Free Comic Book Day!

Saturday marked three weeks since I embarked on my self-prescribed comic book challenge. Even though my initial goals turned out to be too ambitious for the allotted one-week time frame, I am definitely glad that I put myself up to them, and I count the project a big success.

I read my first comic book, Hack/Slash #1, on April 13. Since then, I have finished the entire Hack/Slash series to date of 21 books, and I've read the first three issues of Spawn (which by the way, is awesome so far).

It's been a brief but fairly intense introduction. I've gained both a sense of how special comic books are as a medium and an appreciation for why comic book nerds are so drawn to them.

As a comic book nerd himself, I think K has been expecting my interest to be only fleeting. But then I surprised him on Saturday. By suggesting that we go to the Comic Vault in celebration of Free Comic Book Day.

Free Comic Book Day happens every year on the first Saturday in May. Local comic book stores across North America give away certain comic books for free in order to get people into the stores and, hopefully, get them hooked on some comic books. The Comic Vault had a few artists on-site giving away and signing their books. The place was packed with people and good, nerdy vibes!

My Free Comic Book Day loot is displayed above. The IGNATZ book features previews of several international indy comics that look pretty interesting. And I felt it was my generational duty to pick up a copy of the free issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For the moment, though, I'm going to stick mostly to Spawn. I think it's best I take it one step at a time.

The Mixteco Initiative

On Wednesday, I vowed to eat at the most popular restaurant in my neighborhood, Mixteco Grill, by the end of this week. Long lines be damned. Here's a summary of my efforts:

Wednesday: I called Mixteco at 4:30 - no answer. Their answering machine explains that weekday hours are 5:00 to 10:00pm (except Mondays, when they are closed). I try calling again around 5:30 - still no answer. I don't think this is going to be easy.


Thursday: Today I called at 5:00 and again at 5:15, but got the same message each time. Seriously? You guys are open; your answering machine even says so; I know you're in there, and if I didn't have plans to go to spinning at 6:00, I'd walk down there right now and demand a reservation.

At 5:30 I tried one more time. And lo! - a person answered my call! I told him I'd like to make a reservation for two people at 8 o'clock, please. 'Sorry,' he said, 'we're all booked up tonight and tomorrow. But you should try to come in as a walk-in tonight. We have a few tables of two booked for 6:00/6:30, so they should be about to leave by 8:00.'

Haha, you're not going to fool me with that one! I mentioned in my last post that K tried once before to get a reservation at Mixteco. They told him the same thing: just come by later, the wait probably won't be long. So we did, but when we got there, they said it would be at least an hour. If it comes down to it and that's just the way it has to be, I'm willing to wait an hour in order to fulfill my mission. But today is only Thursday, and I'm not yet ready to resign myself to it.

Friday: In search of advice, I read some reviews of Mixteco on yelp.com today, and I think I've gleaned some useful insight. According to yelp ("Real People. Real Reviews."), Saturday and Sunday brunch are my best bets for getting a table without a wait, particularly if I arrive shortly after they open at 10am. Okay, Real People, I'll trust you on this one.

Saturday: woke K at 9:45am and we arrived at Mixteco by 10:15. There were loads of available tables and we were seated right away - thanks yelp! We started with orange juice, which was freshly squeezed and delicious (no pulp, just like K likes it), and were treated to chips and salsa verde. Our guacamole arrived with big pieces of cucumber and radish in it for dipping - yum!

We ordered the steak tacos and chicken enchiladas brunch entrees. Both were delectable and very nicely plated. The meats were not at all tough, and the various flavors involved blended together beautifully. I saved room for dessert so I could order the famous pastel de tres leches ('almond cake soaked in three milks'). It was amazingly moist and perfectly complimented by the topping of strawberry and pineapple chunks - possibly the highlight of the meal, especially because it went so well with the distinct taste of the house coffee (is that cinnamon and citrus in there?).

I brought my camera along to take pictures of the food, but once we started eating I became way too distracted to play photographer. Only after the meal was over and I was laying on the table in a food coma did I remember the camera.

