Comic Book Shops and Temporal Instability
Jan. 2nd, 2018 02:17 pmOver on Twitter, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
afrikate asked me why buying an actual paper comic book was so hard for me. As it happens, I wrote up what it was like the last time time I did it, but then as usual I didn’t post it and it went to join the giant family of unposted things on my hard drive. But I’m posting it now, for two reasons:
A 2015 Adventure
Recently, I went to a comic shop.
Several years ago, I discussed my history of shopping for comics, so I'm not going into all that again. It's enough to say that I did not approach this with enthusiasm or any sense that it would go well. But one of my friends got her hands on the Rivers of London comic, and after she showed me some scans from it, I knew I was going to have to try to find it.
I do know how to shop for comics, so I was in luck there. (Comics industry, possibly think about the fact that to buy your stuff, people have to already know how to buy your stuff.) Like, for example, I knew better than just to head off to a store in naive hope. Instead, I opened up the comic shop locator website. Then I picked up my phone, despite my profound loathing of phones, and started dialing. (Number of things I buy that require multiple phone calls before purchase: …at this point, pretty much just comics and real estate. And when we bought this house I think I made about as many phone calls as I did to find this one comic book.)
Shop #1:
Woman who answered the phone: "We're sold out of #1. We have #2."
Me: "Thank you!"
Hey, I thought as I hung up. Maybe this is going to be easy after all!
Shop #2:
Dude who answered, disdainfully: "We don't carry Titan comics. They're media tie-ins."
Me, in my head: So your shop is entirely free of, say, Star Wars stuff? I bet.
Me, out loud: "Thank you!"
Shop #3:
Dude who answered: "The what now?"
Me: "The Rivers of London comic, published by Titan."
Dude: "…I have no idea. Let me find someone to ask."
[Several minutes pass. I am not put on hold, so I can hear distant voices. One occasionally says "London."]
Dude, returning from his journey: "No, we don't have the London thing."
Me: "Thank you!"
At around this point, I ceased to feel like maybe this would be easy.
Shop #4:
Woman who answered: "You'd better talk to Troy."
Troy: "Oh man, no, I don't have that. But let me give you a phone number. You call this guy, okay? He knows all this stuff. He might have it and if not he can tell you how to get it."
Me: "Okay, thank you!"
Troy: "Definitely call this guy. Are you ready? [Number.]"
Shop (I hope, although to be honest I might have just randomly called a guy on his personal phone; he answered with "Hi") #5:
Guy who knows all this stuff: "Rivers of London, yeah, the miniseries, right? Why do you want it? What did you need? Like, digital, or a studio copy, or for a collection?"
Me, feeling like I have perhaps bitten off more than I can chew: "…I want to read it?"
Him: "Yeah, I get you, you just want the book. I wish I could get it for you but I probably can't. Titan didn't print a lot, the distributors didn't buy a lot, and it's sold out as far as I know. Titan's kind of hard to deal with." [pause while typing occurs] "Yeah, I can't get it. You know what, you should try online. Amazon or eBay. That's your best shot."
[This interests me, because physical bookstore employees are shot dead on the spot if they so much as mention Amazon when talking to you. So either comic shops don't have that policy, or Troy really did give me the phone number of a random comics enthusiast who welcomes phone calls from strangers.]
Me: "I already checked Amazon. They don't have it."
Him: "Wow, really? Uh, you could wait until they publish the collection, usually with Titan I just wait and get the compilation."
Me: "Yeah, but that's not until April 2016." [Of course I checked before I embarked on this odyssey; I don't seek out suffering.]
Him: "Oh, okay, yeah, that's pretty far off. EBay, that's what you need now."
Me: "Thank you!"
Time elapsed: fifteen minutes or so. I then proceeded to eBay, where I bought Rivers of London #1 in under a minute, for approximately twice its cover price. (But it came promptly and with its own bag and board. And it was easy to buy and I didn't have to go to a special store or talk to anyone on the phone. I don't regret the purchase, is what I'm saying.)
But wait, you may be thinking, assuming you've made it this far. Didn't you say you went to a comic book shop? I did! Remember Shop #1, where they had the second one but not the first one? I went there.
