RE: Comics! #45 [Sans Stephen]

Gregg Schigiel: Alright everybody, Stephen’s unavailable for this week’s RE: COMICS discussion, and while I’m confident I could ramble on about something all on my own, that sort of defeats the purpose of the comics conversation aspect. So with great pleasure I am honored to be joined in this week’s talk by none other than Lord Retail himself. I welcome you, Jermaine, to RE: COMICS.

Jermaine Exum: I figured it would just be a skip week, but I'll give it a try.  But I guess my question is who do you want to do this with you?  Jermaine or Lord Retail?  Because in some cases Jermaine will give a different answer than Lord Retail and vice versa.  Mostly kidding, I’ll mix it up to see if anyone is paying attention.  Still there is a lot of pressure here as the new guy.

Gregg: You’ll be FINE! Though it might’ve been a skip week had I not made a special request to have you participate. I’m glad you agreed.

There are a lot of things we could discuss. My initial thought was that we could have a “who’s more of an ‘in my day’ style old man about stuff?” contest. But instead I’ll start by asking this: I assume as the overseer of all things Acme you might check out the ramblings Stephen and I post under the RE: COMICS banner. How are we doing? What do you think we’re doing right or wrong? What would you like to see more or less of?

Jermaine: Hey sometimes things really were better “in my day.”  And to have had “back in the day” to apply to what’s happening today really allows for great and tangible perspective on how things were then and how they are now.  Especially where comics are concerned.   I don’t usually check out RE: Comics the day they go up actually.  I’m on the message board hourly and I have certain work that I do for the website, but I also like to wander onto the site as a customer would and am pleasantly surprised to find new content that I can check out.  I never know what the piece will be about until I’ve read it.  I will admit that I have on a couple of occasions been heard to say “You know people can see that, right?” or “what are you going to do about that?”  But overall it is great to see two people who love comics, but have totally different backgrounds, entry points, and values discuss whatever the topic is.  I think that they could be longer, but that’s just me.  If the subject is something I’m interested in then I can just keep on reading.  I’d like to see more pictures and less typos, but I’m developing this new mindset that says that one or two typos lets me know that an actual person wrote it.  It humanizes things for me.  Unless its “your/ you’re.”  That dehumanizes things for me.

Gregg: Longer?! Wow. Sometimes I wonder who actually reads all of what we write...and I regularly, as I’ve mentioned in other columns, edit stuff and cut back so as to not overdo it.

I try to catch the typos when I can and edit on the fly, and I imagine Stephen does as well, but I’ve found some typos of my own when I scan a piece after it goes up and think, “aw, dang me!”...my preference is to never have a typo as I don’t like them myself.

But you’ve brought something else up, after the introduction, and that’s the distinction between “Jermaine” and “Lord Retail”. Without giving too much away or destroying any established mystique, what separates the two...where does one end and the other begin? Is it an attitude...your hat choice...perhaps you switch up your vocal inflection or put on an accent? Does facial hair have any bearing on it?

And if one exists, what is the origin story of how Jermaine became Lord Retail?

I’ll try not to make this totally an interview-type thing, honest.

Jermaine: Well basically “Lord Retail” is the guy whose job it is to sell comics.  “Jermaine” is the guy who has been reading comics straight on since 1983 and loves them dearly.  Yes, I realize that I put my own name in quotes and could probably edit that in the time it took to type this.  What you get when you put those two things together, you have at  your disposal someone with decades of experience who wants you to get the best possible stories and packages.  Someone whose job is to know what you would like and where you can find it in the store.  Or at least try.  Sometimes when customers ask my opinion I’ll ask them if they want the “company line” where I can point out the positives about whatever it is we’re discussing (Lord Retail) or if they want my personal opinion as a fellow fan.  Sometimes people do opt for the company line which I find very cool.  And other times they want to know what I think as a reader.  Or both, anyone can hear both to get as much data as I have so they can decide what to do.  Which is cool because I appreciate that people trust my judgment.  Because at the end of the day, what else do I really have to know about other than comics?  I don’t know how to help you upload pictures, or change your oil (wait I can do that one), or find the best sushi place in town, but if it’s comics, I’m your guy.  Working on the sushi thing though.

