Jennifer de Guzman has a problem. And it's not what she thinks it is. Jennifer's problem is that she's from another planet.
She wonders why women and girls feel "uncomfortable in comic stores. They were stared at, talked down to, and generally treated without respect."
Um, because comic books stores are run by comic book guys. These are aging boys and social outcasts. Yes, that's a stereotype, but even I've been in enough comic book stores to have met my share of surly fanboys who denigrate all forms of intellectual pursuits that do not include a superchick or superdude with heat-vision or adamantium incisors and wrapped in colorful spandex.
This is their world. They are the kings. And we, even though we are there to spend money and keep them in business, are nothing. Less than nothing.
Jennifer asks, "Why are so many direct market comics shops still female unfriendly?" Seriously? Because they are run by dorks. You enter the misfit überden and you expect the Algonquin Round Table?
And don't get me started on your female run comic shop world, "I doubt that my comics shop horror story would have happened in a store where women work or a store that a woman owns, and where it's expected that all customers be treated respectfully."
Yeah, until a man walks in the front door. Try being the lone dude in a store run by two women. I've had college "women" come down on me like a sack of bricks because I approached her for help. Her eyes narrowed and I could almost hear her brainwork something like, "Oh, you think you can have me because you're Gaia's gift to womyn? Well you can't have me because I am strength and power and I make the earth tremble, and you and your phallofascist world will just need to deal with me."
And I said, "Did you just think something really hard because this vein just popped out of your forehead. Do you need a doctor? I was just wondering where you keep Strangers in Paradise."
And yes, of course I'm kidding. Women love me. To death.
So look, if some loser finally saves up enough dough to realize his dream of running a comic book store, why crap all over him if he gets a little excited with a chick wanders in once a month for new comics? He'll argue with his best friend for the next 29 days about that hot chick who came in that one Tuesday and asked for the first Scott Pilgrim and maybe she'll be in again because it's been almost a month. And his friend will say, "Remember what you said when she came in? 'Sure, you can start with volume one, but volume four is when the story really breaks out.' And remember what she said? She said she read them all but she loaned volume one to a friend who lost it. And then you said, 'Only losers lose borrowed books.' And she nodded. She nodded like you were having a conversation. Man, she was hot. She was Barbara Gordon hot. She was Mary Jane Watson hot."
Oh, sorry, what the hell was I saying? That scene hit a little too close to home.
And speaking of Strangers in Paradise, I should get one of these shirts or maybe the coffee mug. God bless Terry Moore.
