​Comic collectors have, for decades, laughed at all those jamokes who were holding on to their Spawn comics, thinking they'd be worth money. But now that there's a toilet paper shortage, Who Is Laughing Now?

Random Loiterer #1: "Oh, cool. Spider-Man."

Random Loiterer #2: "Yea, that one has Tarantula in it."

RL 1 throws the book to the floor. "AHHH! Why?"

RL 2: "It's a Spider-Man book, and Tarantula is a Spider-Man villain."

RL 1: "OH! I thought you said it has TARANTULAS in it. Like free with purchase or something."

​RL 2: "You have to be my stupidest friend."

After about fifteen minutes of perfectly reasonable discussions about collectible comics, a Perfectly Nice Guy says "Hey, I was in a store the other day and I saw this Deadpool issue with two girls on the cover that I wanted. Do you know the one I'm talking about?"

Me: "No. Who were the two female characters?"

PNG: "They weren't specifically Marvel characters, it's just two generic women, and Deadpool is giving the peace sign."

Me: "Nope."

PNG swipes on his phone. "Oh, here it is. Sorry, it's a variant cover for Seige #3."

Coworker: "I don't remember that one."

Me: "Because you never had it. In order to get it, you had to destroy fifty copies of DC's Blackest Night and send it to Marvel."

CW: "You're joking."

Me: "I'm not. I had to go through four different stores to find enough issues to send back for a former employer. I think we ended up with three of those variants. They sold for about $500 apiece, I think."

PNG: "No. It was cover price."

Me: "You should have grabbed it then."

CW logs into Ebay. "Wow. Someone sold one last month for $3,000. There isn't a single sale under $1800 since...I don't know."

PNG: "Who would pay that much for one issue?"

Me: "Not very many people. It's also an almost unmemorably Bad issue, which is probably why they had to do the silly Deadpool publicity stunt."

PNG: "Can you get a copy for me?"

Me: "Do you have three thousand dollars to spend?"

PNG: "No."

​Me: "Then...no."

A man walks in with aroma of retired debate club arrogance. He walks over to the back issues, side stepping the CLOSED sign blocking the only reasonable path.

"Sorry," I say, "that section is closed."

"Oh, no. Really? Why?"

"I'm putting away this week's books." I say.

"That's okay. I want to look at your Iron Man and Captain Americas." which are the comics behind me when I work at the computer, in the open portion of the store.

"Sure." I say, handing him the stack.

"Are these prices firm?" He asks. "I like to haggle."

"They are." I say. "You can discuss prices with the owner but he prices them at the lower end of the spectrum because, like me, he doesn't like to haggle."

"You can't knock off, like," he swats at the book, not in a damaging way, "five bucks on this."

"Nope They're not my books to knock money off of."

He makes a face. "See, I go on Ebay, and I see these books starting at ninety-nine cents."

I make a face. "They're probably reprints. This is a fifty year old book. I can't imagine they'd start the bidding at under twenty bucks."

"They go up to eighty or ninety before I give up. I don't have that kind of money for a comic. I read them for the-- mind if I open this?" he asks.

"Go ahead."

"I read them for the stories. I'm not one of those.." he pulls the comic out of the bag, flips it open to a page, and sticks his nose All The Way In to the binding, loudly sniffing "people who buy the books for the money, I" flips to another page, sticks his nose in, and sniffs loudly "I like them for the stories."

Today is never going to end.

"Have you considered getting the collections, then? They're sturdier, you get more story."

He stops mid-sniff to shake his head disapprovingly at me.

"You kids" I'm a kid now! "trying to tell me how to collect things. I've been collecting since I was a kid" back before humans knew how to control fire, back when they viewed women as property and not people, so you know, any point in history up to this point, "I know more about collecting than you" who work in a store that specializes in the thing that I collect "could ever know. Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffff."

"Uh-huh."

"See this one has a tear, so you should knock off a few bucks. That's how they do it on EBay. But I don't like to order from there, you never know when they smell like mildew."

"True." I say. "The thing is, the owner *has* knocked off a few bucks. He's a certified expert on grading comics. I'm not. It's why I don't haggle. But he's been working for this store for almost as long as I've been alive. And he's owned it for over twenty years."

"The Black guy?" he, of course, asks.

"One of them." I say.

"Glasses and a paunch?"

I inhale. But not deeply. Not like I'm sniffing for mildew. "Sure. So he knows all about pricing. He's one of the foremost experts in the country." This might be hyperbole. Who can quantify that skill?

"This one has a little tear in the corner, though."

I nod my head. "I know. He knows, too. If it didn't have the little tear, it would be more expensive."

"I think I could find this for ninety-nine cents on EBay."

