If you happen to be in Muncie, Indiana, some weekend, stop off at Alter Ego Comics -- the person who rings up your issue of Daredevil might just be the guy who wrote it.

Writer Mark Waid, who sold his print comics collection to fund his digital-comics site Thrillbent, is now a comics retailer: He and his partner Christy Blanch, who taught the MOOC on "Gender Through Comic Books" earlier this year, have each bought shares in Alter Ego Comics from original owner Jason Pierce. Waid, who lives in the Muncie area, refers to Alter Ego as "my store of choice for some time."

"This isn’t a vanity purchase, a symbolic gesture, or a silent partnership," Waid explains at Thrillbent. "Christy, Jason and I are each equal shareholders in Alter Ego Comics. I have skin in the game, and I’m eager to see what there is to learn about the only side of the industry I’ve never involved myself with."

As a champion of digital comics for the past few years, Waid has often joked about incurring the wrath of retailers, so this is quite a twist. But it makes sense: He believes digital and print should work together, and some of that has to happen at the retail level. As he does with his digital comics, he plans to write about his experiences, and since Waid doesn't mind discussing his mistakes as well as his successes, that should make for interesting reading.

And if nothing else, Waid's comic shop just has to be cool. As he himself says, "Even if you don’t want to buy anything, it’s probably worth stopping by just to see all the props and memorabilia I’ve brought from home. Who else do you know who has both a full-size Phantom Zone projector and a scale-model replica of the Batcave?"

With his stake in Alter Ego Comics, Waid joins the ranks of such comics creators-turned-comics retailers as Geoff Johns, and Art Baltazar and Franco.

Look for an interview with Waid this afternoon at Comic Book Resources.