As far as the origin of Lord Retail, I was just thinking about that the other day.  Because I wasn’t always like this.  Those who know me know what that means.  I was always dedicated to comics and as good of service as I could give, but Lord Retail took shape over on Bendis’ Jinxworld message board.  I’d met him at a Wizard Chicago show, wanted to join his message board when I got home, but needed a name.   It just so happened that Greensboro’s own sci-fi author M.A. Foster had just taken to calling me the lord of retail for some reason, later in the same sentence “Lord Retail.”  People call me a lot of different names, but this one really sounded like the one for some reason.  So I started posting over there and I kind of came out guns blazing.  “What you just said is not how that works.  This is a great series and I know you’re not reading it.  This is what needs to happen to make these comics better.”  Not that brusque, but still a lot of people didn’t like what I was saying because here I was some guy shooting from the hip.  And a few really liked what I was saying and began to respect my opinion as someone who’s primary interest was the betterment of the industry and the proliferation of good comics, especially those being overlooked.  Creators took note too, asking me what I thought about things from my vantage point on the other side of the counter, which was scary and amazing.  Years later, here we are.  Most of my day is spent trying to get the best comics into hands, trying to get the books people want into the store, and generally trying to be helpful to the industry in whatever small way I can.  More people know the name Lord Retail, people I’ve never met before as well as people I would prefer not know that name, than know Jermaine.  That’s the power of the internet for ya.  Does Lord Retail have to die for Jermaine to live or can the two coexist peacefully?  The answer changes from day to day.

Gregg: I’m going to function under the assumption that I know Jermaine more than I know Lord Retail, then. You’ll have to let me know if I’ve assumed too much.

In an earlier column I presented to Stephen my “anatomy of a comics fan” theory, where nearly every comic fan is a percentage each of three elements: The collector, The character/story follower, and The fan of the medium. Without re-explaining it too intensely, the first wants the physical object or a complete run or what have you...resistant to format changes, etc. The second wants to know what’s going on, minds continuity more carefully, and wants the version in the comics to be translated “properly” to other media. The fan of the medium likes sequential art and what different people do with it; different styles, genres, formats, etc. I can’t remember how I broke myself down (and I’m too lazy to look it up), but I felt I leaned more, percentage-wise, towards Fan of the Medium and less Collector. Stephen if I recall defined himself as more Collector and Fan of the Medium and less Story Follower. How would you, as Jermaine, break yourself down?

Jermaine: I feel like you’ve maybe seen me weave in and out of Lord Retail/ Jermaine when you’ve seen me talk to customers or people at cons.  Those who have known me for a long time say that it’s something to see.  As far as what kind of collector I am, I feel like I’m a story guy first with collector being the other 50% for me.  I don’t know if I was ever a character follower even as a kid.  I’m there for the story and there is also the prestige of saying, “I got this when it first came out.”  And if it is a series that I really like, say New Avengers for example, then I enjoy the fact that I do have every issue and in some cases all the different covers.  Is that being a completist?  Kind of, sure.  But conversely, and this is something that Stephen and others do not understand about me, if I don’t like the content of an issue, a single issue or an arc, then I purge it.  I am very ok with missing issues out of my collection.  When I look through my Amazing Spider-man comics years from now and see that I don’t have issues #630-633 I will remember that is where the Lizard ate his kid and I thought that wasn’t cool.  And years from now I will continue to think that’s not cool.  Sorry if I spoiled something if you’re behind on your comics.  Generally, I tell people to purchase (and by default) collect what it is you are interested in.  If its worth something later cool, if not, you still have what you like.  And space is a big issue for me so from time to time I will go through my collection and make sure that everything there continues to justify it’s existence.  If not, then I pull it. Usually things make the cut, but sometimes there are “how’d that get in there moments.”

