Produced in association with the SomaCow Media Network (see 
Prime Time Geek Episode 26 is brought to you by Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida. Well, not exactly brought to you by Tate’s, since they’re not a sponsor, but they are REALLY cool. We here at PTG wholeheartedly recommend you check out their website, and if you’re in South Florida and love comics, toys, anime, gaming, or just about anything pop-culture related and you haven’t been up to Tate’s, shame on you. Get in your car, Google the directions, and go. Right now. Put the podcast on your iPod and take us with you, ’cause we’d love a return trip over there.
[NOTE: The correct address of Tate's Comics is 4566 N. University Dr. Lauderhill, FL 33351--during the podcast I erroneously located the store at 4555 N. University. I apologize for any confusion.]
Now, if you live in and around where Tate’s is located down there in the Lauderhill/Sunrise/Plantation area of Broward County, Florida, the name “Past, Present, and Future” might also be familiar to you, and might seem a strange choice of title for an episode of PTG during which much time is spent going ga-ga over Tate’s. But aside from being a store name held at one time by a store quite close to Tate’s, Crossroad Comics and Games, “past, present, and future” is very much a theme running throughout this entire hour of PTG. In the literal sense, it relates to both of the comics we spotlight in this episode: Batman #687, which ushers in a new era for the Caped Crusader as Dick Grayson takes on the mantle of the Bat; and Buck Rogers #1, which shows the beginning of an exciting new envisioning of one of sci-fi’s most venerable time-traveling heroes. In their own ways, Batman and Buck Rogers are characters whose appeal defies the passage of time, and no consideration of their new adventures can escape some form of comparison or contemplation of what has come before.
But Episode 26 is also very much about memories and change. After all, a trip to South Florida for me is a trip down “Memory Lane”, an opportunity to drive along the streets that my friends and I back in the day cruised upon as we quested for gaming books, for new anime, for Battletech miniatures, for rare toys, and just about anything else that we might have fixed our sights on back in the day. Trips into that area require that I reconcile those memories of past experiences with present circumstances, such as the fact that the store my friends and I referred to as “The Shrine” (the aforementioned Crossroad Comics) due to its sheer size and its vast selection of geekly distractions has since changed ownership twice and is now most certainly the second option for geek shopping in the area. “Going home” means recalling the past, reconciling it with changes in the present, and contemplating the future–it’s simply unavoidable, especially if you have someone with you who is seeing it all with fresh eyes. More often than not, those places that are so special in our memories as childhood haunts and playgrounds lose some of their lustre once they are stripped of the veil of nostalgia and seen under the present’s harsher light. Time is often unkind … often but not always.
Yes, the store in North Miami Beach where I bought my comics all through high school, the store I knew as “Super Heroes Unlimited,” is now known as “Villains” and is a fundamentally different store than it was 20 years ago, before the advent of Collectible Card Games. And yes, “The Shrine” may have been eclipsed in greatness by the awesomeness that is Tate’s Comics. But the very landscape of Geekdom in South Florida is changed beyond belief, simply because it is visible and vibrant, whereas in my day one could argue it was non-existent. This is very good thing in my mind, and though I might look back fondly on the way things were when I was younger, I certainly can’t argue that its a very good time to be a geek in South Florida, and I can’t imagine it changing for anything but the better in the future.
Amazing how things change.
Stumble It!