I had to bring my son, the earthling, with me. Last time I took him to a comics shop, he was quietly terrified, but he's seven now, so I had faith in his ability to weather the experience.
Comics Shop #1 is close to my house geographically but, it turns out, not temporally. I live in 2015. The shop lives in 1999. It was dark and slightly overwarm, just the way comic shops used to be in the '90s. It was stocked and organized by arcane, secret means, just like in days of yore. It had a lot of irritated handwritten signs up on topics like reading without purchasing; I'm pretty sure I saw those exact signs in a different state in 1999. And you had to know more about comics than I do these days to shop there, or else you had to know exactly what you wanted and ask someone who had been inducted into the Dark Comic Shop Arts.
But! There was a woman working at the counter. (And a black guy patiently flipping through a long box as the only other customer. That was fairly new, too; I don't remember seeing very many people who weren't white at comic shops -- or in comic books -- in the '90s.) And there were no hideously objectifying posters of mostly naked ladies on display. (The last time I went into a comic shop, it had a life-sized Slave Leia, heavily enhanced in the boob region, opposite the front door, so I was very pleased.)
Something I noticed that I wouldn't have before I had a kid: the display facing the door -- what someone would see when they first walked in -- was labeled "ALL AGES COMICS." And someone had made a mostly-successful effort to get all the really kid-unfriendly titles (and breakable items) up above the height of your average seven year old. (The earthling did find one that had a cover that is going to haunt me -- pictures of zombie clowns should be straight-up illegal, folks -- but he was unbothered.) I suspect these people genuinely expect to have small children in their store.
Also of interest to me: there was a display shelf that seemed to be maybe geared towards women and girls. Or it might just have been built around the interests of an employee; the selection, as apparently required by this particular shop, was somewhat idiosyncratic. It had My Little Pony and Nimona and various manga, but also some Avengers and Captain Marvel and something to do with Hawkeye. (If you're wondering how anyone is supposed to find anything in this shop: I have no idea. I spent twenty minutes in there and could find no better method than randomly wandering around and picking stuff up. Nothing was labeled, or alphabetized, or grouped by publisher or common characters. Issues of titles were not near other issues of the same title. And I have no idea what stuff was hiding in the long boxes stored under every shelf. Could've been tentacle beasts in there for all I know.)
The earthling went off to look at Star Wars stuff -- his interests have started to overlap with the average comic book shop customer's -- and I went to inquire about my book.
And they had it. Excitement! Success! Triumph that took only an hour of my time! (This seems like less of a triumph when I think about how it took me an hour to hunt down and purchase a single four-dollar item, so I am in fact choosing not to think about that.) Eventually, I managed to chivvy the earthling out of there, at the cost of a Star Wars comic book that I later read and realized I had to hide from him for a few years. As we left, I asked the woman at the counter if they would reserve a copy of Rivers of London #3 for me. "Okay," she said, and pulled out a scrap of paper, on which she carefully wrote my name and phone number, promising to call me when it was in. And they did in fact call! So I guess the -- um, slip of paper system? -- works.
Conclusions
2018 Coda
I did finish buying the Rivers of London series from that shop. I have not been back since. When I wanted to read Squirrel Girl and Hawkguy last year, I bought them from Comixology. Nice clear beautiful digital copies, right on my tablet, for not much money, and it took me approximately 30 seconds to buy each one. So at some point comic book shops may finally arrive in the present day, and I hope they do, but I won’t be there to notice it.
afrikate asked me why buying an actual paper comic book was so hard for me. As it happens, I wrote up what it was like the last time time I did it, but then as usual I didn’t post it and it went to join the giant family of unposted things on my hard drive. But I’m posting it now, for two reasons:- It would take me all day to explain this in tweets.
- This post is now a time machine! It can take you back to visit the blissful days of 2015, and honestly that is something I dream about these days, so. Time machine post it is! (With a 2018 coda.)
A 2015 Adventure
Recently, I went to a comic shop.
Several years ago, I discussed my history of shopping for comics, so I'm not going into all that again. It's enough to say that I did not approach this with enthusiasm or any sense that it would go well. But one of my friends got her hands on the Rivers of London comic, and after she showed me some scans from it, I knew I was going to have to try to find it.