Gregg: And based on that and getting back to sort of where we started, as two dudes who are roughly the same age who’ve been involved, in some capacity, with comics for most of our lives, what would you say is missing now that we had “back then”?

I know for me it’s two things, I think: openness & accessibility to a mass-audience and more recently I’ve been thinking it’d be nice to have comics seen as a disposable, popular entertainment option again (which is part of what interests me when it comes to digital distribution, if I had my druthers). There used to be, at least when I was starting out professionally, an adage that “every comic is somebody’s first”. And I’ve felt that’s been less and less a consideration as the readership/consumer base becomes more and more...I don’t know the word, pre-indoctrinated, maybe?

And if I had a third thing that’s missing it’d be an acceptance and appreciation for the superhero as something perhaps less...mature than people keep trying to make them. It’s probably why I’m so fond of the Batman: The Brave & the Bold series on Cartoon Network, which embraces that (as opposed to the seemingly regular talk of costume functionality like why does Wolverine wear yellow, etc, etc). And that’s admittedly a generalization, because there are still creators and books that “get it”. Just seems like fewer, especially in the books where you’d want that to be the case.

Jermaine: Well this is a big question.  What’s not there now that used to be there?  I’m not entirely sure how to focus and answer that one.  I know I got my start with comics on the newsstand.  I remember getting Transformers #1 and Starriors #1 back in the day out of a 7-11.  And then it progressed from there, wanting to stop in 7-11s to see what they had and so on and so forth.  Summers with my Grandmother getting whichever comics that remained on the stand that I didn’t already have meant trying out new things for me.  By the time I was into Marvel stuff outside of licenses like Transformers and Star Wars, there weren’t really any first issues of anything available.  Everything was in the middle of something and I rolled with it.  Some I was interested in to really continue to the next and others not so much.  Would I have found my way to comics some other way, perhaps later in life, if not for the newsstand?  I think so.  I believe that comics were probably my primary destiny and none of this is an accident.  By the time I was able to go to an actual comic shop, I was pretty deep into comics.  And there was a period of time since I have worked at Acme where we saw no kids in here.  None.  For any number of reasons, some pop cultural as far as the properties not being as visible out in the world like they are now and some reasons closer to come as far as perception in the community.  Now though, we have a ton of kids who know comic books.  The fact that kids can identify Martian Manhunter now as opposed to not having a clue who the green guy was ten years ago is fantastic in a very real way for me.  Some kids, actual kids, even know the Legion of Super-heroes.  The characters are out there in cartoons and games and fortunately, we’re here to bridge that gap.  

I was just saying this earlier today, but I feel like the connection between comic books and non-comic fans is more real, more tangible, than any other time I can remember.  There is now a way to connect fans of Stephen King who have read his novels for years to comic books.  There is about to be a comic book for True Blood.  I’m not a fan of that show, or vampires in general (which is a whole other conversation), but those people who have never picked up a comic book before will see what a comic can do and will see ads for all of IDWs stuff.  They’ll come into the shop and see that there are comics for Doctor Who, that King is doing stories in American Vampire, they’ll see that Watchmen book they saw at their friend’s house that one time, they’ll see there’s a Boondock Saints prequel comic.  They’ll see how much variety there is now.  Even though I don’t personally read or like all of those things, the fact that there is a bridge to the non-lifelong comics reader is not lost on me when I look out into the shop and also listen to what people say who are just browsing or are here with other people who are fans.  That part where I started name dropping series?  That was Lord Retail.

And I cannot comment on Brave and the Bold.  My Batman is from the Animated series.  Which is the equivalent of Neal Adams dark knight detective comics versus Dick Sprang’s Batman wearing a pink costume accepting the key to an alien city for solving the case of the missing Robin.  

Gregg: Batman: The Brave & the Bold gets my highest recommendation...and I loved Batman: The Animated Series. I’m saying there’s room for both. (Also, Adventure Time with Finn & Jake, on Cartoon Network, is super-great entertainment).

