from Ideal #4 (January 1949)

EDIT:Bully is also a fighter!

Just a few days ago, I mentioned that internet pal Andrew, who puts out some of the best comics ‘n’ music commentary I’ve ever read over on Armagideon Time, had just started Pronounced Woo-bin, a site in celebration of the Bostonian accent. Each post features a short recording by Andrew his own self, reading poetry, reciting common phrases used by inhabitants of far-flung Bostonia, what have you.

The man also takes requests, and when I asked if he could do me the great favor of applying his wonderful accent to one of my all-time favorite “read it aloud for maximum impact” comic books, he was enough of a gentleman to agree.

So without further ado, to-do, or hoohar, I present Andrew and one of the best-selling comics of the 1990s.

Sluggo gets the ladies:

• Chris Sims presents a new chapter in the Solomon Stone saga. A laugh in every line!
• Pal Dorian takes issue with a kind of…peculiar…defense of current Spider-Man comics.
• This installment of The Rack reminds me of a similar situation from our store, many years ago.

  I’ll wait until you read the strip before I continue and spoil it for you.

  Hmmm mmm mmm mmm…okay, you’re back? Good.

  So quite a while back, after a week where the new comics shipment had another holiday-delayed new comics shipment, a customer came into the shop and pressed what looked like a home computer-printed banner into my hands.

  “This is for you to post in the window when the new comics are delayed a day,” said the customer, voice tinged with irritation.

  I unfolded the banner, which read “NEW COMICS DELAYED UNTIL TOMORROW.” It was printed on a color dot-matrix printer, with a combination of hues that could have been described as “garish” if it hadn’t have been printed with a color dot matrix printer.

  He continued: “Now I can drive by and see from the street whether or not the new comics are in, without having to park and look.”

  Now, I was much younger then, only about 50 or so, so my response was probably something along the lines of a nearly-sarcasm-free “gee, thanks,” and not “what, is your phone broken?” or “great, this should help keep out customers on a day that’s already going to suck financially.”

  We never used it. The guy never said anything about us not using it, far as I can remember. Come to think of it, I bet it’s still floating around the shop, somewhere, packed in a box in the back room.

  I’m not unsympathetic…I know a new-comicsless New Comics Day is a drag for the customer. But it’s a drag for us, too, and putting a sign in the window that’s basically discouraging customers from coming into the store at all is not a good idea. I mean, I’m already telling folks on the phone that new comics aren’t in, so they’re not going to drop by. If customers expecting new comics on a comicsless New Comics Day actually show up at the store, there’s still a chance they may buy stuff…a chance that’s gone if I’m stopping customers at the door before they even step foot inside.

  We have one-day special sales on those holiday-created new-comicsless New Comics Days, but even putting up sale signs may not counter the full-on comic-blocking posted in the window, telling the New Comics Day customers that the exact reason they’ve come to the shop is not in effect. As a store, we need people to walk through that front door and look around, and giving them any excuse to not do so is a bad idea.

  And if you really need to know if the new comics are in, give the store a call. We’ll tell you, honest. But if I have to tell you they’re not in, I’m gonna pitch our one-day-sale to you, too. I hope you don’t mind.

• Sometimes the in-store staff meetings depart from the prepared agenda:
  

  Me: “No, we can’t have dancing in the store.”

  Kid Chris: “No dancing?”

  Me: “Well…look, we can’t have anyone doing the ‘Cabbage Patch’ or the ‘Running Man.'”

  Employee Aaron: “The ‘Running Man?'”

  Me: “That’s right.”

  (sees disappointed looks on the faces of Aaron and Kid Chris)

  Me: “Oh, fine, if you need to, you can do The Swim.”

  Employee Aaron: “Can we do the Hustle?”

  Me: “The Hustle is permitted if…and only if…’The Hustle’ by Van McCoy is playing on the CD player.”

• Despite the above, our store won Best Comic Book Store in the county for the somethingth-time in a row, according to a long-running local free weekly paper. Number two was a store in the next town over, and number three was the game store we rent space to. They carry Knights of the Dinner Table, you see. Yes, the #3 comic shop in our county is located within the #1 comic shop. I recently cleared some space over near the comic racks…maybe I can open a shop there and we claim all three spots next time!

  All kidding aside, it does make us happy, and we get a snazzy framed award certificate we can hang up in the shop, so there you go.

• More buttons from The Collection:
  
  That Green Hornet button is an original, not a reproduction, far as I can tell. And, you know, I thought there were more comic-related buttons in this collection at first glance, but it seems to be mostly music-related or regional interest or buttons like “I’m A Killer Bimbo,” which I’m going to assume doesn’t refer to Betty Boop’s companion.

  I thought this was an odd thing to make a button from:

  
  …though I suppose it is kinda creepy, given the Hitchcock connection.

  …And I’m still trying to figure this out:

  
  I’m assuming it’s perhaps a sports mascot of some kind, but my sports knowledge, such as it is, and my Google-fu both fail me. Maybe one of YOU know what’s going on here.

  If ducks in clothing disturb you, here’s a button of a presumably clothes-less, or at least shirtless, duck:

  
  Not quite sure what’s going on there, either.

• Some “blogging about blogging is a sin” business…I’m getting closer to beginning the “rotating title banner” function on the site, so that every time you visit a new banner will turn up at the top of the page. Here are details if you’d still like to contribute your own…when I start doing the rotating banners, I’ll have a link at the top of the page leading to a credits section, which will have links to contributors’ websites as applicable.

  It’s about a month away, and I’m just going to start with a handful of banners at first, to make sure it works okay. So, if you pop by the site sometime in the next few weeks, and things have gone horribly, horribly awry (or maybe you just get this page)…I assure you, I’m working on it!

• Came across this on Amazon:
  
  Not a collectible card game, but just your standard card deck. Take a look at the Amazon page for more details, such as they are.

  Girly cards are pretty far down my list of expected Star Wars merchandise. Perhaps right after the splayed-leg C3P0 tape dispenser.

  And hey, I’m no dummy:

• Speaking of Star Wars, I just had this brief exchange with the girlfriend’s 11 year old niece, as we were looking at a Star Wars toy catalog:
  

  Niece: “I think I can name all these characters…that’s Yoda, that’s R2D2, that’s General Grievous, that’s Darth Maul, that’s Mara Jade….”

  Me: “Do you know who Mara Jade is?”

  Niece: “No.”

  Me: “Just checking.”

  Niece: “Who is she?”

  Me: “She was a bad guy who was trying to kill Luke Skywalker, then later became one of the good guys and ended up marrying Luke.”

  Niece: “Really? How do you know that?”

  Me: “Um…I’ve read all the books and comics.”

  Niece: “You have?”

  Me: “Yeah. Don’t rub it in.”

  There’s a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson is “Mike shouldn’t read so many Star Wars books.”

• Came across this at the shop the other day:
  
  The post-crash late ’90s comics industry bore some strange fruit, indeed.

I grossed myself out with the thought that’s in this post’s subject line, and now I’ve passed it on to you. No need to thank me.