manga-hunting around St. Michel

[bronze_ribbons]

I'd planned to have my snapshots properly organized and captioned before posting about my awesome afternoon with etrangere last Friday, but that's not going to happen before I'm back stateside (reasons include being behind on work, getting ridiculously lost in Reims, and the fact that I'll be looking for a hotel room at the last minute tomorrow because there's a train strike planned and I'm waiting to see if it affects my schlep to Strasbourg). Likewise with catching up on comments - they are very much appreciated, and I'll do my best to get back on track and in touch after I'm home.

In the meantime, here's some interim indecent gloating: I got to meet etrangere! And in addition to being brilliant and friendly and patient, she very good-humoredly led me to an assortment of bookstores offering secondhand manga -- none of which had v. 4-7 of the French edition of FAKE, as it happened, but some other goodies separated me from my Euros nonetheless (including a French edition of X/1999, tome 13 that later set off two sets of metal detectors at Centre Georges Pompidou.

One of the stores (Little Tokyo, I think) had a corner heaped with Totoro swag, which instantly reminded me of geri-chan...as did the characters on the storefront of another shop down the block:

From Europe 2009 - set 10

From Europe 2009 - set 10

(Click images to view the Catbus and Totoros up close!)

Other fannish notes:

One should probably admit that Snupin is incurably in one's system when a totally-minding-its-own-business street sign like this sends the plotbunnies a-hopping:

From Europe 2009 - set 10

From Europe 2009 - set 10

Vademecum toothpaste (which I've seen in Paris as well as Prague) isn't prompting any stories, but it does remind me of Lord Peter more often than not. (I am also entertained at the other healthcare items I've come across with English words on the packaging ...and instructions inside in a half-dozen languages, none of them Anglo-based. The pack of tampons I bought in Prague featured Slovenian, Polish, Hungarian, and other varieties of Eastern European/Germanic lingo.)

In Prague, there's a four-story bookshop called Dum Knihy on Wenceslas Square. It has a wall full of packs of playing cards, celebrating all sorts of themes -- Czech, Japanese, artists, war heroes, Obama, landmarks, the Renaissance, nudes...

From Europe 2009 - set 5

...as well as shelves full of old musical scores that anyone can walk up to and peruse (didn't get a photo of those)...

...but it's the manga and graphic novels that are kept in locked glass cabinets:

From Europe 2009 - set 5

Some of the many book vendors on the quays between Chatelet and St. Michel specialize in French editions of mysteries. Didn't find any Sayers, but Ellis Peters was very much in evidence. And the woman next to me on the TGV to Reims was 3/4 through one of Patricia Cornwell's novels.

More later, world and time permitting!