Attack of the Miss Marvel Bimbette

I am going to make this long and winded. Because of this woman, I said "Yes" to copious amount of gin to be poured down my throat in a dire attempt to forget such a creature could exist, and exist she did, on what was supposed to be my "ease back into work" day.

Thrusting her folder on the counter, that is, she grasped it and slammed it a few times while aiming it at me, the blond blue eyed girl screeched at me
"Do you have the issue where Captain America got assassinated?"
"No, we have sold out" I said while eyeing the gyrating folder. After a few more slams she opens it, and pulls out a Comic Shop News pamphlet.
"But this says it's in stores now!" she whines.
"Yes but that News is old news...it's sold out now".
"Fine. Show me where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are"
As she walks off, her knobbly thin friend says something to her, but all I hear as I slide out of the counter, is the sound of Herr Starr mumble underneath his breath
"For the love of Frank Zappa...make it stop."

I raise an eyebrow and then my back arches as she screeches "Oh this is a part of me you don't see! I'm a comic book loving girl now and today I'm going to buy my first comic eva!"
My shoulders slump as I show her the TMNT books.
"But these are not in colour, and they aren't moving!" she whimpers.
I quickly put the book back and head back to the counter. Thankfully she spots a Miss Marvel trade and starts squealing "Oh my gosh! It's Miss Marvel! She's so fucking hot!"
I turn to Herr "I'm going to go take a drink of water. At the back. Where the water is."
"You leave this counter and you lose a leg." He says deadpan.

The girl hugs the Miss Marvel trade and trots towards me. At this stage I hand her her folder back since I was serving another customer. She takes it from me, apologises and then says
"Do you have Miss Marvel Year One?"
"Uh, that will be $23.95. Thanks" stuffing the money in the drawer I turn to her "She has no origin story", hopefully she's too stupid to question me.
Damn that Herr Starr.
"There is an Essential Miss Marvel on the Shelf. It's in black and white though," He smirks.
"Nooo...." she pouts and sounters off.
It's my turn to glare at him, but unfortunatly for me, evil is his source of nourishment as his smirk just grows wider.

After listening to her stupid knobbling friend go on and on, about how dweeby comic book "nerds" are, which made me laugh since he looked like an extra on a Christian Rock video, for about ten minutes; I had my head in between my hands and Herr Starr was leaning on the counter, with that glazed look he gets when he is picturing himself committing murder.

"Do you have X-men cards?" The Dweed finally spits at me.
"The trading card flair series...back from the 1990's? All gone. Only have a few left."
"I have 60 of them. Will you buy them off me?"
"No. You can sell them on Ebay for whatever price you want."
"5 bucks a card?" He asks all sly, like a dirty flea infested fox with nothing to lose.
"Sure....why not?"
"I can make $300 bucks! That will get me a Playstation 3!"

I know what else you can get....I glare at him.

"Hey .... what do you know about Miss Marvel?" Says the Bimbette about to bust from her top.
"Not much... except that Rougue took her powers ages ago, and that's why she's so strong and can fly" I sigh.
"Rogue...as in the X-men movies??"
"Well..yeah she's in the comics too"
"She wears green and has a white streak? Halle Berry looks so hot playing her!"

I turn to Herr Starr who starts to softly chuckle to himself.

"Oh look at all these Star Wars cards! God I hate my mother, she was so mean! She never let me watch the movies!" She wails.
"Don't say that in a comic book store! You'll get killed!" says the Dweed, darting his eyes to what can only be imaginary geeks with hatchets circling him.
"You're not missing much" says Herr nonchantly with an cruel smile.
"What are you talking about? Star Wars rocks!" The Dweeb says fist clenching.
"No it doesn't" I say shaking my head slowly.
"Yes it does! Hey do you play Final Fantasy?"
"No"
"That game beats all this nerd crap! - Let's GO."

"I love Miss Marvel!!!!" says the bimbette sighing and touching the cover of her trade.