You make very good points about there being that connection, at least more than there was after the speculator boom & bust, but I’m struck that there even NEEDS to be a bridge for non-lifelong comics readers. You and I, at young ages, were able to hop on. Maybe we didn’t get EVERYTHING going on, but in each issue there was something we, as new, young, impressionable readers could glom onto.

I talked about this a bit on my own site...and maybe I did it here, too, I can’t remember, but when I was at Marvel we had “Assistant Editor Classes”, where, for us, we’d sit in a room with, at the time, either Chris Claremont or Mark Waid, and talk shop, as it were. One week Waid asked us what it was that drew us to certain comics or characters...what was the appeal. And while some folks answered that they identified with say, Spider-Man or the X-Men because they were geeks or outsiders respectively, I took the position of I liked certain powers, costumes/looks, and took to characters I could pretend to be, whether it was tying a towel on as a cape or using a pot lit to play Captain America. The point being different things bring us into comics and all of those things were there. It seems there’s less of that well-roundedness to the current content.

Before I knew comics as printed materials I knew superheroes from TV shows and cartoons. And when I’d buy the comics, those characters were there...and while different in some respects, there was a tonal continuity, if that makes sense. Superheroes were fighting supervillains. Sure, the comics themselves had more long-term, soap opera type storylines (many of which I paid little attention to), but in each issue I got to see the superhero I was a fan of BE the superhero I was a fan of. I said it to Stephen a few weeks back; if I liked Iron Man 2 and picked up INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #25 I’d be really let down...as a kid or an adult. That comic, THE Iron Man comic, for me, was missing a lot of what makes Iron Man, in movies or in concept, cool or enjoyable.

That’s what I mean, I guess, when I “long” for the days where there was easy-entry; it’d be nice if the material were more digestible. And I’m not suggesting it get dumbed down, not at all. I’ve recently been reading old issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED and BATMAN ADVENTURES, and while people like to laud them for being done-in-ones and such, I’m more impressed with how efficiently the characters are introduced and explained either in dialogue, action, or narration. And these are characters like Fire and Space Cabbie...the Huntress and Creeper. In theory there’s a lot more to know about these characters, for sure, but none of that drags the content of the story at hand down. I say all this as someone interested in capitalizing on this seemingly greater interest in the source material for all these movies and such.

I used this analogy once when explaining to a non-comics reader an experience I was having on X-Babies: In the original script for issue 1 I chose not to show Mojo. I didn’t feel it was relevant to the story at hand that his whereabouts be shown. I thought it was enough to say “there was a guy named Mojo; he’s gone now”. But I was asked to address it and as a result you get page 1 of issue 1 and that’s all we see of Mojo. Anyway, in explaining this situation I said what if NBC decided to spin off Stanley from The Office into his own show...maybe he’s retired or living off a pension and the show’s him trying to find a hobby...I don’t know. I asked, ratings bait notwithstanding, do you need to know who Michael Scott or Dwight are? No. You can just say he worked at a company where the boss was an idiot and now he doesn’t.

The point, and I’m sure I’ve gone off the point by a mile, is that I find a lot of stuff is getting explained and managed instead of stuff happening. And this isn’t a new phenomenon by any means...but I feel like there used to be a better balance; at least in the books I’ve read/been reading.

But I’m not NEARLY as on the pulse of things as you are, not by a long shot.

There’s the generally accepted notion that comics have grown-up with their audience, and I tend to think that hasn’t all been for the best.

You guys do a great job acting as that bridge and creating a community and “safe place” for people to participate. But you must also know how rare a thing that is, what you guys do. There are far more stories of apathetic shops than truly attentive ones. I went into a store recently in South Florida that was one of the more depressing things I’ve seen. Plenty of square footage, most of it taken up by long folding tables and chairs, clearly intended for game play, followed by a row of longboxes, a single shelf of collections, and then a really paltry wall of current to new comics...poorly labeled at that. Just overall a downer of a random comic shop visit. I can’t imagine entering that store green and thinking positive thoughts.

