Several years ago, someone interviewed Joe Quesada, then Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, and asked him about the appeal of the medium. He (somewhat infamously) said, "Comics are so addictive. Put bluntly, they're crack for kids."*
And yeah, I know of which he speaks. I was absolutely ADDICTED to comic books in the late eighties and the start of the Nineties, and kept having singing lessons my Junior and Senior year of high school (despite never being a good student) just so I could borrow my mom's car to go to the lesson, and sneak over to the comic store afterward. Every spare dime I had went toward comics, and I still only got about half of what I wanted.**
Anyway, cut to today, when I went to the local comic book shop for the first time in ages (I assumed it had been since 2019 or '20, but the cashier said I'd last made a purchase in 2016). I really just wanted to talk to the employee about comics and collections and his advice about what to do with my old books and hear his stories of widows or grandchildren bringing in their dead loved ones' books and finding out they had something of a goldmine on their hands. I love those kinds of stories (and not to get off on another tangent, I spent an hour listening to a comic seller at a con tell me moving stories of people blindly discovering a book they had would pay off their house and the like, as inspiring as any church sermon).
But the guy had none, and frankly, wanted to do anything other than talk to me. I tried changing the subject to something he MIGHT be more interested in, like old Magic The Gathering cards I had from the Nineties, but he simply didn't need any new friends. I know comic shop proprietors have a reputation of being jag-offs, but this guy wasn't that, he just wanted to be left alone to do his internet searches or look at his phone, and I get that.***
While I was talking to him, a kid (around twelve, I'd say, but prepubescent, so he could have been ten or younger) asked me, "Are you interested in buying comic books?" My initial thought was, "No, I'm here for the filet mignon," but I couldn't say that because I knew I wouldn't be able to spell it in this post. Instead, I said, "Well, yeah. How about you?" I thought maybe the kid would tell me about his favorite characters and the semi-valuable issues he owned, then I could blow him away with having bought the first appearances of Venom, Deadpool, Silver Sable, Jubilee, Bishop, Cable, and the living black Spider-man suit when they were new.
But no, he opened his backpack and said, "I've got some comic books here. Do you want to buy them?" Immediately, the dude behind the counter called over, "Hey, you can't sell stuff in here, you know that."
I told the kid I would look at what he had to offer if he wanted to step out to the sidewalk--and yes, having typed it out, I now realize why the police were called on me. Whoops.****
Anyway, the boy went away, having been chastened by the Comic Book Guy™, and crossed over to the role playing game side of the store, where he started talking to the Mormon missionaries that were playing Magic The Gathering there, about Pokemon cards. This is NOT a lie, and is sort of important to the point of writing this blogpost, okay?
He--the boy--had his eye on some Pokemon cards and while I asked the cashier how much a back issue of Dazzler was (it was early enough that Rogue was still a villain--an era I'm almost completely ignorant of), I could hear him ranking the cards in order of how much he wanted them.
Well, the back issue was surprisingly cheap, and it turns out nobody EVER buys old comics from them, to the point where the Comic Book Guy™ said that if somebody brought in an issue of Fantastic Four #1 to sell to the store, he would tell them to take it elsewhere. (again, he really told me this)
The child was still darting around, hanging close to the rare card case, as though he'd had nothing but sugar packets that day. I asked the cashier, "Is he the son of someone who works here?" and she said, "No, he's just a boy who comes in and buys cards sometimes." No idea why he wasn't in school, but hey, I didn't have a good excuse for not being at work, or why I would be in a comic book store four decades outside of my childhood, so I'm not one to judge.
I paid for my comic and as soon as I stepped away, the boy ran up
to me and said, "Did you want to see my comics?" I said, "Sure, but I
don't want you to get in trouble." He said, "I don't care; I need money for cards," and took out
a stack that ranged from the Eighties to the 2010s. One of them was
Web of Spider-man 29 which, believe it or not, I was never able to
afford when I was a kid. I said to him, as softly as I could, "Would
you take twenty bucks for that one?"*****
He said, "I need money for Pokemon cards. Would you give me thirty for the whole stack?"
I
said, "Yes, but I don't have thirty. You can have what I do have,
though." He said, as though I had argued with him, "Would you give me twenty-five?" And it was weird,
he glanced back, not to see if he was being observed making a n in-store
transaction and breaking the rules, but to see if the Pokemon cards
were still there. "Sure," I said, and gave him twenty-six dollars,
which was all I had. He greedily snatched it away from me, handed over
the books (there were about fifteen in all, probably none of them
valuable, but I'm certain he could have gotten five or six apiece for
half of them), and turned and ran--RAN--to buy those cards, not at all
unlike a junkie on the street.
So, though I am loath to contradict Mr. Quesada, I have to argue that while comic books may be crack for kids, there's something out there that's even worse.
R.B.O.
*To be fair, this quote may be apocryphal. I did do a search on it, and nothing immediately came up. But cards on the table . . . it was a Yahoo! search.
**Now, with hindsight, I wish I had bought extras of the books that
became invaluable afterward, but of course, nobody knew which books
those would be, hence the risk of speculation.
***Right now, I want no one to approach me asking about where to find something in the library, just long enough to finish my blog post.
****That bit is a joke, but not the kind you can freely tell nowadays
(I think I blogged about working on a TV show a decade back when a
little kid and his mom pulled into the lot at the same time and later,
when we were checking in, the boy exclaimed, "Hey, you're that guy from
the parking lot!" The assistant director said, "Say what?" and I kid
you not, the child actor said, "He asked if I wanted to get in his
van." This is not a made up story, and I'm sure I blogged about it, all
those years ago.
*****Not to keep annoying you with these footnotes, but I have no idea what that comic is worth (and I don't even care, really), but I was never able to read that issue as a lad, and the boy was a hustler, which I was also never able to be, then or now. So I either took pity on him, or with three mediocre to fair income streams, I felt like I could toss a bit of cash his way. Also, it was my turn to buy lunch today, but Jeff arrived before me and paid for my meal anyway, so I was streets ahead.
P.S. I did look it up, and the book is utterly worthless. Whoops.
