On a related news note, "Jimmy," the second-season episode on gun violence among teens and gun control, has been nominated for the prestigious Humanitas Prize:

"In American culture at the present time, only the human family itself surpasses media's capacity to communicate values, form consciences, supply role models, and motivate human behavior. Humanitas exists to encourage those who create contemporary media to use their immense power in a humanistic way, to enrich as well as entertain their viewers."

"Jimmy" was written by STATIC SHOCK producer Alan Burnett and Static co-creator Dwayne McDuffie. Past winners of the Humanitas Prize include Larry Gelbert, Earl Pommeranz, Aaron Sorkin, David Milch, David Simon, and Burnett, who won the award in 1987 for his work on THE SMURFS. For more on the Humanitas Prize and a list of past winners, go to:

www.humanitasprize.org

The award reception is July 10. Check back with us in about a month and I'll let you know if "Jimmy" won.

Welcome to Chinatown! During your visit, be sure to stop by Count D's pet shop, where love and dreams are sold in the form of mythical creatures - but not without a catch. The buyer must adhere to a set of rules, which if broken, may result in death...or worse.

Long ago, in an epic battle of might, King Phelios defeated the Vampire King Duzell. And as both lay dying on the field, Duzell swore that his reincarnation would find King Phelios' reincarnation and exact his revenge. A hundred years later, the moment of reincarnation has arrived...the only problem is that Duzell has been reincarnated as a harmless house cat. And to add to his frustration, he can't find the reincarnation of King Phelios. Luckily, he has been adopted by Phelios' granddaughter, the teenage princess Ishtar, through whom Duzell may be able to track down who in the Phelios tribe is host to the great king's reincarnated soul.

Thanks for the manga reviews. I'm finding more of my comics money going that direction these days. My daughter Erin is the one who got me interested. She loves comics, but, once she outgrew Sabrina the Teenage Witch, there wasn't much published in America that interested her...until TokyoPop started publishing stuff aimed directly at young teenage girls.

Of the ones you reviewed in the August 2 column, the only ones I've read are Clamp School Detectives, which I didn't like as much as you, and Love Hina, which I like a lot and am now reading the 8th volume.

We also buy tons of other titles, but the monthly Shonen Jump magazine is the one we look forward to most. My son Patrick, who is more into super-heroes, likes it enough that I got him his own subscription (cheap!) as well as the one I purchase for Erin at my comic shop. Anyway, thanks for trying to broaden your readership's interests.

Friends tell me you were kind enough to write a favorable review of a STATIC SHOCK episode I co-wrote, called "Blast From the Past." I wanted to express my thanks; I was delighted to have the chance to work on the episode when the basic story idea was offered to me, having been a fan of both Black Lightning and the Super Friends' Black Vulcan, both of whom served as role models for Soul Power.

In all honesty, much of the credit for the episode goes to Story Editor John Semper and Producer Alan Burnett, who cooked it up and handed it to me in the first place, then fine-tuned the script after I took my pass. They're great people to work for, and their affection for the characters show up in every episode they work on. I'm just happy to be on the team!

But I can't deny I was thrilled to hear that Black Lightning's creator enjoyed something I worked on.

So...you violated the rule against storing paper directly on concrete. And you got bit. Now is the time to buy plywood and 2 X 4's and create durable shelving. (Caution, if you actually measure today's 2 X 4's, you'll go nuts.) Buy pound bags of dry wall screws and wood glue. Hopefully you already own a rechargeable drill with a Phillips bit, a tape measure, and a skill saw. If you would like detailed plans, write us.

Curtis and I have built free standing racks and racks that are braced against the overhead floor joists. The bottom boxes are 7" off the floor, each shelf is 14" above the shelf below. An 8 x 4 sheet of plywood split, makes 2 -8 X 2' shelves. The racks are five shelves high.

If you mark the legs and shelves in a pattern you'll remember, you can pack the boxes in a pick up, dismantle the shelves, with the battery drill in reverse, and load the shelves on top. When you arrive at the new location, you battery drill the dry wall screws back into the shelves and re-stack the boxes. We needed two pick-ups to move the four legs, five shelves and fifty boxes that fill the shelves. (Last year, we moved A LOT of The Amazing Book- Store's inventory to a new warehouse. Transporting comic books is not for sissies.)

What do you plan to do if the power goes out? Will you mount up and ride a Gilligan's Island bicycle, to power your sump pump? Unfortunately...the time to get a nice gas powered generator was February, 2000.

I hope you bought Harbor Bay dehumidifiers. Ours might not always shut off when the bucket is full, but--knock on wood-- haven't iced up like several other brands.

Why are we so SHELF bound? Our first storefront was built on the same level with the parking lot, so rain came in the front door.