Londonness - Comic Shops

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One of my favorite things I like to do in a new city is find the local comic book shops. Even way back in my wee younger years, while visiting family at my grandmother's summer cottage in Michigan, when I was wrapped in a blanket of lake swimming and adventuring. Even then, in that summer paradise (and if you read this blog regularly you know I use "summer" and "paradise" in the same sentence never) ... I would drag out the yellow pages and point out two types of places I wanted my dad to drive me.  Thrift shops and comic book stores. Good man that he is, he'd always comply. One year, when I had a dilemma about how to spend the $20 I had on me - on a book of the complete works of William Shakespeare or a lifesize cut-out of Han Solo (Sophie's Choice, am I right??) he graciously told me I was allowed to get both.

Good times!

But anyway, back to London! When I asked for recommendations on comic shops I should visit while I was there, I was given these names:

I did some looking around and drew up this sweet map to help my friend Heather and I on our journey:

What could possibly go wrong as we used this sharp tool to navigate the streets of busy West End? Actually, we IMMEDIATELY found Orbital and spent a good while browsing their rows and rooms. I picked up a couple of lovely things:

Brian K. Vaughan's latest series, Saga, illustrated by the incredible Fiona Staples. (Haven't read it yet, but picked up issues 2 and 3! Sadly they didn't have #1)

Marc Ellerby's Chloe Noonan, Monster Hunter.  I thought this one was fitting, since we were in London and all. I love that she takes the bus and has zero powers, but she's cocky and she gets the job done. Also, she has other priorities like band gigs. And appreciates a good grenade.

Bucko by Jeff Parker and Erika Moen. I had NOOO idea what to expect from this going in, only that I've been a fan of Erika's work for ages. But then I also saw that it was about quirky Portland antics and I was intrigued. I'm also a big fan of Portland, and have been telling everyone for years that I'll be moving there soon. Those overcast skies, those powerful mountains, that dreary weather, that publisher of mine in the 'hood, those hippies with their progressive ways ... they all be callin' to me. But ANYWAY. Bucko ended up being a hilarious, unpredictable ride that kept me laughing/afraid to laugh and eager to turn the page. What started off with a scene reminiscent of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (and who DOESN'T love a Robert Downey Jr. / Val Kilmer flick) and turned into a fun celebration of everything that's right and so wrong about the world. The writer/artist comments on every page are a fun bonus since I never read it online. I think more comics definitely need commentary tracks.

Orbital had a great location, super helpful staff, and decent selection of indies. Even though I was too chicken to give them any of MY work, I was happy to have found it.

Finding Gosh was a little bit more of a challenge (see map above for reasons why). Yeahh when I set out to create little handy maps for us to use, I sometimes neglected to put in all those pesky side streets. Who needs 'em? So Heather and I spent a good while wandering down the streets of Soho, which is not a bad place to be, but still wasn't our primary purpose. Eventually we'd run out of time and had to meet up with my friend Katrina at the most glorious store on the planet - Paperchase!! No, not a comic book store but a glorious store filled with all your pencilling and papering needs. It took a lot of willpower to only walk out of there with a few purchases.

Luckily Katrina knew her way around town better than we did, so she successfully led us to Gosh. It was a cute, well-designed and well-lit store. I loved the central table piled with a selection of books, surrounded by shelves lit with track lighting. It reminded me of a boutique art gallery. Again, the staff was super helpful and I walked away with something I've been meaning to pick up for a long time ...

Faith Erin Hicks's Friends With Boys! I've been a huge fan of hers since way back in her Demonology 101 days. Along with Derek Kirk Kim, Scott McCloud, and Jason Little, she was one of my earliest webcomic inspirations. Faith's style has only gotten more powerful and expressive over the years, and I was blown away by how her work is able to be detailed and meticulous while still appearing sketchy and free-flowing. I tore through half of the story online but had decided to wait for the print version to finish it.  The characters have an ease about them that makes them instantly identifiable - there aren't any forced personality "types". The story is moody, funny, and intriguing, and her large, expansive panels give plenty of room for your imagination to run around in. Selfishly I wanted the story to keep going, but at least I can add this to my collection of books to re-read. Thank goodness Faith is so prolific, so I won't have long to wait for a new book from her!

