Continental Comics

This week, I visited a local comics store called Continental Comics. It was a small store, packed with comics from ceiling to floor, with a narrow but tall room where all the on-sale stuff was housed. My first impression from walking in was a feeling of being cramped. The counter with a clerk was directly in front of my as a stepped into the building. He was friendly, but didn't say much after the initial greeting. He then resumed his conversation with another man, who was organizing a massive heap of merchandise onto shelves behind another counter on the other side of the room. They were talking about some movie, I think, that was going to come out soon. Before seeing any comics, there were casings of action figures and similar items like calenders and other fan-gear throughout the first half of the store. Still no comics in sight.

Once I passed the counters and cases, all the comics were stacked on the wall under categories that were not easy to navigate through. I had a hard time spotting superhero literature except for the characters I already recognized from popular culture. The had the classics in plain sight, such as the Avengers, but did not have a section of Superhero comics that was easy to distinguish. Most comics I saw had character depictions on the covers, but did not overtly announce the genre to which it belonged. I found myself selecting comics in the "new releases" category and sifting through the material. It was not until I had scanned across half of the shelf that I realized I still could not distinguish the superheroes from other comcs.

My solution to this dilemma was to randomly select three issues of newly released floppies and purchase them to read at home. I did not feel comfortable standing in the aisle for more than 15 minutes, because I felt like I was being observed by the clerk. This was probably due to the cramped feeling I had as I first walked in. I quickly picked out my three floppies and headed back to the register.

My encounter with the clerk was very peculiar. One of the comics I had chosen was called "Spawn" and was celebrating its 250th issue since the series began. The clerk assumed I was a regular reader of this series and began discussing things about the characters from that particular issue. Although I had no idea who any of the names were, I was intimidated, and pretended to acknowledge the names he mentioned with frantic nods of approval. I did not want him to know that I had no idea what he was talking about. I was too intimidated to admit that I was only there for a class assignment.

I would like to use the rest of this post as a reference to that specific encounter, because it greatly affected my impression of the comics store overall. First of all, I understand that there would have been no shame in telling the clerk the true motive behind my purchase, and that his reception of that claim would probably have been nonchalant and without judgment. It was the preceding events leading up to this encounter, however, that pushed me to act in that way. The first impression of hearing the men discuss an upcoming movie with which I was unfamiliar and the confusing format of comics organization made me feel like an outsider. I was overwhelmed with the wide selection of comics and the lack of genre identification on the shelves. Sure, it was no big deal to pick up an issue here and there and look through it to figure out the genre. This, however, was no use. I could not figure out the genres for any of the comics I found. This was frustrating. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable, swiftly picking up and putting back comics and realizing that I was acting strange.

As I decided to give up my search for superheroes and just pick up three random series, it was at this point that I noted there was no aspect of the store that was accomodating to new readers. I wanted to find something that reached out to me, but could not find it. This led me to the impression that new readers were not wholly accepted by the store, and that if they found out that I was not a regular comics reader, I would be judged. My fear of being judged caused me to falsly imply to the clerk that I was familiar with what I was buying.