When in Cleveland, visit the scenic West Side Market

Earlier this week I visited Cleveland's West Side Market in Ohio City for the first time. There I happened upon this three-part mural by Gary and Laura Dumm. You may recognize Gary Dumm's name from some American Splendor comics.

I  found out upon returning home that the Dumms were responsible for the mural, which they call a "love letter to Cleveland" and essentially lists a bunch of people and things that Cleveland is responsible for. That link will take you to better pictures and explanations of who is who and what is what, but you'll probably recognize the gentleman with the eyebrows peeking over an issue of American Splendor immediately.

Just around the corner are two other late Cleveland comics-makers, and their most famous creations:

That was a nice, unexpected surprise.

I was also pleasantly surprised by Horizontal Books, an honest-to-goodness, brick and mortar, not-used-books bookstore that wasn't a Barnes and Noble. I don't come across those very often. How are they still in business?

Well, I don't know, but they sure as hell offer some crazy amazing (craymazing!) discounts; you get 50% off your first book purchase, if you buy two books, you get 60% off and, if you buy three or more, you get 70% off.

So I got this particular haul—

—of $79.96 worth of books for just $25.92 cents, a savings of $55.96! If you can't see 'em clearly, that's G.I. Joe/Transformers Vol. 1 (reprinting some old Marvel crossovers), Dungeons & Dragons Classics Vol. 4 (reprinting the last chunk of DC/TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons monthly) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures Vol. 4 (reprinting just four issues of the old Archie Comics ninja turtles, which translates into about $5 per issue, which is pretty damn steep), all from IDW, and the Hera volume of George O'Connor's excellent Olympians series from First Second.

Their selection wasn't the greatest, but it changes pretty frequently, and those are some great deals. Those IDW books are all so expensive that deep discounts are pretty much the only way I'd buy 'em, especially considering I have swathes of each in crumbling, yellowing comic book form somewhere in my vast comics midden.

Finally, on a West Side Market/comics intersection note, check out these cookies one of the vendors was selling:

I did not purchase one, so I have no idea how they taste, but they're aesthetically pleasing, anyway.