Thus ends my London Comic Shop Adventure. Sadly, I never made it to Forbidden Planet, but having gone to the one in New York City, I can say I've been, right? Oh well, I'll save it for the return journey. Because there WILL be a return journey to London. Oh yes, there will.

P.S. Can someone invite me to the Leeds Comic Arts Festival at some point??

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-4]

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Londonness - Comic Shops

/

One of my favorite things I like to do in a new city is find the local comic book shops. Even way back in my wee younger years, while visiting family at my grandmother's summer cottage in Michigan, when I was wrapped in a blanket of lake swimming and adventuring. Even then, in that summer paradise (and if you read this blog regularly you know I use "summer" and "paradise" in the same sentence never) ... I would drag out the yellow pages and point out two types of places I wanted my dad to drive me.  Thrift shops and comic book stores. Good man that he is, he'd always comply. One year, when I had a dilemma about how to spend the $20 I had on me - on a book of the complete works of William Shakespeare or a lifesize cut-out of Han Solo (Sophie's Choice, am I right??) he graciously told me I was allowed to get both.

Good times!

But anyway, back to London! When I asked for recommendations on comic shops I should visit while I was there, I was given these names:

I did some looking around and drew up this sweet map to help my friend Heather and I on our journey:

What could possibly go wrong as we used this sharp tool to navigate the streets of busy West End? Actually, we IMMEDIATELY found Orbital and spent a good while browsing their rows and rooms. I picked up a couple of lovely things:

Brian K. Vaughan's latest series, Saga, illustrated by the incredible Fiona Staples. (Haven't read it yet, but picked up issues 2 and 3! Sadly they didn't have #1)

Marc Ellerby's Chloe Noonan, Monster Hunter.  I thought this one was fitting, since we were in London and all. I love that she takes the bus and has zero powers, but she's cocky and she gets the job done. Also, she has other priorities like band gigs. And appreciates a good grenade.

Bucko by Jeff Parker and Erika Moen. I had NOOO idea what to expect from this going in, only that I've been a fan of Erika's work for ages. But then I also saw that it was about quirky Portland antics and I was intrigued. I'm also a big fan of Portland, and have been telling everyone for years that I'll be moving there soon. Those overcast skies, those powerful mountains, that dreary weather, that publisher of mine in the 'hood, those hippies with their progressive ways ... they all be callin' to me. But ANYWAY. Bucko ended up being a hilarious, unpredictable ride that kept me laughing/afraid to laugh and eager to turn the page. What started off with a scene reminiscent of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (and who DOESN'T love a Robert Downey Jr. / Val Kilmer flick) and turned into a fun celebration of everything that's right and so wrong about the world. The writer/artist comments on every page are a fun bonus since I never read it online. I think more comics definitely need commentary tracks.

Orbital had a great location, super helpful staff, and decent selection of indies. Even though I was too chicken to give them any of MY work, I was happy to have found it.

Finding Gosh was a little bit more of a challenge (see map above for reasons why). Yeahh when I set out to create little handy maps for us to use, I sometimes neglected to put in all those pesky side streets. Who needs 'em? So Heather and I spent a good while wandering down the streets of Soho, which is not a bad place to be, but still wasn't our primary purpose. Eventually we'd run out of time and had to meet up with my friend Katrina at the most glorious store on the planet - Paperchase!! No, not a comic book store but a glorious store filled with all your pencilling and papering needs. It took a lot of willpower to only walk out of there with a few purchases.

Luckily Katrina knew her way around town better than we did, so she successfully led us to Gosh. It was a cute, well-designed and well-lit store. I loved the central table piled with a selection of books, surrounded by shelves lit with track lighting. It reminded me of a boutique art gallery. Again, the staff was super helpful and I walked away with something I've been meaning to pick up for a long time ...

Faith Erin Hicks's Friends With Boys! I've been a huge fan of hers since way back in her Demonology 101 days. Along with Derek Kirk Kim, Scott McCloud, and Jason Little, she was one of my earliest webcomic inspirations. Faith's style has only gotten more powerful and expressive over the years, and I was blown away by how her work is able to be detailed and meticulous while still appearing sketchy and free-flowing. I tore through half of the story online but had decided to wait for the print version to finish it.  The characters have an ease about them that makes them instantly identifiable - there aren't any forced personality "types". The story is moody, funny, and intriguing, and her large, expansive panels give plenty of room for your imagination to run around in. Selfishly I wanted the story to keep going, but at least I can add this to my collection of books to re-read. Thank goodness Faith is so prolific, so I won't have long to wait for a new book from her!

