Here's the crew- those are my guys in the foreground, and Land of Talk are the three in the background.



Lucky for me, I had an extra day to spend walking around, so I headed over to Shakespeare And Company.
As I was already sleep deprived, I briefly considered taking them up on their offer of residence to anyone wishing to type up their life story using the rickety old typewriter. I couldn't help but feel proud to notice a few of our books showing off their pretty covers within the beautiful, labyrinthine, book-laden passageways.
Then later in Gent, Belgium, I found this little gem: Epic Comics. The owner (who really didn't want to be photographed) and I chatted for an hour about the woes of working in a bookstore (too many books to read, too many books to buy, etc.) He was fairly down on contemporary Belgian comics, but gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the Tintin series. It was eerie to see how similar their inventory was to our own here at 211- even though they're an ocean away. Loads of D&Q books on their shelves.

And on the subject of window displays, I leave you with one featuring Black Peter, the blackfaced Santa's 'helper' who kidnaps bad Dutch children and takes them away in a sack to Spain.. What the--?

Hmm, I since found out that Canada used to uphold that folky tradition as well until the late 1800s when we decided the connotations were just no good.