The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Konamis: Not Trapped Yet

Bookmans Mesa focused on the performing arts and gave our regards to Broadway when the East Valley Children's Theatre's Bravo Troupe performed a medley covering over 50 years of Broadway tunes. If you were lucky enough to be in store at the time, you could sway, dance and sing along your through Greased Lightning, Tomorrow, I'm Flying among other beloved Broadway classics. Thank you to the talented young individuals who came out to us and sang their hearts out.

The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Konamis: Shudderbug

Every so often I ask myself, “Why do I read?” I always have many answers. Most often I answer, “because it’s awesome!” I’m happier when I’m off in a book. Story is important but so are characters and every once in a while an author surprises me with their grammar, syntax and language. I have to admit that one of my guiltiest pleasures is needing a dictionary or a thesaurus to look up an unknown word. I love it so much!

A Mesa landmark, the Nile Theatre opened its doors in 1924 as the Valley's largest movie palace. Short lived, it was shut down as a film venue in 1951. The building located at 105 W. Main St. has gone through many changes since then. Once a clothing store, then a nightclub and most recently the home of Faith Harvest Church, it has once again opened its doors as a raw music venue.

What an Event! A wonderful group of authors uniting to stomp out cancer along with holistic nutritionist Stacey Bouffard set up in our store to share their wonderful books, wisdom and information on how we can help the fight against cancer. A portion of their book sales will go to the American Association for Cancer Research, www.aacr.org, their chosen charity.

Bookmans had a booth at the first annual Tucson Wild Wild West Convention at Old Tucson Studios. I never knew about Steampunk before this convention asked us to be sponsors and like any good Community Relations Manager I checked out the event to see what we were getting into. Anytime I hear "convention" I think of storm trooper suits and nerds to the tenth degree, but I was surprised by the amount of creativity and ingenuity assembled when referencing Steampunk.

Phoenix got an early start to Spring with warm temperatures and cool winds at the M7 Street Fair. Not as cool as the vendors and attendees of the M7 Street Fair of course! We had an amazing time hanging out with everyone while creating one of a kind works of art on our I HEART Bookmans tote bags.

The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Konamis: Holy Mackrel

Tonight I’m doing something like my one-hundredth public poetry reading, which shows what a masochist I really am. Every time I step up to read, I picture the scene from the movie I Heart Huckabees where one of my favorite actors Jason Schwartzman gets up to read poetry in front of his environmental group. He starts something like, “Nobody sits like a rock sits...” before an audience members shouts “BORING!” and throws an empty 7-11 cup at him.

*By Roland Wakefield, Cashier Supervisor, Bookmans Mesa

No duck is an island.

In the summer of 1987 I received 20 dollars from my sister simply for being born. She was nicer to me since she moved out and I could no longer stick my hands under her door, begging her to play Thundercats with me because I didn’t feel comfortable being Cheetara, all the while she listened to Prince albums and completed her homework in full-on ignore mode. With aforementioned 20 dollars I went to the Fry’s Grocery store on Baseline and McClintock, which at the time was Smitty’s, and bought two films that changed my life -- Ghostbusters and the epic blessing from the clouds beneath Duck Jesus, Howard the Duck. I snagged both for the low previously-owned VHS price of $9.99 a piece. My loving mother paid the tax.

Boom Boom Yeah! Mustache Day! Another one for the record books!

Steampunk, Bookmans Universe! This past weekend Bookmans Speedway played host to David Lee Summers, an amazing and imaginative steampunk author.

I’ve never had a book club of my own but when I was in high school and college I attended my mother’s book club. It was so different from my classes. The ladies sat around, drank wine and mostly discussed how the topics in the book related to their lives. Once my mother asked me to come to her book club to talk about E.M. Forester’s A Passage to India, on which I’d delivered a graduate conference paper. As soon as I started talking about how the book illuminates the difficult role of the subaltern in British-colonized India, I knew I’d lost my crowd. Pass me the Shiraz, will you Angie? This girl is droning on.