Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Comic fans in a seven-mile radius are despairing, I imagine in boldface speech bubbles or something, because one of the local comic shops is closing. Obviously the best time to show your patronage is during the waning days of a store, so in I went during lunch today.

Holy Daredevil’s cowl was it weird. The store would not release me. I asked a clerk whether they had something somewhere on the shelves, which somehow triggered a detailed grilling of my taste in their wares.

“I’m not really a comics person,” I explained to her. “More of the rube who walks into the comic shop.”

Honesty is not always the best policy, apparently, because this frank admission invited a veritable survey of the fantasy landscape. Wizards, anthropomorphic animals, dystopian futures wrought in daring colors, enough spandex to keep even Richard Simmons happy. For an hour, at least. I kept nodding, because certainly I didn’t want to be a dick and sigh in outright disinterest, when really I was publishing Look at Me Care, Vol. 1, Issue 1 on the mental presses.

What I realized is passion, especially in the context of a hobby, can only be imposed in small doses. This is pretty obvious, right? I’ve enough media in my life right now to engross me thoroughly, and I’m just not ready to explore a world characterized, perhaps unfairly, by trade shows populated with unwashed people.

If I were, say, the proprietor of a Lego store, and you ambled over to me one afternoon, my approach would go something like this.

“Here is a red brick, in case you’re interested,” I’d say, shoving it in your hand. “Take it.”

You’d look at me and indicate further interest.

“And here is a bag of yellow Lego people heads, if you’re into that sort of thing,” I’d finish.

See? Small doses.