Oh yeah, I forgot

Just as I was going on the other day about spending my habits and comics and "voting with my dollars", my friend Andrei came to my Book Arts class to talk about comics. He brought with him an assortment of amazing small press comics, most of which I'd seen before. These are some fantastic books, most of which redefine the defintion of both comic and art book. Since these are small press, they don't cost very much per issue and all are available via the web. But, in the 6 months since I've know of their existence have I purchased one of the these books? No. Instead I spend huge sums of money at the comic book store on trade paperbacks. Mind you, the comic book store is not evil, and it's locally owned, so that's good. And the books I bought are off the "mainstream" by independant creators telling innovative and offbeat stories. But they are not hardworking smallpresseres, like myself, pushing the art form I love into new and daring places. And I voted to uphold a distribution system that marginalized not only the small businesss person like myself, but also does much to alienate new readers, new talent, and new ideas.
Thanks Andrei for reminding me of my hypocricy! That's what a good teacher should do.