snap judgments

So, thanks to Avengers: Initiative, we have one more capped kid to add to the ranks of children who have died to make sure the reader knows this book means business.

I had two customers come in within days of each other ready to pull Marvel from their pulls.

Walk-in folk have shaken their heads at the second printing of Captain America #25, both in disappointment that they would do something as media blitzing as throw his dead body on a cover like that and in absolute disbelief that people are actually buying the fact he’s ‘really’ dead.

Today, someone told me they can get into a summer mega event, just not one after another after another like this.  Another customer admitted they just can’t enjoy the Marvel Universe like they used to because of the dark political themes that are inescapable.  What happened to the fact Quesada once believed that Spider-Man should remain accessible to all readers, not just the ones who want to see him out for blood?

Am I talking this too personally?  Is this just funny books and should I just sit down because, hey, people are buying them right?  Why is this getting me down?
Mr. Keeper stopped me in my tracks this evening, as he was stopped in his tracks by Mr. Sanders.  I do my best to remain objective as… well, I have to.  It’s my job and who wants to go into a comic shop and hear the clerk tell you about how much everything sucks?  I save that dubious title for things that I cannot bring myself to sell to people (reprints disguised as new material to long-time readers, newer Supergirl issues to moms, ridiculously priced alternate covers to non-collectors, etc.) and the internet (ha ha), but on the whole, I cannot bad mouth product in my store.  If someone asks me how Planet Hulk is, I’ll tell them about what other people think rather than my personal views on the lack of the human element in Bruce Banner.  If someone asks me about Civil War, I’ll take a page from Quesada and say how much it’s changing the very idea of what a ‘superhero’ really is.
And sometimes, that will work.  Just a little more info on a title will make me that sale and someone will walk away with a trade paperback of Spider-Woman: Origin because the Luna Brothers artwork is pretty keen and Bendis is reinventing the character for the new Marvel age.  So what if I didn’t like it; I’m not the market majority and one fan’s trash is another fan’s treasure.   Like Mr. Keeper says in a more eloquent fashion than I, it’s good to remain objective.
Then again… the salesman with enthusiasm and a honest enjoyment for what they’re selling makes the sale, for lack of a better term.  If you can make that connection with the reader/customer/etc, they will come back for more and you’ll actually feel good about it rather than watching them go out the door with that ‘Well, hope that worked’ feeling.  One of my best pitches is the Jenkins/Lee trade, Inhumans, because I love that book with a fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.  If the store were to catch fire, I would save that book first.  Then the registers.  Maybe the computer.  Possibly myself.  (And Bruce Jones’s run on the Incredible Hulk in my hands like the pet store snakes in Pee-Wee’s in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure)  I know that book backwards and forwards and if there’s a chance the customer may dig it, I’ll make sure sing it’s praises in hopes of a sale.
Look up sell in the dictionary and ignore the bits about betrayal, cheating and foolishness (yikes!) and you’ll get to this:

5 a : to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of : gain acceptance for [trying to sell a program to the Congress] b : to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something [sell children on reading]

I love 5a.  5b is great for sales.  So maybe, hope of that sale is okay.  “Fanboy Privilege” can be used for good.

Sure helps me sell that Inhumas trade.