Gaping Chest

You know, when I come back to work after a very refreshing productive weekend. I do not want to see a middle aged man wearing a Hawaain shirt, gaping open, but carefully buttoned at his waist. Mainly because I do not want to see a xylophone-like chest, so thin you can actually see the heart beating weakly, almost like it doesn't want to work anymore. Like it knows it's not worth it. It's just too fucking depressing.
But that aside, I could've overlooked it. Had he not chosen to talk to me.

"Do you know when the next issue of Heavy Metal is due in?"
"Is it this week?" I ask no-one in particular while looking at the new release list. Yojimbo's ears prick up, and he looks around at the gaping toothy face of the bare chested man I have before me, and his head quickly snaps back to stare at the wall.
"Ah no it's not...sorry, perhaps next week. Just keep your eyes peeled for the next release list" I say dismissively whilst mentally seething at Yojimbo's once again cunning ability to palm off the freaks to me. Silent but efficient. It's his style.
"I'll try...but you know it's the only thing I collect these days...." he trails off looking at me expectantly.
I sigh. Here we go.
"I used to collect all those" he says, waving his hand at all of the Marvel wall. "But I couldn't do it anymore, it was the sudden realisation that I was old that did it."
Sudden? I make a jerking motion with my head that was neither a nod nor a shake of the head. Get the point old man, and for godsake button up your shirt.
"I'm so old".
"Ah.." I say looking around for a distraction.
"One day...I just got old...but I just can't give up Heavy Metal." He looks down at the floor and walks slowly out.

Yojimbo looks at me and says "Thank god I didn't get him"
"Just shut up. I had to look at his NIPPLES for godsake. His NIPPLES."

Totally tame Tuesday

Well, generally Tuesday's are a quiet one here in the depths of hell.

Day was off to a good start until Herr Starr's stalker began doing laps outside the store around 8.55am. What would it be this time? "Hey Starr, you're so cool. Where'd you get your glasses cool dude. I wanna be cool like you so i get the ladies dude", which is pretty much the general jist of conversation once said stalker has tracked down dazed stalkee. Advantage Zatanna! Upon spying me, being a girl and i believe he has mortal fear of women, he shuffled off to return later that morning.

I began my morning routine of checking email and opening up when i am forced to stop and wish death upon all pirates. Why you might ask? Ok, it's early, i am caffeine deprived, email deprived and alone in the store. Who strolls in but abusive pirate guy, resplendant in full head bandana and doused in "eau de pine-o-clean". Did i mention he also reads with his finger. COME ON.....he READS with his FINGER. I haven't seen that since grade school. After mumbling some inaudible crap about the latest Durham Red trade (i typed his random speech into Wikideciphercrazytalk.com) he begins playing, once again, with his belly piercing. At least this time it wasn't removed in full view and put back in again. Is this meant to turn me on?

Pirate guys struts out after Her Starr arrives with coffee and his typical morning snarl and i ponder what today shall bring. A couple of non eventful hours pass and after an old lady at the card counter near shouts at me that she needs some baseball cards for her grandson...."no i DON'T know his favourite player just show me what you have", i decide today is attack of the angry distant family member, begrudgingly forced to buy some kind of present for child/grandchild/boyfriend. This is somewhat reinforced by the middle aged asian lady desperate for "Spida-ma" while making crazy hand gestures that, if i hadn't seen them so many times before, would not equate with "an action figure of this size". Or "doll" as i love them being referred to.

Now it wouldn't be a regular Tuesday without a visit from " The Master", who today seemed none too pleased about the latest Teen Titans issue....a fact he felt necessary to shout at the page. After stifling a giggle i turn to Yojimbo who you should all know ALWAYS plays it cool. He and i began conversing about the 360. Now obviously during my giggle fest i failed to remember one of our top unspoken rules....NEVER talk gaming in front of "The Master". Ears prick up and he starts to shuffle on over whilst i reminisce the golden days of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. Sensing i was in another nostalgia induced high, Yojimbo thankfully had the cunning to pull his "oh god i'm really terrified, he's coming over here face" and blurt out some completely non related gibberish until "The Master" had begun to retreat.

