Best Comic-book Store

A few months back, the fine owners of Zeus Comics and Collectibles in Turtle Creek Village took umbrage at our insistence that Titan Comics is "the only comics shop that matters." Hey, we can see why they'd be a little unhappy--you don't advertise in a paper expecting it to label your establishment a moot point--but hear us out. Now, Zeus is a fine place to buy brand-new (or close to it) comics, and it's an excellent store for those in search of action figures, high-priced Barbie dolls and other geek errata (count us in on all of it). It's a dilettante's paradise, actually. But the hard-core collector--the fetishist who still lives with Mom or the fanboy with a wife and mortgage--spends his days and long green over at Titan, tucked away in a predominantly Spanish-speaking shopping center across from Bachman Lake. Jeremy Shorr and his knowledgeable girl wonders (as always, it's refreshing to find women behind the counter in a comic-book shop) preside over a store filled with nothing but comics, many of which date back to the Silver Age and beyond (Shorr recently began purging the action figures at bargain prices). Titan's got what the purist craves: a staggering smorgasbord of boxes filled with bagged-and-boarded back issues, a wall of trade hardbacks and paperbacks, cases crammed with history books about the oft-maligned medium and twowalls papered with new and current issues. It doesn't discriminate between DC, Marvel and, oh, Fantagraphics: You can find Chris Ware's hypnotically clever work mixed in among the latest Marvel (ironically named) Ultimatetitle, and you'll find old Neil Adams' Green Lantern-Green Arrows alongside Kevin Smith's recent take on the subject. Fact is, we're thinking of moving in...or applying for a job when this journalism thing doesn't pan out. It's the dork's home away from home, and we couldn't be more delighted to pay some of the rent.