So that said, you guys run a fine store and it’s obvious you and the team there care...and you’ve been nominated now for the second consecutive year for the Eisner Spirit of Comics award. So in your estimation, and this isn’t me saying toot your own horn (though you’re welcome to), what could/should the average comic shop/shop owner do to up their game, ESPECIALLY when looming over the industry in total is the notion of digital content and readers and that kind of thing?

Jermaine: Wow.  Ok.  Back to the first thing, I don’t really think that I had an entry point to anything.  Back in the day I rarely was able to get my hands on a first issue of anything.  I happened to be at the right place and right time to get Transformers #1.  I’m trying to think what the next #1 issue I was actually able to get, other than Starriors #1, and it was probably Spider-Man #1.  Think about that for a second compared to the accessibility of first issues now as well as the availability of trade paperbacks.  With various reprints, in most cases, you almost have to work to miss a first issue now.  And with trades and/ or hardcovers making it so easy to start almost any series at a designated entry point or the actual entry point, you can get into almost anything.  I never had Ghost Rider #1 from the 90s and still don’t.  I think my first issue of that was maybe #5.  I never got every part of Atlantis Attacks and I never got all the parts of Inferno, although I was doing that one via back issues.  And when I saw all the parts of Inferno I don’t mean all the tie-ins, I mean the X-men parts where the core story was.  To this day I don’t have those.  And now that I think of it, I think that Maximum Carnage was the first sequential series that I was able to get all the installments for.  How’s that for depressing?  I don’t think I ever got all the part of Operation Galactic Storm either because even then there was something odd about that one to me.  I used to say that I always got parts three, seven, and nine of any nine part series.  Kind of kidding, kind of true.

Also, I think that we as modern men underestimate the level of competition comic books had/ have among younger readers.  We didn’t have quite the level of video games that kids today have to distract them.  There really was a time when I never saw kids in the shop.  But now I think that although the same distractions are there, some of them now have a link to comic book characters.  There’s been a whole series of escalating video games from X-men Legends to Ultimate Alliance 2 that not only showcase characters, but are packed with trivia.  And that leads to the concepts getting a foothold out in the world before a kid makes the trip to the shop. 

Movies help to generate awareness too, but do the comics have to be exactly like the movies?  I don’t think so.  Most movies are able to cherrypick decades of the best concepts to present to people for a little over two hours of entertainment, while most sequential comics can’t do that.  They’re moving forward, trying to be accessible to new readers with every issue or at designated entry points like the Heroic Age, all while not doing anything to displace longtime readers.  Which is a real challenge.  I feel like Iron Man #25 had elements that someone who just watched the movie could grab onto like Stark trying to get a giant idea off the ground and someone else trying to offer the world a “better” alternative to Iron Man/ Stark technology.  But, the story didn’t necessarily slow things down for me who has been with the series for the previous twenty four issues.  So it was fine to me, but I live in a glass house deep within a forest that I can’t see because there’s trees everywhere.