"Then you should get it there." I say, reaching for the pile.

He says, "You're a tough negotiator."

"I'm not, though. I don't have the authority to negotiate, as these aren't my books, and this is not my store."

He pulls one of the issues back. "Alright. I'll get this one."

"That's twenty dollars, please."

He gives me a twenty that smells of mildew enough that I don't have to put it up to my nose.

"Can I have a bag?"

"Sure thing." I say. "But I have to charge you for it. It's Cambridge law."

"Oh yea. I keep forgetting that. It's a dime, right?"

​"It starts at a dime." I explicitly lie. "But can go up to about three dollars depending on the quality of the bag. Ours are a quarter." you asshole.

An Erudite Man enters the store. "Well, isn't this just perfection. You work here, correct?"

Me: "Yes."

EM: "My daughter is a graphic novelist."


Not Yet A Graphic Novelist: "No. No. I'm a children's author who is thinking of getting into graphic novels."

EM: "Yes. Well." He gives me the eyeroll. "If, let's say, I was a person who read real literature and thought graphic novels were just a failed rebranding of comic books to intimidate adults into foolishly investing their money in comics until they died. What would you say to me?"

Fuck you?

Me: "I would say you sounded so convinced in your argument that it would be a waste of my time to try and convince you otherwise."

EM: "Oh, I like you."

Me: "Thanks."

EM: "Gun to your head, what's the best graphic novel in the store."

I look to my left.

Me: "Daytripper. It's a book by two Brazilian twin brothers. I don't want to spoil the joy of reading it, so I'll just say that it's a story about family focusing on a young man whose father is a famous novelist, but he writes obituaries and is trying to find his voice as a writer."

NYAGN: "Oh wow."

EM: "That was spectacular. I grew up in Brazil, where I was a journalist in a newspaper. I didn't write the obituaries, but one of my mates did."

NYAGN flips through the book. "I'l definitely be getting this."

We discuss different art styles, what she's looking for, and she mentions that she's in town to have a surprise conversation with an author she particularly likes, who happens to be a subscriber at our store.

EM: "You seem very well informed. About comics and literature. Do you know anything about poetry."

This is not going to end well.

Me: "Yes, I have spent a great deal of time working in the Cambridge area poetry scene."

EM: "Do you know" name I've never heard of.

Me: "No." I look up the name on the computer. "They are quite dead. And have been since before I moved here."

EM: "Gun to your head. Favorite living American poet."

Me: "Patricia Smith."

EM: "I've never heard of her."

I give him a quick rundown, and tell him to start with Blood Dazzler.

EM: "Do you know Sharon Olds?"

Me: "Not personally, but I love her work, and saw her read once, many years ago."

EM: "Seamus Heaney."

Me: "I'm familiar with him, but I don't know him. He wasn't precisely local."

EM: "Of course, of course."

I return to talking with NYAGN about her influences, and different graphic novel categories.

EM approaches me with a book. The Cantab Anthology, which sits on the front counter.

EM: "Are you Adam Stone?"

Me: "I am."

EM: "I read one of the Patricia Smith poems, and then one of yours. What makes this poetry and not prose?"

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Me: "A local legend name Jack McCarthy once said that if you wrote or performed something that everyone agreed was poetry, then anything you write thereafter can be considered poetry." (I'm aware this is not the precise quote.)

EM: "But this is just formatting, then. And repetition. Hemingway used repetition. Would you call that poetry?"

Me: "I'm not a big Hemingway fan, so no."

EM: "So how is this" yeup "Drunken Conversations At Hampshire College poetry, and not just prose with line breaks?"

NYAGN: "What classifies anything in the 21st century? Do you have anything from the mid-seventies? That's when I'm setting the book, so I'm curious as to what comics looked like in that era." She says, saving her father from violent stink eye.

We continue talking about 70s art, and a Very Drunk Cantabrigian comes in.

EM, to me: "Is there a second hand clothing store nearby?"

Me: "The best option in Cambridge is The Garment District."

Very Drunk Cantabrigian: "And how."

EM: "How would we get there?"

VDG: "Take the fucken bus."

EM: "Um. Yes. Is there another way?"

VDG: "You could drive, but parking sucks."

EM: "That's fine, we haven't got a car. Could we walk?"

VDG: "Hoooooo. Could you walk? Can you?"

While VDG gives Horrible Directions, NYAGN and I talk about shipping comics to the UK. She ends up buying "Daytripper" and Guy Delisle's "Pyongyang". She and her father leave, taking down my info.

VDG: "I want a copy of the In The Wind 40th Anniversary Edition."

Me: "I don't know what that is."

VDG: "This isn't a place I could get it."