I do know how to shop for comics, so I was in luck there. (Comics industry, possibly think about the fact that to buy your stuff, people have to already know how to buy your stuff.) Like, for example, I knew better than just to head off to a store in naive hope. Instead, I opened up the comic shop locator website. Then I picked up my phone, despite my profound loathing of phones, and started dialing. (Number of things I buy that require multiple phone calls before purchase: …at this point, pretty much just comics and real estate. And when we bought this house I think I made about as many phone calls as I did to find this one comic book.)
Shop #1:
Woman who answered the phone: "We're sold out of #1. We have #2."
Me: "Thank you!"
Hey, I thought as I hung up. Maybe this is going to be easy after all!
Shop #2:
Dude who answered, disdainfully: "We don't carry Titan comics. They're media tie-ins."
Me, in my head: So your shop is entirely free of, say, Star Wars stuff? I bet.
Me, out loud: "Thank you!"
Shop #3:
Dude who answered: "The what now?"
Me: "The Rivers of London comic, published by Titan."
Dude: "…I have no idea. Let me find someone to ask."
[Several minutes pass. I am not put on hold, so I can hear distant voices. One occasionally says "London."]
Dude, returning from his journey: "No, we don't have the London thing."
Me: "Thank you!"
At around this point, I ceased to feel like maybe this would be easy.
Shop #4:
Woman who answered: "You'd better talk to Troy."
Troy: "Oh man, no, I don't have that. But let me give you a phone number. You call this guy, okay? He knows all this stuff. He might have it and if not he can tell you how to get it."
Me: "Okay, thank you!"
Troy: "Definitely call this guy. Are you ready? [Number.]"
Shop (I hope, although to be honest I might have just randomly called a guy on his personal phone; he answered with "Hi") #5:
Guy who knows all this stuff: "Rivers of London, yeah, the miniseries, right? Why do you want it? What did you need? Like, digital, or a studio copy, or for a collection?"
Me, feeling like I have perhaps bitten off more than I can chew: "…I want to read it?"
Him: "Yeah, I get you, you just want the book. I wish I could get it for you but I probably can't. Titan didn't print a lot, the distributors didn't buy a lot, and it's sold out as far as I know. Titan's kind of hard to deal with." [pause while typing occurs] "Yeah, I can't get it. You know what, you should try online. Amazon or eBay. That's your best shot."
[This interests me, because physical bookstore employees are shot dead on the spot if they so much as mention Amazon when talking to you. So either comic shops don't have that policy, or Troy really did give me the phone number of a random comics enthusiast who welcomes phone calls from strangers.]
Me: "I already checked Amazon. They don't have it."
Him: "Wow, really? Uh, you could wait until they publish the collection, usually with Titan I just wait and get the compilation."
Me: "Yeah, but that's not until April 2016." [Of course I checked before I embarked on this odyssey; I don't seek out suffering.]
Him: "Oh, okay, yeah, that's pretty far off. EBay, that's what you need now."
Me: "Thank you!"
Time elapsed: fifteen minutes or so. I then proceeded to eBay, where I bought Rivers of London #1 in under a minute, for approximately twice its cover price. (But it came promptly and with its own bag and board. And it was easy to buy and I didn't have to go to a special store or talk to anyone on the phone. I don't regret the purchase, is what I'm saying.)
But wait, you may be thinking, assuming you've made it this far. Didn't you say you went to a comic book shop? I did! Remember Shop #1, where they had the second one but not the first one? I went there.
I had to bring my son, the earthling, with me. Last time I took him to a comics shop, he was quietly terrified, but he's seven now, so I had faith in his ability to weather the experience.
Comics Shop #1 is close to my house geographically but, it turns out, not temporally. I live in 2015. The shop lives in 1999. It was dark and slightly overwarm, just the way comic shops used to be in the '90s. It was stocked and organized by arcane, secret means, just like in days of yore. It had a lot of irritated handwritten signs up on topics like reading without purchasing; I'm pretty sure I saw those exact signs in a different state in 1999. And you had to know more about comics than I do these days to shop there, or else you had to know exactly what you wanted and ask someone who had been inducted into the Dark Comic Shop Arts.