As I am the furthest thing from an expert on Mexican cuisine, it would be a little presumptuous for me to go into much more detail about Mixteco's food, but suffice it to say this: it lived up to its reputation, and that alone is quite a feat. On top of that, the service was great: fast and friendly. So if you ever happen to be in the neighborhood at 10:00am on the weekend, I highly recommend you pop in for brunch. For dinner, make your reservation a week in advance, and don't forget to BYOB.

Mixteco Mission and Reverse Parallel Lives

Upon moving into our current apartment two months ago, K and I soon noticed that there are a couple of restaurants within a one-block radius of us that are constantly jam-packed with people. One of them is Glenn's Diner, a fun and quirky place (they have a cereal wall!) specializing in seafood. K, our friend J and I stopped in for a delicious late lunch on moving day - they just happened to have three empty stools at the bar - but we have not had a chance to try their dinner menu because every time we've tried to go there has been a line out the door. K and I are generally not reservation-making people, but we will have to make an exception for Glenn's, the only "diner" I've ever been to that necessitates reservations for a party of two!

The other staggeringly popular restaurant on our block is Mixteco Grill. Time Out Chicago says, "Mixteco doubled its dining room capacity recently, but that's done nothing to quell the crowds it gets, even on otherwise sleepy Wednesday nights. Summertime is only bound to make the crowds (and thus the waits) worse..." Oh no! K and I have popped in two or three times to see if they could seat us for dinner, but the wait was always upwards of an hour, so we never saw it through. Once K even called several hours in advance but was unable to get a reservation. I think Time Out is right: as the weather warms up, Chicagoans will be more willing to traverse the city for good food, and it will become increasingly difficult to get into Mixteco. So I hereby resolve to secure a table by the end of this week. The plan: do whatever it takes. I really hope the guac and mole live up to their reputation.

In other, unrelated news, I watched "The Big Bang Theory" again this week - I'm very impressed with this show and it is growing on me. In the new episode, Leonard and Kuthrapali attempt to take Howard's mind off of his broken heart by convincing him to go with them on a weekend trip to Las Vegas, where they remain for the majority of the half-hour show. So in the few weeks since I started this blog, "The Big Bang Theory" has addressed the topics of comic books and Vegas - and so have I, albeit in reverse order. It makes me think that my favorite sitcom characters and I may be leading parallel lives. Well, reverse parallel lives, anyway. Is this some sort of cosmic connection? I guess I'll just have to keep watching.

Staring Down the Comic Bookshelf

In the apartment I share with K, there is an entire bookshelf filled with comic books. Not just one shelf of the bookshelf, but all three, and the collection continues to grow. K loves comic books, but it is not a shared hobby. To be honest, I think I've been a little intimidated by the whole scene. When K bumps into other readers of comics, they ask each other "What books do you read?" and use buzz words like '90's-style comics' and 'underground comics' and I cannot participate because I have no knowledge of comics and do not know what these terms refer to.

This week, I've decided to take a step towards changing that. My assignment: to read 38 comic books - the first 16 of the Spawn series and all 21 issues of Hack/Slash.

Why these two particular titles? you might ask. Well, first I wanted to choose something I already have on hand. And looking through K's comic books, I selected Spawn primarily because of its interesting artwork. Also, it's a name I already know, so maybe that signifies that it is representative of popular, semi-mainstream comics (I will have to discuss this further with K). According to wikipedia, Spawn is now published by Image Comics, founded by seven artists including Spawn creator Todd McFarlane; but the issues I'll be reading were released by Marvel in the early 90's.

Unlike Spawn, which is currently on issue 191, the Hack/Slash series has only been around for a couple years, with 21 books out so far. And there is a woman on the cover - her name is Cassie, I've learned - who is clearly one tough chick. Following her lead, I will refuse to be intimidated; I will forge on until I have read all 21 issues of her book; I will not be bullied by comic book geekdom into thinking that I can't read comics because I don't know what a splash page is.

I also happen to think it's cool that Devil's Due Publishing is located just a half-mile away from our apartment in Ravenswood. So Cassie is a local bad-ass (created by Tim Seeley).