Thus ends my London Comic Shop Adventure. Sadly, I never made it to Forbidden Planet, but having gone to the one in New York City, I can say I've been, right? Oh well, I'll save it for the return journey. Because there WILL be a return journey to London. Oh yes, there will.

P.S. Can someone invite me to the Leeds Comic Arts Festival at some point??

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-4]

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Londonness - Traveling on a Crazy Pants Diet

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Ah yes. The joys of traveling on a restricted diet.

I knew going into my London trip that this would be an issue, despite all the cool U.K. blogs I'd discovered dealing with my particular food issues (aka the FODMAPs way of life). And then, mere days before taking off, I threw caution to the wind and started taking a daily multi vitamin, which INSTANTLY made me sick until the day of the trip itself. Ah yes, to be at such a wonderful point where a vitamin will make me sick! Luckily my nutritionist came to the rescue at the very last minute and enabled me to get my hands on some of these sweet babies:

Ultimate Aloe powder packets. I'd already been hooked on the Aloe Juice, which was insanely amazing at getting rid of heartburn, nausea, the regular cocktail of stomach maladies I was used to dealing with. But thanks to this travel convenient form, I could safely take it along WITH me on my trip, leading to a much better stomach-on-the-go. Whew.

So since I mentioned yesterday some of the amazing restaurants we discovered right in our hometown for the week of Brixton, I was amazed to find out that several of them just happened to also be gluten-free. Woot! Okay, so one was a happy accident, and one I searched for.

Here's my list of some FODMAPs-friendly, gluten-free places we managed to find:

  • WAGfree - featuring breakfast sandwiches, baked goods, and sandwiches. I had a bacon-egg-toast thingie one day, and grabbed a giant loaf of bread with toasted pumpkin seeds on top another. Yum-MY. And even though I went to the one in Brixton, they popped up all over the place during our travels.
  • Brick Box- the first time I typed this as Brick Top...

    Such a wuvable gangster. Brick BOX was where I managed to find some gluten-free crepes that came in all varieties of sweet and savory. Also located in Brixton Village, and the staff was so friendly they let us squish in for seats next to a couple trying to have a private dinner. Ha HA, take that suckers! Romance can't compete with my gluten-free appetite! Looks like they have multiple venues as well.

  • The last place we hit up in Brixton was a vegan cupcake place called Ms. Cupcake. I didn't realize it also had gluten-free offerings until I wandered in and hit the motherload - bars, gummy bears, cookies, and a fine selection of gluten-free cupcakes. SCORE. I loaded up on snacks for the flight back but couldn't help but hork down a GF cupcake while I was at it.
  • While visiting the West End Theatre District, we turned the corner from the Leicester Square Underground Station and stumbled upon TONS of restaurants and eateries. Seeing Italian food, though, I figured to hell with it and surrendered. It wasn't until my traveling companion Heather shouted "GLUTEN FREE PIZZA AND PASTA!" before I realized my good fortune. We'd happened upon Bella Italia, and it was mighty tasty.
  • Also in/around the West End (or maybe not, I was a tourist after all), and further up near Convent Garden on our way to the British Museum, I'd scouted out a little out of the way place called Da Mario (SURPRISE! Also Italian. Which is part of why I love traveling with Heather - the girl will eat pizza with me anywhere.) It was super cute, the servers were really attentive and fast, and it was clearly THE place to go for lunch during the work week. We got a table before a regular patron could - who's in the know?? They also had a dumb waiter that brought food up from the kitchen to the dining room. Fantastic.
  • Last but certainly least was the Ebury Wine Bar, which took only about 2 hours on foot to find. It just so happens in some parts we were wandering through in London that there'd be 12 streets with the same first name of the street but with Avenue, Street, Square, Place, arbitrarily tacked onto the end. So since these were my fabulously detailed directions to the restaurant (the lower portion): So yeah ... me writing down "Ebury" sent us on a wild pub chase for quite some time. BUT! Here's the reason that Heather didn't kill me: on our way to the Ebury Wine Bar we passed many a fine establishment, one of which was called The Orange and full of hoppin' people enjoying great food and drink. So when we finally dragged our feet up to the Wine Bar and the host snubbed us, it wasn't too hard to decide where to go. I made sure to repeatedly remind Heather that if it wasn't for MY directions, we never would've stumbled upon The Orange (okay, and a zillion other places) in the first place. After enough wine she agreed with me. And The Orange, though not particularly gluten-free, was amazing and full of hot, happening people. (I'll dish more about that in the Pub Post!) So ... I'm not saying don't go to the Ebury Wine Bar. But if you do go and they're kind of rude ... there's a kick-ass pub right down the street.

