Trees, Bob, and Gambit’s moist parts.

§ May 27th, 2007 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Trees, Bob, and Gambit’s moist parts.

So last week an old customer of ours, who hadn’t visited the store in a while, dropped off his collection of X-Men-related comics, dating from about ’95 to 2000. He wasn’t looking to sell them…he just asked “hey, you want my old comics? I’ll just give them to you,” and for whatever reason, certainly not because we were in any dire need of yet more comics, I said “sure.”

And there I was, with huge piles of X-books on the counter before me, the Generation Xs and the Mutant Xs and the Uncanny X-Mens, sorting out issues we could actually use, and dividing the rest between a pile destined for the store’s bargain bin, and a pile that I can blow out on the eBay. As I gazed upon this four-color mountain, one thought briefly occurred to me: “Man, I think I would have liked all these comics better as the trees their paper came from.”

And I think that brought me to a new way of reviewing comics.

To wit:

X-Force #5 (1991): Deadpool delivers a couple villains to a mysterious third party; the Blob and the Toad recruit Sauron for their new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants; Cable, Boom Boom, Domino, and Cannonball argue about something-or-other; Warpath runs around in the forest, communing with nature and such because he’s a Native American, you know; Feral flirts with Shatterstar in the Danger Room; and some other stuff happens, but I can’t deal with this comic any longer.

Spruce: Provides shade; wood can be used for a variety of construction purposes; leaves and oils can be used to make spruce beer; one of the major components of paper manufacture; often used as Christmas trees. (source)

WINNER = TREE


So there you go. It’ll catch on like gangbusters, I’m sure. At the very least, we have a new “in” code phrase at the shop now (“Hey, Mike, how’s this comic?” “WINNER = TREE.” “Huh?”).


In other news:

I was flipping through the Overstreet Price Guide and just happened to glance at one of the entries for Detective Comics. For #328, it reads “Death of Alfred; Bob Kane biog, 2 pgs.” Now, with Overstreet’s tiny, tiny print and my aging eyes, I thought for a millisecond there that it read “Bob Kane blog,” and goodness knows what that would have been like. “Dear Blog: Took credit for someone else’s ghost work again today.” ‘Course, the blog probably would have had a ghost writer, too.

Now, a conversation I wish I didn’t have:

Employee Aaron: “Hey, here’s a picture of Gambit holding a playing card in his mouth. So can he charge the card with energy via his mouth and kinda spit it out at someone?”

Me: “So you’re asking me if, say, Gambit’s mouth and/or tongue can funnel energy into something that he can throw at someone else?”

Aaron: “Yes. Can he like, supercharge just his spit, make his spit explos….”

Me: “No. Stop. I’m not thinking any more about Gambit’s mouth.”

Aaron: “But if he….”

Me: “NO.”

This is what happens when there’s no one in the store. It’s sad, really.

Even sadder: it turns out, that given this citation in the Wikipedia article:

“His other tricks have included charging a wad of chewing gum when he was otherwise entirely tied up….

…yes, assuming the wad was in his mouth, Gambit can charge things orally. Good God, what am I writing?

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