But! There was a woman working at the counter. (And a black guy patiently flipping through a long box as the only other customer. That was fairly new, too; I don't remember seeing very many people who weren't white at comic shops -- or in comic books -- in the '90s.) And there were no hideously objectifying posters of mostly naked ladies on display. (The last time I went into a comic shop, it had a life-sized Slave Leia, heavily enhanced in the boob region, opposite the front door, so I was very pleased.)
Something I noticed that I wouldn't have before I had a kid: the display facing the door -- what someone would see when they first walked in -- was labeled "ALL AGES COMICS." And someone had made a mostly-successful effort to get all the really kid-unfriendly titles (and breakable items) up above the height of your average seven year old. (The earthling did find one that had a cover that is going to haunt me -- pictures of zombie clowns should be straight-up illegal, folks -- but he was unbothered.) I suspect these people genuinely expect to have small children in their store.
Also of interest to me: there was a display shelf that seemed to be maybe geared towards women and girls. Or it might just have been built around the interests of an employee; the selection, as apparently required by this particular shop, was somewhat idiosyncratic. It had My Little Pony and Nimona and various manga, but also some Avengers and Captain Marvel and something to do with Hawkeye. (If you're wondering how anyone is supposed to find anything in this shop: I have no idea. I spent twenty minutes in there and could find no better method than randomly wandering around and picking stuff up. Nothing was labeled, or alphabetized, or grouped by publisher or common characters. Issues of titles were not near other issues of the same title. And I have no idea what stuff was hiding in the long boxes stored under every shelf. Could've been tentacle beasts in there for all I know.)
The earthling went off to look at Star Wars stuff -- his interests have started to overlap with the average comic book shop customer's -- and I went to inquire about my book.
And they had it. Excitement! Success! Triumph that took only an hour of my time! (This seems like less of a triumph when I think about how it took me an hour to hunt down and purchase a single four-dollar item, so I am in fact choosing not to think about that.) Eventually, I managed to chivvy the earthling out of there, at the cost of a Star Wars comic book that I later read and realized I had to hide from him for a few years. As we left, I asked the woman at the counter if they would reserve a copy of Rivers of London #3 for me. "Okay," she said, and pulled out a scrap of paper, on which she carefully wrote my name and phone number, promising to call me when it was in. And they did in fact call! So I guess the -- um, slip of paper system? -- works.
Conclusions
- It's always the 1990s in a comics shop. Technology has not really affected them. Yes, I could use a website to get a list of all the comics shops near me, but I still had to pick up the phone and talk to a bunch of them, until I found a shop (or, I greatly fear, just a random person) that could tell me what I needed to know. And none of them had what I wanted; you still can't decide you want a comic book at any time, even weeks, after its release date and be able to count on getting hold of it just by going to a store, even if you, like me, live in a major metropolitan area with dozens of stores nearby. Also, at least one store potentially maintains their customer list on small scraps of paper, which is a truly inexplicable decision on their part. Computers exist, people!
- But it's a better 1990s than it used to be. There are women behind the counter and people of color in the stores. The shop I went to sure wasn't accessible (in any sense of the word -- anyone who uses a mobility aid isn't getting past the front door of that place) or easy to browse in, but it had made a noticeable effort to appeal to customers who were not white men aged 15-22. And, frankly, that's a major improvement. I realize "not actively unwelcoming" is a low bar, but it's one the comics industry didn't pass the last time I tried, so I'll take it.
And, hey, clearly the industry can change. So maybe someday they can figure out how to make buying comics as easy as buying basically anything else at all except certain brands of luxury purses and radioactive materials. I believe in you, comic shops!
2018 Coda
I did finish buying the Rivers of London series from that shop. I have not been back since. When I wanted to read Squirrel Girl and Hawkguy last year, I bought them from Comixology. Nice clear beautiful digital copies, right on my tablet, for not much money, and it took me approximately 30 seconds to buy each one. So at some point comic book shops may finally arrive in the present day, and I hope they do, but I won’t be there to notice it.
