus we turn out to be pretty much right across the street from Isotope. And it looks just like any other comic book store. Hurm.
We walk in and the place is small. Smaller than my comic shop back in State College, PA. But physical size is nothing compared to a state of mind. We are immediately greeted by James, the suave suited proprietor who looks something like Dr. Strange's goofy younger brother. He's even got the Strange costume to prove it. James proceeds to offer us all a drink. "Tonight we're drinking whiskey and coke, would you like that, or something else?" My god. Liz was right. And so we drink. We sit and read and talk and drink. James tells us about the toilet seats on the wall, drawn on by the likes of Brian Wood and Warren Ellis. Now, about halway through my first drink, I introduce myself, at which point I learn that James' name is James, and that the other fine fellow in the store is named Danger Bob.
Long story short (ha ha! This story is already long! I've spared you nothing!) we sat and talked comics and heard naughty stories about very famous comic book type people until about 11:30, at which time we thought it might be good to find some public transportation and work our way back to the car so we could get home. And James offered us a ride to the nearest BART stop. This is just about the nicest fellow that you can imagine, running a comic book store and throwing parties and giving ludicrous degrees of hospitality to total strangers from Los Angeles. What a completely flawless evening.
Maybe it's time to move to San Francisco.
1 Comments:
I'm totally linking to this, rather than writing up my own reflection. How fun is that?
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