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Best Comic Book Store

Titan Comics

What we said about Nick's Sports Cards goes triple for Titan Comics, the longtime Bachman Lake staple recently dispatched to Forest Lane to make way for a Walmart (much better location). We've said it countless times before: No toys, no action figures, no plush Green Lanterns for the baby dork, just comics, past and present, lining every wall and every shelf and stuffing every file cabinet in which the old issues are now pragmatically stored for each browsing. (The hand-painted, comics-artist-designed statues, also for sale, serve more as museum pieces behind glass cases.) We've taken countless collectors to Titan over the years, including hard-to-please out-of-towners, and all walk out with stacks of stories they remembered as kids and had to have again, as well as the new tales of suspense introduced to them by Jeremy Shorr and his staff of fanboys — and fangirls, no kidding. No geek locker room here, just the world's finest.

Best Tents

REI

Maybe because other places have been selling decent tents for cheap in recent years, REI has found ways to offer its own store line of tents at pretty good prices — under two bills for a two-man — and still maintain the quality for which REI is so well known. Their tents can get pricey, of course, but they have smart salespeople on hand to tell you exactly what you're getting for your money. If you're in the market for a good tent but you have questions, REI is definitely the way to go.

Best Women's Clothing

Pitaya

As much as we want to like Forever 21 for its affordable style, it's too disorganized, loud and glittery (have you seen that floor?!) to get our business. That's why we're grateful for Pitaya. Not only can we find trendy dresses, tops and bottoms for $50 or less on average, we know that new stuff is guaranteed to be there on every visit because inventory is updated weekly. On a recent trip we snagged a Native American-inspired, one-shoulder dress for $30 and a pair of fringe-y sandals for $40. Not too shabby and nowhere near the mall.

Best Wine/Liquor Store

Spirits

Of all the hundreds of categories in Best of Dallas, this is one of those we write about with something bordering on absolute authority. For a long while this spring we scoured the city for a lone bottle of Old Fitzgerald, widely considered the finest of all cheap bourbons. (We are nothing if not penny-pinching aficionados of grown-up drink.) Two teases and one special order later, we would eventually find an endless supply at the Sigel's at Abrams Road and Skillman Street, for which we remain eternally grateful. (We hope they still have it. In summer we tend to drink rum, and the Bacardi Añejo is another pragmatic revelation. Anyway.) Among the countless stops on our quest, however, was a return to Spirits after many years away: It's a warehouse of booze where the supply's generous and the price is reasonable to the point of being low. Try finding Buffalo Trace White Dog cheaper. Then, try finding Buffalo Trace White Dog anywhere.

Best Liquor Store Staff

Goody Goody, Oak Lawn

When it comes to wine and spirits, Goody Goody Oak Lawn's staff know their stuff. Don't be surprised if when you walk in the door you're warmly greeted by at least three or more alcohol aficionados — especially during peak hours. The staff is eager to guide you through the expansive wine and liquor selections. Not only is the service great, the prices aren't bad either. Despite an expansive selection, when you ask the staff for suggestions and recommendations they'll have an answer for you, and if they don't, they'll ask someone else, and if that fails they'll happily hop on the computer and find it. There's no hard sell here, just good old-fashioned customer service.

Best Texas Collectables

Curiosities

We've known proprietor Jason Cohen since his days running Forbidden Books in Expo Park; he's the man who introduced us to the joys of Naughty Dallas ... and Naughty Dallas, the movie, which is a whole other story. But then he morphed into a picker, an expert in discerning your trash from your treasures and then directing them to the attention of those of us who like to go to, let's say, curated garage sales. No, he doesn't specialize in Texas goodies, but he and the others sellers in the shop keep their searches close to home, which is why we spent one brutal Saturday afternoon agonizing over whether to take home original Norman Bell sketches done for Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages covers or a Tango opening-week poster or a State Fair panoramic dating back to the '20s. We panicked and left with a press photo of the Dallas Eagles baseball club of 1951, which we found buried beneath a pile of old magazines and newspapers. Pick your picker.

Best Hobby Shop

Mike's Hobby Shop

We admit calling Mike's best "hobby shop" might be limiting the definition of hobby a bit. Maybe your hobby is knitting, or pottery or viewing online porn. Fine, there are plenty of yarn stores, craft shops and the Internet out there for you. Our hobby — the non-Internet one, anyway — involves things with electric motors that go high and fast and, sadly, break fairly regularly under our unskilled hands. If radio-controlled airplanes, cars or boats are your thing, Mike's is the best place for kits, servos, motors, radios and any other part you can send on a death spiral into the ground. The joint is huge, with dozens of models of scale planes dangling from the roof, plus indoor and outdoor tracks in an adjacent warehouse space featuring a competition schedule for RC car hobbyists who prefer to keep things mostly on the ground. (Watch out for the jumps. In fact, just watch these guys go. There's some amazing miniature driving on display nearly every day.) The employees know their gear and will even take the time to explain it to rookies, and prices are comparable to online shops. Best of all, there's not a dried flower, ball of yarn or gnome in the joint.

Best Head Shop

Retro Revolution

This is a head shop? Where are the shelves lined with vibrators and dildos? How nice it is to venture into a store catering to fans of the herb that doesn't treat tokers like they're one skeevy step away from being a perv. Browse through the collection of retro-style clothing, art, jewelry, tchotchkes and incense and you may forget why you're there — to blow bucks on an original, artfully blown, hand-crafted "water pipe." (Of course, "water pipe" fans are liable to forget lots of things.) No worries though, Retro has a vast array of pipes, extractors, papers, jars, grinders and all the other accoutrements needed to keep the hippie in you happy. Well, all but one. This ain't California.

Best Men's Clothing

Kohl's Department Store

We're men. That's spelled M, E-child, N. Buh-DUH-buh-bump. What we want from clothes is fairly straightforward: Not much ironing, durable, fit for wearing almost anywhere without requiring that we think about it too much. Oh, and cheap. Cheap is good because it leaves us more money to spend on things we really care about, like beer and toys and more beer. We're not saying all the men are fashion idiots here at the Observer. It's just that many of us — particularly in the seedier parts of the editorial department — are the sort who think savoir faire is a fancy kind of wine. That's why we are grateful for Kohl's, where we can sort through a massive stock of shirts and pants and in 10 minutes (that's about all the clothes shopping we're good for) walk away with a half-dozen items that will see us through a season and not make us look like we should be hustling for spare change. Nordstrom, Jos A. Bank, etc. are fine for fancy duds and there are tons of consignment shops if you want to try to pull off a hipster look. For some of us, though, clothes are a utility, something to be worn to avoid giving offense, something that shouldn't cost more than a fine bottle of bourbon. We shop at Kohl's.

Best Eyewear

American Eyewear

Remember those awful, dated glasses your mom and dad used to wear? Remember when you thought a giant pair of aviators or a set of Euro-styled teeny-weeny specs flattered your face? We hate to break it to you, but the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. By that we mean those glasses on your face would make Mom and Dad proud. Seriously, tiny half frames are not a good fit on a American-sized melon head. You need help, and American Eyewear is there for you. With hundreds of styles to choose from by designers like Oliver Peoples, Gucci, Prada, Armani and Paul Frank, the staff at this 30-plus-year-old independent shop can guide you to something stylish that fits properly. Located on Preston near Northwest Highway, it's not the cheapest eyewear shop in town, but really, Waldo, you wear these things on your face every day. Maybe it's time to splurge.

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