I remember my dad telling me how during the Blizzard of ’78, a convenience store down the corner upped the price of milk, knowing demand would be off the charts since people couldn’t drive to the larger super-markets. Today, the latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man hit the stands, an issue that’s been featured everywhere from CNN to Regis because of a guest appearance by Barack Obama. And at least one outlet from which I tried to obtain a copy–Newbury Comics, of all places–was asking twenty dollars a copy. A little outrageous, considering the cover price of $3.95. That’s not cricket. And it smacks of Blizzard of 78-ism. So, like my old man did to that convenience store back in the day, I’ll be taking my future business elsewhere.
Meanwhile, just as I read this piece on Ricardo Montalban’s passing, I flicked on the TV to find Montalban himself in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes–at the very scene in which his character, Armando, dies. How f#@king weird is that?
Godspeed, Mr. Roarke. May you rest eternally on rich Corinthian leather.
