Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about his travels to Vegas and Chicago.

I remain something of an object in motion; just hours ago I returned from a week in Las Vegas.  During a stopover in Chicago I learned my flight was overbooked but if I gave up my seat and took a later flight I’d get a free roundtrip ticket that’s good for any destination in the continental United States.  Since I didn’t have any place I absolutely had to be I took the ticket, giving me several hours to explore Chicago…

Chicago Con (a.k.a. “Wizard World Chicago”) is coming up and I know most of you who’ll be in attendance will be there on business, but do yourselves a favor and leave the convention floor every once in a while.  If over the course of a weekend you can’t steal a couple of hours to see a little bit of the city you’ll only be cheating yourself, and with its semi-easy access to everything from the Lake to museums and stores Michigan Avenue is a great place to start.  This is exactly where I went to…

Visit Mike Ditka’s, a fine, upscale eating establishment with reasonable prices.  A friend and I ate there a couple years ago and as our meals arrived someone at a nearby table received The Tower of Onion Rings (imagine a series of extremely large onion rings placed on a metal stake with a wooden base, kind of like the ones used in horseshoes) and I swore someday that appetizer would be mine.  Several restaurant chains have something similar but imitators pale in comparison to the original, where the onion inner core remains moist and viable while the surrounding batter is fried until it reaches Kettle Potato Chip crispness.

Stop by Graham Crackers.  On the same trip my friend and I were strolling back to our hotel when I spotted a little place on the corner of E. Madison  serving Chicago-style hot dogs (a Chicago-style hot dog being…oh just look it up on Wikipedia and have yourself a few while you’re there).  Thinking one would be just the thing for breakfast I walked towards it and a couple doors down spotted Graham Crackers... which unfortunately wasn’t open.  I could have kicked myself; all this time there’d been a comic book shop within easy walking distance of our hotel and I hadn’t noticed?

So I swore if I got another chance I would check them out, and seeing as how the new comics had been delayed a day last week I stopped by Graham Crackers and was impressed by their friendly, courteous staff and the remarkable job they’d done utilizing the fairly limited amount of square footage to the best possible advantage.

And while this was my first trip to Las Vegas, and was otherwise quite happily occupied, I did manage to stop in at a great little comic book shop called Comic Oasis that organized much of its back stock of graphic novels according to their creators and had plenty of what we used to call “alternatives” back in olden days. 

I also stopped in at one of the city’s fine local libraries to check my e-mail (in the library the high-speed internet was free while in the **** hotel I was staying at it was $12.95 per day; something’s not right there) and in addition to a rack of recent floppies (which I’m finding in more and more libraries these days) there were graphic novels in the Adult, Young Adult and Spanish Language literature sections.

And I’m happy to report after two months living in Cincinnati I’m finally comfortable enough driving in it (the entire city is a series of steep hills, hairpin turns, streets with no outlets and a “No Turnaround” sign for every time you need to turn around, which is frequent) that I’ve found a couple of good local comics shops, especially Up, Up, & Away.

I’ve yet to give a comic book shop a negative review and there’s a good reason; it’s been quite a while since I’ve actually been in a bad one.  Oh, I’ve seen more than my fair share that were unfathomably awful but that’s starting to be a long time ago. I really don’t know if this reflects either good luck on my part or whether what’s considered bare minimum acceptable has risen considerably over the last couple of years.

My return flight was one of those deadly redeyes that left Vegas before midnight and lasted three and a half hours, but because of time zone jumps I ended up six hours in the future without benefit of a night’s sleep.  So on the way home to Cincinnati I stopped by Super-Fly Comics where I crashed on the coach in the lounge while Tad and Tony worked on the new comics.  When I woke they let me know there had been some strong reactions to last week’s column. I definitely plan on commenting on those comments -- next week, just as soon as I catch my breath.

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.