But that’s not the point of this post at all. My last stop in New York was Brooklyn’s Bergen Street Comics. It’s a gorgeous store and if it was nearby, they would be taking all my money. The layout is excellent — children’s comics within easy reach of little hands, graphic novels organized by genre rather than author or title, and a table in the middle with selections of note. The single issues line the walls. It feels like shopping in a boutique bookstore rather than a comic book store.

I am not, overall, a hater of traditional comic book stores — you know, the sort that have lots of T-shirts and posters and action figures. Some of them do this kind of thing very well and they can be fun. But others don’t and they can make some of us a little uncomfortable sometimes.. Those sorts of stores aren’t welcoming to the people who were never superhero fans but will read graphic novels like Persepolis.

Bergen Street Comics is a store for those people. It’s far from being some snobby, intellectuals-only place — owners Amy and Tom are very friendly and welcoming and obviously love comics of all sorts. It’s a store for everyone and that’s an awesome thing to me. They know what they’re doing.

I wish them all the success they deserve and I hope to get back there one day.

(There were many things I would’ve bought, but I picked up The Color of Earth from First Second. Really, First Second needs subscription plans.)

My train leaves tomorrow at about 3:30, putting me in New York around 6:40 (probably more like 7, but let’s just hope everything is on time), just in time for Drink & Draw Like A Lady at Madame X. That’s the plan anyway.

Saturday, I’ll have all day for MoCCA and possibly KRAZY!, which despite my promises, I haven’t managed to get to. (My trip to MoCCA always seems to coincide with some Japanese awesomeness — last year, we did the Takashi Murakami exhibit.)

Then I depart on Sunday, but I won’t be in a rush, which is nice.

It looks like a great year for MoCCA Fest — the new venue promises to be “bigger and better” and all of that, but I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of people who will be there. I may even try to get to some of the programming this year since I won’t be in such a weird caffeinated rush. It also seems like it will be a nice weekend in New York, unlike last year where it was entirely too hot.

I will probably be Twittering — those will show up on the sidebar (you can always follow me, of course) and I will be bringing my netbook so there will probably be a Saturday night update (possibly a Friday update, but we’ll see).

This should be fun. But after this, that’s it for a while (I probably, sadly, won’t have it in me to go hang out with Timothy Lantz at Wizard World Philly, but he could try to talk me into it).