It's an all-death issue of The Substandard, judged by many neutral sources to be the greatest podcast on God's green Earth (or J'onn's red Mars, for that matter). Vic Matus and JVL discuss the heyday of malls—they're old—while I talk about how I can't respect people who go to shopping centers without a discrete shopping agenda. I'm basically Shannon from Mallrats. Though, you know, not in certain aspects. We also talk about wrestling for a bit, and I reveal the most important life lesson you can derive from watching dudes in spandex grab each other.
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As I mention briefly in the podcast, my favorite store in shopping malls growing up was definitely Another Universe. It was a chain of comic book stores in the DC-Northern Virginia area. Or, at least, there were two stores, one in Georgetown, one in the Springfield Mall. And it was amazing. Every new issue, tons of back issues, rows and rows of trade paperbacks, et cetera, et cetera. And, at the Springfield store, they had what was basically the coolest thing 13-year-old me had ever seen: a life size Predator statue glowering over everyone who entered.
It was also one of the few shops in the area to routinely do comic book signings, and there's nothing more life-affirming for a dork in his early teens than to stand in line with a bunch of other dorks in their early-teens-to-late-thirties hoping to snag signatures from their favorite artists and authors. I still have a set of Kingdom Come books signed by Mark Waid and Alex Ross in my basement, aging like a fine wine. I assume the '90s comic book bubble never burst and those are worth thousands today, right? Good, great.
Anyway. I'm not terribly sad to see malls go. But I'll always miss Another Universe. Good comic book stores have always been hard to find.