PhantomStranger

Power Girl is very, very popular in the cosplay scene, much more than her sales or brand would indicate. For a character not tied to the Superman or Batman brand, and that has never really been able to carry a monthly book on her own, Power Girl is a very popular fan-art subject and cosplayed character. That is solely due to the popular visual design of the character and not her confusing backstory, which nearly changes on a yearly basis.

madcougar

So when your buddy is out of town (in a place with no comic book stores?), you pick up comic books for him (on the off chance they sell out?).

Aren't you sweet!?

Travis McClain

I'm not quite sure what your point is, but there's a distinctive tone of juvenile mockery. You gonna start singing a song about him and me sitting in a tree?

Not that it matters, but he's an archaeologist. Usually when he's out of town, he's lucky if there's much more than a gas station and a motel, and he's usually there for a minimum of a week or two. It's not uncommon for him to be gone for a month or more. And anyway, I was going to pick up my monthly books. Hardly a special trip or anything.

xmiyux

I don't know if he was being mocking or not, but fwiw, I think that is super awesome of you.

A good friend!

And you get to read the books he gets without having to buy them.

Adam Tyner

It's a nice gesture. There are times when I've been out of town on a Wednesday for business, and when I go into the shop on Thursday -- a difference of one day, let alone the week MinLShaw is talking about! -- sometimes books I want will be sold out. Sometimes even going to a second store won't help. I know I could get around that by having a pull, but I refuse to do that for whatever reason.

Dr. DVD

I have to say, I just recently noticed that comics are no longer readily available in drug or grocery stores. Wonder what lead to such a downsizing of retail outlets? I know in my small town we didn't have many comic stores, whenever one opened they would shut down in about two years. The only comic stores I know that stay in business now do so by doubling as a site for gamers (Magic card players) to have tournaments.

Adam Tyner

Extremely low margins, lack of returnable product, and dwindling consumer interest. As much as I love comics, the entertainment-value-per-dollar is dismal.

madcougar

Look dude, this is 2013 and your love life is no one's business...

But seriously, I was actually tickled by your explanation as to how you read Batman #17, but hadn't actually bought it. You don't have to explain how you came about reading some comic, friend! I read Superior Spider-Man #1 after I bought it! Am I proud? No, but I won't hide under some story about how I found it on the bus, or about how I stood in the comic book store and read it, or about how when my straight friend goes out of town I pick up comics for him!

Damn it man, it's 2013! Let your freak flag fly! Say it with me "I buy event comic books and I don't care who knows it!"

JasonF

Hey! I like Superior Spider-Man. Don't use that as your shameful example.

Now, if you want to talk shameful, I bought and read every issue of Legion Lost. I'm usually good about dropping crummy books, but I love the Legion so much that I stuck with Legion Lost even though it was terrible.

PhantomStranger

I haven't seen a comic book inside a grocery store since at least the '90s. Barnes & Noble tried an aggressive push of the new 52 with an actual comics newsstand in its beginning, though I haven't really checked out their magazine section in a while.

Even Walmart got out of carrying any superhero comics a few years back, though occasionally they will have movie tie-ins and other special events.

madcougar

I was actualy enjoying it until...

Josh-da-man

Comic books have been slowly been disappearing from grocery/drug/convenience stores since the creation of the direct market.

The simple fact of the matter is that stores don't want to bother with them or devote retail space to them and the magazine distributors also don't want to deal with them, either.

I would also wager that the publishers also don't like the idea of being hit by massive amounts of returns of unsold product.

It's a common narrative among old school fanboys that the direct market killed the newsstand market, but the truth is that the direct market was initially created because the retail market for comics was dying.

TheBang

More about it here:

http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/11/fi...bout-mass.html

Dr. DVD

Interesting. I will say that it was always common knowledge that a true comic book fan bought from a comic store, not the newsstand. Mainly because newsstands were a few weeks behind the stores in receiving product. I remember reading an issue of Reign of the Supermen that I got on May 27th that had a date of May 28th listed as the time period in the story. The same issue was not in retail outlets until around late June.
Also, about the same time that Death of Superman launched, comic specialty stores started popping up all over the place. One could go to a bookstore in a mall and see their outdated comic stand, or go around the corner to a comic store and have everything up to date.

kgrogers1979

So if your city didn't have a local comic store, you couldn't be a true fan by default? Many cities didn't even get a local comic store until the 90s. My childhood hometown didn't get a local comic store until 1991, and if it wasn't for newsstands I most likely never would have discovered comics.

Lastdaysofrain

What he's trying to say is that Power Girl has huge knockers so people like her.

Travis McClain

It's the God's honest truth of how I came to read that issue, though. I didn't give any thought to rationalizing reading an event comic. The very idea of concocting an elaborate cover story to shield myself from any shame over it is absurd on a level I hadn't even realized existed until just now.

madcougar

I'm just yanking your chain, man. You're a good sport.

fujishig

Speaking of the Legion, how's the LoSH book? I dropped both in lieu of tpbs and then lost interest, but I've been kinda wanting to track down the main book since I'm still a huge Legion fan (Legion Lost lost me when they started crossing over with other books). I kinda liked that they had the Legion be largely unaffected by the nu52, at least from a continuity standpoint. But even when Johns brought the "real" Legion back, they had revamped so much that they didn't really feel the same (plus I love Giffen and Bierbaum's run, which was all but wiped out by the Johns version).

Also, I'm sad that many seem to think the Power Girl/Earth 2 stuff is bad, since that was the only other stuff I really wanted to check out because of my love for the JSA. Did they ever reconcile the Karen Starr that was in Mister Terrific?

PhantomStranger

Read out of context, that is a whole different storyline than I remember.

Travis McClain

DC has announcedthe new creative teams for Green Lantern:

WTF is Larfleeze?

stingermck

Larfleeze is awesome. Think Gollum with a lantern

Dr. DVD

Okay, maybe not "true" as much as hardcore. I will say that if you got them from the shops you would have the issues well before those who purchased from newsstands.

Adam Tyner

I hate, hate, hate "true fan" arguments.

Most of the "comic stores" I went to growing up were used book stores that sold comics too and had a modest back issue selection (one in filing cabinets!). That seemed to be a pretty big thing in the '80s; at least, that was where I turned to in 3 cities spanning 2 states. I think the first time I ever stepped foot in a dedicated comic store was 1988, but they didn't seem to get prevalent in my necks of the woods (Charleston-ish, SC and Orange Park, FL) until 1991 or 1992.

stingermck

Ha. Or of you were like me, you went to the grocery store with mom once a week and thats where you bought comics. Going to the comic book store was a special treat growing up.