I won’t presume to say what other shops should do.  That’s just not for me to say.  What I will say is that to me, all the same principles that apply any other retail business, should apply to comic shops too.  Whether they say it or not, I feel like the customers believe that the same principles should apply.  But speaking of principles of retail, I can officially say that there has been some bizarre shift in the process lately.  Sometimes I will greet customers and they don’t say anything back.  Or I will ask if someone needs help finding anything and I get the same responds as if I’d said nothing at all.  Do I take that personal?  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take it personal because it’s happening to me personally.  But taking it another step further, as we must do to know why things are as they are, I began to notice that when I’m out in the world in stores, I am rarely greeted and rarely does anyone ask if I need any kind of assistance.  And I can’t remember the last time anyone sold me anything.  Let me qualify that.  I pick something out and someone takes my money for it, but that’s not the same thing as someone who knows what it is they have in their store/ department inquiring about what it is I’d like to see and then telling me what all is out there.  The great American salesman may no longer exist and maybe that is why I get some of the reactions I do.  Sometimes a customer, and none of what I’m saying really applies to regular customers who I know by name, will ask where something is and when they see me get out of the chair behind the counter they’ll say “You don’t have to get up, you can just tell me where it is.”  But to me, and sometimes I’ll say this, it’s my job to get up and show you to the thing you asked about.  And if I don’t know the answer to a question, which can be frequent, it is also my job to find out whatever I can to answer the question.  If it requires me to do an online search, or send an email to a sales representative, or whatever that’s what I do.  Because I hate having to say that I don’t know something and just leaving it at that.  I’ve never taken any business classes beyond whatever I would have had being a part of Grimsley High School’s graduating class of ‘94 and everything I’ve learned I learned through my previous job and years of trial and lots of errors with my comics career.  And from having been a customer at lots of different stores, not just comic shops.  I’m still learning new things between the hours of 10am and 7pm and I try to be a good example for the our staff in all of it’s forms and be a good ambassador of comic books to whoever walks through the door.  Now was that Jermaine or Lord Retail?  I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Gregg: Service, baby, that’s what it’s all about. I get it, man, and I dig it. That level of service and attention and care is what’s led to my experience with the Greensboro Cape Crisis event or even my last attendance at Heroes Con, and that’s the community surrounding Acme. The efforts you put into Free Comic Book Day...the fact that in the heat of a May day folks will voluntarily put on full-body costumes to participate...that’s something special. The message board you guys have is another example, and as we’ve discussed offline, you’re very involved with that, covering all kinds of bases as a salesman, ambassador, and fan/reader. It’s a commitment you don’t see much, in comics or anywhere else. And while you won’t say it, I’ll say it: a lot of other stores could learn a thing or two about it. Maybe there’s something in the air or water down in NC, because it appears Shelton Drum in Charlotte with Heroes has a similar kind of energy to comics and service and ambassadorship, etc.

As for the comics stuff, number one issues, while typically THE place to start back in the day, didn’t have to be, as you clearly pointed out. I mean, I didn’t start reading BATMAN from issue one...and when I did start reading comics there wasn’t even the mini-series within a series thing that sort of started in the late ‘80s with things like “Year One” and “Ten Nights of the Beast” and such. When I read POWER PACK it was a story within a larger tapestry and mythology,  but in each issue I got what my old boss Tom Brevoort would call “a satisfying chunk”. When I talk about inaccessibility these days I’m generally thinking of the nature of the storytelling...the decompression...and perceived value/opportunity cost. While I think the profile of comics and comics characters might be higher than it’s been in a long time, at least since the late ‘80s/early ‘90s (Batman, TMNT, the pre-speculator crash years), I wonder if the perception still exists, by lay people, that comics are cheap, all-ages, colorful things that have been “updated” for the movies like so many other adaptations of old TV shows and movie remakes often are.

The fact is, if you’ll allow the cliche, that change is the only constant, right? And over the past several years I’ve found the changes in mainstream comics have been towards decompression and, from my point of view in superhero comics, more stuff I’m not as fond of. On the flip side, to your point, BEYOND mainstream comics, there’s been more and more of good and bad. Things like Scott Pilgrim and Walking Dead (going further back we can talk about Hellboy, etc.)...or the recent renewed interest and success of WATCHMEN...I’d call those positives. Also, Scholastic, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and other non-comics publishers getting into the sequential art game..to me that’s an even a bigger deal and is a good thing for the medium of comics. And I feel compelled to make the distinction between comics and superheroes...

...but I think they’re connected. Comics and superheroes still, for better or worse, go hand-in-hand. And as the profile of the medium rises and gets recognition, it shines the light on everything else. If the content doesn’t live up, then it’s like cutting off ones nose to spite their face in a way.

But it all comes down, as yet another cliche enters the fray, to a matter of personal taste. And as I’ve pointed out a number of times, there’s still no widespread, legitimate research outside of all of our own individual experience and observation, from which to glean who, how, and why people buy comics...what they bought...and what they thought/felt about it.