Me: "Ok."

VDG: "It's a motorcycle magazine."

Me: "Ah. Yea, we don't have that."

VDG: "I know. I know. But where would I get it."

Me: "The Coop is the most likely place to have it."

VDG: "Of course! My mother used to work there fifty years ago. 'Til the towers went down. Then she started making butter soup and she sold my house to the communists."

Me: "Ah."

VDG: "Right on the coast of Oregon, they got her to give half the house to the city to secure her legacy. And then Helen....you know Helen?"

Me: "No."

VDG: "Sure you do. She works over at...over at...uhh...Charlie's."

Me: "Oh sure, Helen." No idea.

VDG: "She kicks me out all the time. I don't think she knows that Cheny was behind the towers. People blaming Bush. Barabara was a lovely woman. I never met her, but what a lady. If any of those boys ever did wrong. KRAK! Melania, if Trump ever goes nuts..."

Me: "If."

VDG: "Think she'd...KRAK!...him? Helen never hit me or nothing, but you know."

Me: "Sure."

VDG: "They called Barbara The Iron Lady."

Me: "Good old Barbara Thatcher."

VDG: "Get those communists....KRAK!"

Me: "Indeed. Well, I've got to close the store for my lunch hour. You should get to the Coop to get your magazine."

VDG: "What? Oh! The Coop. My mother used to work there."

Me: "Yeup."

VDG: "But rent got so expensive."

Me: "Uh huh. See you later."

​VDG: "I'm always getting kicked out of places. Thanks for not using your foot."

One of my favorite customers came in, and we were talking about wordless comic books, his problems with Marvel (not right wing ranting, just "I am tired of characters coming back from the dead." Which is a legit stance), why he loves Valiant comics, etc.

In the middle of a conversation about Chris Claremont, his phone rang.

Favorite Customer: "Yea. Yea. I'm in the comic book store. Ok. Wait. Say that again? What? How would I even do that? Think. Think for a second. How would I have driven Both Cars to the comic store? Do I drive one a block, get out, and then drive the other one two blocks, then get out and get the other car, and drive that one two blocks? It doesn't even make sense." He then took his phone out of the store to continue the conversation.

But now I have new rubrics for selfish people, and for climate change deniers.

​"Man, that guy hates the environment so much, he drives TWO cars to work."

While my coworker gets to deal with the very nice botanist looking for comics involving plants, her...partner?..sidekick?..antagonistic wingman? comes to the counter and pretends to steal the sandwich I'm eating for lunch.

Fuckhead: "You've been working in comics for a long time, huh?"

Me: "Sure."
​
FH: "What do you think about how Marvel is destroying comics with leftist politics?"

Me: "By destroying, you mean increasing sales and bringing more people into comics?"

FH: "Sure, sales, fine, whatever. But you're a purist like me, right?"

Me: "You want to keep reading the same stories with the same characters who never change over and over for forty years?"

FH: "No, but just making a character a woman or whatever" Reminder: 'or whatever' is a reference to when Captain America was Sam Wilson, who is Black, that is literally always what ugly ass middle age white guys with bad haircuts mean when they say 'or whatever', so if you ever hear an ugly ass middle age white guy say 'or whatever', kick him in the dick until he can't rape-roduce again. "it doesn't make the stories interesting, you know?"

Me: "Jason Aaron has been writing Thor for about a decade now. He wrote some kind of okay stories about Odinson Thor, but the most interesting part of his run was when Jane Foster became Thor. She was battling cancer, and every time she picked up the hammer and became Thor, it undid all of her chemotherapy. Eventually, it killed her, and now Odinson is Thor again."

FH: "That sounds really creative. But I see a lot of stories on websites about..."

Me: "Every person who writes articles about how diversity is ruining comics is too fucken stupid to think critically. Marvel has been 'pushing leftist politics' since they introduced the X-Men in 1963, since Steve Rogers punched Hitler in 1941. People who write about leftist politics destroying comics are moronic trolls with zero friends, and no concept of history. They don't read the books they bash, they just reminisce about how they imagined things were when they were kids and still had hopes that anyone would ever find them lovable. But those people don't have friends, and no matter how much money they spend on comics, no comic book store employee has ever liked them or wanted them in their store."

FH: "That's interesting. I guess I'll let you get back to eating your lunch."

Me: "Thanks."

Regular Customer: "One trope I've never understood is useless, young sidekicks. Jimmy Olson...Rick James..."

Me: "Rick James?"

RC: "The kid who helped out The Hulk."

​Me: "Rick JONES. But now that I think about it, 'Gamma radiation is a hell of a drug.' is a great catchphrase. I would definitely read that book."