Growing up, I got lucky in that I knew someone who knew Steve Geppi founder od Diamond Comics and they got me readdicted to comic books. Geppi’s Comic World by Security Mall was like a candy store and a house of worship. I was a nerd, what can I say. The manager new my by name and he was the single most awesome comic book manager to ever run a store. I say that because I mentioned at one time that I loved Batman and then every time Batman was in something, he made sure I knew about it. When the Killing Joke came out and I called to tell him I wouldn’t be in on Friday, he stuck 6 extra copies in my box. Over the weekend it sold out and when I bought mine on Monday I paid regular price, while people were selling them for $20. So, I learned to expect a lot from my comic shop. I expected the other employees to be nerdy comic book readers and even if they didn’t read something, they would know it. Their staff did, most spending most of their part-time salaries on comic books.
My friend Kevin introduced me to the Big Bang Theory and reintroduced me to Wil Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher. Wil does a webcast called Geek and Sundry where he teaches people to play nerdy games.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMtlQxJeWvc]
I know my wife and I decided to get her something cool for mother’s day and decided on Zombie Dice because my wife would think it was hilarious. So I searched online and then remembered that a local comic shop would have them and I could maybe get a guild comic. So we set off to A1-Comics in Roseville on Mother’s day as a family to see if they had them, I had already told my wife about the quest. We do things like this all the time. Let me give you some background, A1-Comics also has an area for card gaming and it seems that on Sundays the primary crowd are Card Gamers. I have never been able to find someone there who wanted to help me spend money on comic books. I’d enquire and they would point me in that direction. I guess I am just about the sale? I take people to the item, and hand it to them and usually say something positive about it. Force of habit.So after being told they didn’t have them, I asked if they could call the other location only to be informed that the other store didn’t open for half an hour. While waiting I noticed that they had the expansion pack for zombie dice and asked about it.
Meanwhile the other store did have the original in stock. No one said anything about the expansion. Really? So I asked waiting for someone to pickup on it and had to ask if the other store had both. It didn’t. Even though I didn’t buy the item, my years of retail training are strong in this one. I was trying to lead them to sales. I wanted my comic shop to have guys like the one on The Big Bang Theory.
The problem only got worse when we got to the other store. When we walked in they were having a POS issue and could not tender any sales. So I stood there waiting and chit chatting with the employee behind the counter. He new why I was there and that I was spending money. I asked about The Guild spinoff comics and which ones had come out, I had forgotten to look online prior. I was going to spend more money. He said a few and indicated they would be over there somewhere. I had indicated prior that the wife and kids were in the car, we had come from far away to get it. He didn’t take the bait, so I rephrased it again and again. He would not engage me in conversation about it. WTF? Seriously? This is what is wrong with shows like Big Bang Theory mainstreaming Nerdom and Comicon selling out to the trendy. Every nerd at comicon recognized Pedobear for what it was and only the trendy who learned about it after the fact took offense and created a scene. In that instant everything that was comicon ceased to exist. It was either that or when Entourage did Comicon.
There was no reason to make that kind of fuss, as seen above, the nerds took pictures with him. But I digress. This is not the only time this has happened. The end of Kindergarten for my son, I took him there on the first day out of school, there were a bunch of card gamers there. I asked the guy behind the counter about comic books, something appropriate for his age. The kid behind the counter told me he did not read comic books. I tried to stop it, honestly I did. Maybe this is why they treat me this way, but this little voice in my head, it took control of voice box and said ‘How the hell can you work in a fracking comic shop and not read comic books? That’s like a vegetarian butcher. A kosher bacon cheese burger. It makes me wonder if it is a small business or a corporation where they can afford to leave money on the table.