And thus ends my discussion of the gluten-free eats I found that helped me keep to my diet for at least part of the time on my trip. What also helped? CHIPS! The savior of vegans and weirdo dieters alike.

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-4]

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Londonness - Traveling on a Crazy Pants Diet

/

Ah yes. The joys of traveling on a restricted diet.

I knew going into my London trip that this would be an issue, despite all the cool U.K. blogs I'd discovered dealing with my particular food issues (aka the FODMAPs way of life). And then, mere days before taking off, I threw caution to the wind and started taking a daily multi vitamin, which INSTANTLY made me sick until the day of the trip itself. Ah yes, to be at such a wonderful point where a vitamin will make me sick! Luckily my nutritionist came to the rescue at the very last minute and enabled me to get my hands on some of these sweet babies:

Ultimate Aloe powder packets. I'd already been hooked on the Aloe Juice, which was insanely amazing at getting rid of heartburn, nausea, the regular cocktail of stomach maladies I was used to dealing with. But thanks to this travel convenient form, I could safely take it along WITH me on my trip, leading to a much better stomach-on-the-go. Whew.

So since I mentioned yesterday some of the amazing restaurants we discovered right in our hometown for the week of Brixton, I was amazed to find out that several of them just happened to also be gluten-free. Woot! Okay, so one was a happy accident, and one I searched for.

Here's my list of some FODMAPs-friendly, gluten-free places we managed to find:

  • WAGfree - featuring breakfast sandwiches, baked goods, and sandwiches. I had a bacon-egg-toast thingie one day, and grabbed a giant loaf of bread with toasted pumpkin seeds on top another. Yum-MY. And even though I went to the one in Brixton, they popped up all over the place during our travels.
  • Brick Box- the first time I typed this as Brick Top...

    Such a wuvable gangster. Brick BOX was where I managed to find some gluten-free crepes that came in all varieties of sweet and savory. Also located in Brixton Village, and the staff was so friendly they let us squish in for seats next to a couple trying to have a private dinner. Ha HA, take that suckers! Romance can't compete with my gluten-free appetite! Looks like they have multiple venues as well.

  • The last place we hit up in Brixton was a vegan cupcake place called Ms. Cupcake. I didn't realize it also had gluten-free offerings until I wandered in and hit the motherload - bars, gummy bears, cookies, and a fine selection of gluten-free cupcakes. SCORE. I loaded up on snacks for the flight back but couldn't help but hork down a GF cupcake while I was at it.
  • While visiting the West End Theatre District, we turned the corner from the Leicester Square Underground Station and stumbled upon TONS of restaurants and eateries. Seeing Italian food, though, I figured to hell with it and surrendered. It wasn't until my traveling companion Heather shouted "GLUTEN FREE PIZZA AND PASTA!" before I realized my good fortune. We'd happened upon Bella Italia, and it was mighty tasty.
  • Also in/around the West End (or maybe not, I was a tourist after all), and further up near Convent Garden on our way to the British Museum, I'd scouted out a little out of the way place called Da Mario (SURPRISE! Also Italian. Which is part of why I love traveling with Heather - the girl will eat pizza with me anywhere.) It was super cute, the servers were really attentive and fast, and it was clearly THE place to go for lunch during the work week. We got a table before a regular patron could - who's in the know?? They also had a dumb waiter that brought food up from the kitchen to the dining room. Fantastic.
  • Last but certainly least was the Ebury Wine Bar, which took only about 2 hours on foot to find. It just so happens in some parts we were wandering through in London that there'd be 12 streets with the same first name of the street but with Avenue, Street, Square, Place, arbitrarily tacked onto the end. So since these were my fabulously detailed directions to the restaurant (the lower portion): So yeah ... me writing down "Ebury" sent us on a wild pub chase for quite some time. BUT! Here's the reason that Heather didn't kill me: on our way to the Ebury Wine Bar we passed many a fine establishment, one of which was called The Orange and full of hoppin' people enjoying great food and drink. So when we finally dragged our feet up to the Wine Bar and the host snubbed us, it wasn't too hard to decide where to go. I made sure to repeatedly remind Heather that if it wasn't for MY directions, we never would've stumbled upon The Orange (okay, and a zillion other places) in the first place. After enough wine she agreed with me. And The Orange, though not particularly gluten-free, was amazing and full of hot, happening people. (I'll dish more about that in the Pub Post!) So ... I'm not saying don't go to the Ebury Wine Bar. But if you do go and they're kind of rude ... there's a kick-ass pub right down the street.