Another crisis averted thanks to his stealthy ninja skills.....which also won him a brand spanking new phone....

One crazy stinky guy with spit in his beard and one random wanting Yojimbo to cash in a scratchy later and it's hometime for me. I bid a hasty adieu and run for the hills.

Kamen Meets Aliens #1

After being attacked by a crazy British man desperate enough for Naruto Voume 12 that he was actually plucking out his hair, I noticed that Kamen was laughing, the kind of laughing that made me wonder if he peed his pants or not.

"What the hell are you laughing at, Hippie?" I ask him as he is doubling over in a fit of giggles.

After he is able to breathe again, he proceeds to tell me that a man wearing a brown shirt came up to the counter, stopped and in a daze like way, started to look around the store.
Prompted by the desire to get rid of him, Kamen asked "Yes? Can I help you?"
The brown shirted man looked at him, widened his eyes, and then with a whole body jerk, barked out "Aliens!"
"I'm sorry?" Kamen replied, surprised, yet curious.
The man turned his head around very slowly, before turning back and making eye contact. Again his whole body gave a convulsive jerk as he spat out: "Aliens! The one that you open up the head and discs come out"
"I'm sorry but we don't have that one....."
The man with the brown shirt let his lower lip pout out, before sighing dejectedly and shuffling out of the store.

"How old was he?" I ask.
"Early thirties I'd say...now excuse me, I have to go change my pants" Kamen said laughing his head off as he opened the storeroom door.

I only work one day a week, and yet I made it to the second post!

Release the Robotic Richard Simmons

I am really unsure about the nature of the comic book aficionado. Sometimes they are eager to please, and don't say much and undoubtedly release the nerd within the privacy of their own homes. Other times they are so ..... strange. And obvious. And sometimes their cliched existence is so expressed in their own words and actions that it leaves NO DOUBT that they are in a world of their own.

Like today.

After lunch I stroll in, sucking down on some poisonous beverage that has enough caffeine to fool me into accepting my 9 hour shift. Only to witness Zatanna rubbing her chin and eyeing the DC section. Usually she eyes the section in a dire hope to catch the eye of a rockabilly DC fan....preferably good looking. Since the idea that any DC fan could be considered good looking is too far fetched....I think nothing of it.

"Hey...check out that guy" She whispers, almost enthralled.
"Which guy?"
"You can't see him because he is bending down with some sort of paper and a bunch of trades on the floor."
"Want me to say something to him?"
"He's been there for hours, and he keeps muttering to himself, while touching every damn trade."
I nod. They all do that at some stage....nothing too out of the ordinary there.

However, she does look slightly worried. Is it because he has a body hugging white shirt on coupled with polyester blue pants?
Zatanna tends not to trust people in skin tight disco clothing.

I walk over to him, fixing the mess he had made in the JLA section."Can I help you?" I tower over him.
Glancing down, I notice that he has a meticulously typed inventory of every comic in his collection, complete with annotations, footnotes, and highlighted exclamation notes that can only be the typographical expressions of a madman. An anal retentive mad-man.
With his hands shaking he says
"I am checking the issued printing of these trade paper backs, to see if I have them or not in that particular print run"
He continues: "I have this in single issues, first run, the issues I'm looking for are not in my runs...I need every printed run..." he trails off and I try to contort my face so my eyes don't widen in horror.
"Do you need any help?" I ask, for the lack of anything else to say.
"I am doing well enough. Thank You"
No. Thank YOU. I walk away and make eye contact with Zatanna. She questions "What's with that guy?"
The man springs up on his feet and makes his way to the manga section where he starts to point at the Battle Angel Alita series set, like some sort of Band Leader without a baton.

I shrug my shoulders and mutter under my breath
" Fuck-ing Fruit Loop".