I guess all we can do as middle-agers (despite us sounding sometimes like crabby old dudes, we really are middle-aged, I’d say, in comics-fandom-years) is hang on and embrace the stuff we like and take a pass on the stuff we don’t. And one thing we can say pretty confidently is that there’s enough stuff out there that we CAN make those kinds of distinctions and choices. Of course, occupational hazard being what it is, we sort of have to pay attention to it all, right?

Jermaine: See, I always did disagree with how you guys defined and recognized decompression in one of the earlier RE: Comics.  I feel like when you say decompression that is synonymous with stretching something that is, for example, four issues of content over six issues.  “This is too concentrated, you gotta decompress this thing and stretch it out some.”  Which does happen of course, but it is not necessarily something that is a given with any story arc.  And honestly, with some of the more popular television shows delivering their seasons as they do, I’m not sure if serialized issues building an arc or season isn’t too alien of a concept anymore.  And decompression at it’s worst in issue for is often neutralized when the material is digested in a trade paperback or hardcover.

I think that the perception about comics has changed, at least here in Greensboro.  I get a lot less “They still make funny books?” than I once did.  And I feel like most parents are happy that their kids are reading.  That they’re excited to read at a young age.  And the fact that we’ve been open for so many consecutive years, which is something for any business, kind of let’s people know that there is something relevant about comic books right out of the gate.  I see a lot of sharing of comics among friends as in “My friend got me started on Walking Dead, I need to pick up where I left off.”  That’s always been the case, but now it seems much more prevalent.  And just as I’ve seen kids return to comics, I’ve also seen the number of women readers increase in my time.  So the perception that comics are only for kids and also a boys club is changing, but the change doesn’t happen in a vacuum though.  We, as a store, have to take an active hand in how all this is perceived by the man/ woman-off-the-street.

And just like anything else that entertains and distracts us, we do have to keep a hand on the steering wheel.  For music, movies, television shows, and of course comics.  There’s a few series that I am there for regardless, I mainly follow creators, but not exclusively.  Sometimes I’m there to see the character and am exposed to new creative teams that I have grown to like.  I do have the luxury of being able to check out whatever I want, but on the one hand I kind of have to try my best to know what all is going on in the things we have in the shop.  But on the other hand, I don’t lean on people for checking out the comics.  With all the reprints and variants and cover art not being what the interior art is, you have to check the books out to make sure they’re what you want to see.  So I only shake down weekly readers, guys who read books cover to cover, give verbal commentary on the contents, then leave until they do it again the following week.  Thankfully there’s actually none of that happening right now. Sometimes I miss out on things myself though.  I missed out on the first few issues of Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man, sorry Matt but I didn’t know what you were going to be doing or if it would be real until the end of the arc.  And I almost missed out on Parker’s Heroic Age Thunderbolts because the book had been wobbly for so long and the new cast seemed so weird.  So we all have to make sure that we have both hands on the wheel and we’re in the right places.  The information is there in multiple sources in print (Comic Shop News free magazine), online, and anyone can ask us what we know about what is to come.  We’re a full disclosure kinda store, if you ask.

Gregg: And with that, while we can go on probably forever, it’s entirely possible we’ve exhausted you, the reader. So thanks, Jermaine/Lord Retail, for joining me in the RE:COMICS sandbox. I know you’re a busy fella, perhaps busier still without your major domo around, so we appreciate you coming along for the ride. Hopefully it wasn’t too harrowing a journey for ya.

Jermaine: Hey, I was glad to do this Gregg.  I see first hand how much work goes into putting this together and I’m definitely ready for the Acmecast Podcast now.  This was a lot of typing and a lot of typos on my part.

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller, writer and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon. In addition, he’s in various stages of cooking up new comics-related works…unless he’s too preoccupied actually cooking. Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com. 

Jermaine Exum makes his mama proud by just being himself =)