snap judgments

I have worked at a variety of places. From comics stores to video stores to music stores to restaurants to electronics stores…. and I can say with 100% assurity that one place that couples make out the most out of those places?

The comic shop.

Having been at two, I see couples in all the time and, on the average, 7 out of 10 are physically attached to each other in one way, shape or form. Hands around one another, holding hands to drag one another down the aisles like anxious children, sitting at their feet while the other one goes through back issues with a dogged focus, making out in one of the corners of the store, couples love to administer PDA in here. It’s weird… and vaguely uncomfortable.

Are comics romantic? Does the florescent lighting set the mood? Does the smell of back issues just really do it for some people?

On one hand, I could say that the less they are in here to shop, the more affectionate they are. Sometimes I think it’s a comicless girl’s method of shooing the boyfriend out of the store. “Look, honey, hugs and kisses! Pay attention to me so we can leave!” Sometimes I think it’s a territorial thing. “See? I’m not a nerd, I gotta girlfriend!” Most of the time I’m just confused.

A good customer pal of mine and I were talking relationships when she was picking out some trade paperback presents for a new beau and I have to agree with a point most clearly made by her: having common interests in movies or music is one thing and sometimes, general interests can be faked. But the more obscure your passion, the less popular your culture is, if there’s a spark between you over potato clocks or Fraggle Rock or Mr. Spock, something one can give or take…  it’s a beautiful thing.

When looking over the new comics quite a few weeks back, I was surprised to see the latest issue of Astonishing X-Men, like I’d forgotten they were even still in the middle of a story or that the book was even coming out at all. I was even more surprised to find out that I simply could not bring myself to care.

These were the X-Men, classic favorites from my childhood under a celebrated writer and a fantastic artist, so it should have been the time for excitement, joy at least. But actually reaching out to pick up the book was like going against gravity. I felt like I was flipping through the book under orders or because I owed someone a favor.

A lot of people adore this book and consider it a funny and fun take on classic characters; don’t get me wrong, I really want to like the book. Due it it’s lateness and slow, stylized plotting, I can find no reason to feel the same. There is no way that this story is going to change the way I feel about these characters. The plot isn’t going to be necessary for anything ahead. And, to save face, I’m not going to go into my feelings about how Joss Whedon has a hard time going out of his established characterization norm.

There no reason for this bi-whatever book. All the characters are safe at home, involved in new plot that’s integral to the Marvel Universe and/or being a mutant and/or the characters themselves.

Is this just some sort of after effects now embedded into my buying habits from all this mega-event crap? Am I now stuck on ‘So What?’ on every comic I buy because everything Marvel does these days seems somehow connected to a larger story that if we just keep reading, is going to get really really good? I vaguely remembered Iron Fist as a guest star from some book or another in my youth and now I am devouring his new series every chance I get, so I don’t feel hampered by the need to have a big bar across my comics that connects it to a larger whole. Is it the lateness then? Why did even looking at Astonishing X-Men make me groan, as if to say ‘Another one?’