And thus ends my discussion of the gluten-free eats I found that helped me keep to my diet for at least part of the time on my trip. What also helped? CHIPS! The savior of vegans and weirdo dieters alike.

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-4]

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Londonness - The Accidental Awesomeness of Brixton

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This week I'm going to ramble on a bit about my recent trip to London. Since I'd never been before (and neither had my travel partner), and we didn't do too much researching beforehand, it was an exciting land full of adventure to be had. Or, you could say I was just being lazy by not learning that much about it before embarking on our trip. ANYWAY.

One of the first things we did before leaving was check out cheap places to stay. Sure, we could've jumped around from place to place, in and around London, but we both agreed we'd prefer to be in one place for the entire stay and venture out from there. Our home base ended up being in Brixton, based on a super awesome place we found on AirBNB.

All I knew about Brixton going in was entirely based on Attack the Block, a fun movie about aliens attacking a neighborhood band of hoodlums. So, y'know, I was ready. When we arrived on a pleasantly overcast Friday morning, fresh from over 24 hours without sleep, we were thrilled to discover the Brixton Underground station to be just right around the corner from our new flat. Unfortunately, it was about 11:00am London time and we couldn't check in until 3:00pm. So we picked a street and dragged our luggage until we found a quaint coffee shop called Opus to plunk ourselves down in and siphon off some of their free wifi. We stayed long enough to discover there was a pub right across the street, and swapped our coffee cups for wine glasses.

The next day we decided to experience the Brixton Market, a large winding string of outdoor vendors of everything you could imagine. Lots of fish, lots of scarves, suitcases, even VHS tapes. More fish. We lingered under the false promises that a fashion show was about to happen, but when it was over an hour overdue we instead chose to go further into the thick of Brixton Market. We went through a secret passageway (okay, it was an archway called "Brixton Village") which took us into enclosed section. At first we assumed it was just an extension of the market but oh no, it included so much more! Tons of tiny boutiques and restaurants boasting local, gourmet meals, all tucked away into a winding series of aisles.

As soon as we knew it was there, it became a regular stop throughout our entire stay. Although I never got to the magical upper level of this one wine shop called "The Cheese Room" (WHAT COULD BE MORE MAGICAL??), we did nab breakfast at a charming gluten-free bakery called WAGfree, snag a much desired seat at the Brick Box restaurant (which had gluten-free crepes), and on our last night managed to get into the uber-popular sourdough pizza restaurant Franco Manca. All places had fast, friendly service and yummy food. Since our typical style of travelling was to wander down the wrong street and miss out on all cool things that happened to be one block over, we couldn't believe our luck at finding this happening area.

Across from Brixton Village, another restaurant that boasted a good mixture of happy hour cocktails and french-inspired food was the Market House. Unfortunately we only went here on our last day, but we did make sure to do it twice. A little up the street from there was The Prince pub, which had a great cheese plate and enough tables/chairs that on the jampacked weekend nights we could still be sure to find a seat. Our closest pub, which had 2 cats and boardgames (and therefore became our favorite) was Trinity Arms. It was small, cozy, and neighborhood-y enough to make us Yankee tourists feel welcome.

I just realized that I'm already mentioning a LOT of the pubs we went to, and this isn't even my pubs post! That's later in the week. Clearly, a lot of our "London Activities" involved just sitting around drinking in various places. Don't judge.

So if you want a friendly, hip, up-and-coming city in south London to visit, I couldn't recommend Brixton enough. Its citizens seem to care a lot about making Brixton better and better, and they've clearly already done a bang-up job.

Tune in tomorrow, when I go more into detail of trying to travel on a ridiculous diet, like the Low FODMAPs one I have!

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