2018 Year End Roundup Part 1: Teaching

I’ve been incredibly neglectful of my blog this year, and in general I’ve been less productive as a writer. Not that I didn’t do anything, but I was feeling a little burnt out in terms of topics in this forum. I wrote and submitted a couple of pieces of creative nonfiction (that were rejected), that might end up here, unless I can find another place to submit. One of the longer pieces that was originally planned for the blog ended up being a part of a much larger work that also may be serialized here at some point. I wrote a couple of book reviews for the Post Gazette, and had a couple of pull quotes from previous reviews published in the paperback editions of the books I reviewed. I wrote a memoriam for Stan Lee for Legacy.com. The most unexpected piece of professional writing I did was to contribute the new, official entry for the character of the Black Panther for World Book Encyclopedia.

But, my blog suffered. It’s been a more introverted year for me in general, so I guess I just haven’t had much to say in public.

My biggest achievement of 2018 was that I taught an Introduction to the Graphic Novel class at the University of Pittsburgh as an adjunct professor this fall. Though I have been making contacts and seeding my name there for a few years now, when it happened it happened very quickly.

Vox Populorum

For those who haven't seen it elsewhere I have started a new podcast series with my friend and fellow comics scholar, Christopher Maverick. We'll be talking Pop Culture in an informal academic way, which basically means we want to make Pop Culture studies more accessible to Pop Culture consumers.

Anyway, the first episode is up. Since it is our first episode we talk about the Origin Story. You can find it at our website.

http://voxpopcast.com/wp/2018/04/09/episode-1-origin-stories/

Sweet Encounters

A few years ago while visiting friends in California I made my first trip to San Francisco. Mike and I spent the day seeing sights and eating great food and having fun. Completely fortuitously Cherie Currie, former singer for the 70s band The Runaways, had announced a concert in San Francisco the same day that we had already planned on being there. When I discovered this I called Mike and told him we were going, then bought tickets online. I wrote about that concert in more detail HERE, so that isn’t what this is about.

There were two experiences I had while waiting in line outside of the Red Devil Lounge waiting to go into the show. We were approached by a homeless man. He was the epitome of the downtrodden. His hair and beard were long, dirty and matted. He was thin and filthy, wearing clothes so ragged I’m not sure how they stayed on him. He came straight to me and I fully expected him to ask us for money and then move on.

‟Hey,” he said to me. ‟Nice shirt. They’re one of my favorite bands!”

I was wearing a t-shirt with the logo of the Glam Band The Sweet (Ballroom Blitz, Fox on the Run). Perhaps ungenerously I assumed this was just his opening line and the ask for money would come next. Nope. He enthused about The Sweet, telling me about seeing them in the 70s. He was knowledgable about them and we had a completely enjoyable conversation, just two guys who shared an interest in a specific band, swapping stories about favorite songs. For the duration of the conversation he lit up, happy to be just talking and connecting. At the end he just smiled and started to go on his way. He never asked me for a dime (though I did give him some money, which, though grateful, he seemed hesitant to take).

Just after he left two couple walked by. Older. Well-dressed. Out for an evening. One of the women looked up and saw the marquee which announced, ‟Tonight: Cherie Currie!”

‟Cherry curry?” she said while scrunching up her nose. ‟I don’t think that would taste good at all.”

2018 Comics Retailer Survey

Recently I was asked to participate in Publisher’s Weekly’s annual review of the comic book industry. You can read the article by Shannon O’Leary HERE. I was quoted a number of times in the article, but a lot of people, mainly my customers at Phantom of the Attic, have asked about the whole questionnaire so I decided to share it here. This really only of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the state of the comic book retail industry. My caveat here is that my answers reflect my opinions and observations based on 21 years of experience in one specific store. I don’t claim to have all of the answers or to speak for other stores. We all have different experiences.

1) What were your best selling graphic novels in 2017?

Saga continues to be our bestselling series of graphic novels for the third or fourth year now. We’ve had a lot of success with The Wicked and the Divine and East of West because they are books that a couple of our employees push pretty hard. In general the Image TPs top the list. They are self-contained series without crossovers, so people can get into a series and, quite simply, know what to read next. The introductory $9.99 price point doesn’t hurt either. We moved a lot of My Favorite Thing is Monsters. Though there are few specific standout titles in general we do really well with the FirstSecond catalog. World of Edena by Moebius did extremely well for an expensive HC. We’ve had customers regularly asking for Moebius stuff for years so the prospect of his work finally coming back into print here is exciting.

The DC Rebirth TPs increased sales over DC from the past couple of years. Marvel TPs are mostly dead stock for us. I can’t put my finger on why, other than as another indicator of the downturn in interest in Marvel. There are many Marvel trades we don’t order at all. We only move a couple of each of the X-Men TPs when they come out. The Epic Collections do pretty well with an older customer base.

It, Stranger Things, and Children in Horror

On October 21 I participated in the Mount Aloysius Charity Comic Con. I presented my Bowie paper and sat in on a couple of panel discussions. One of these was recorded by the panel moderator Danny Anderson for his podcast, The Sectarian Review. You can listen to it at the link below.




http://www.sectarianreviewpodcast.com/episodes-and-show-notes/episode-51-it-stranger-things-and-children-in-horror

Devil’s Night

This past weekend I was discussing Halloween with my 95 year old mother. She has never really been a fan. She just doesn’t get the fascination with the horrific and the obsession with images of death. The conversation was prompted by her being pretty turned off by a yard decorated with fake tombstones.

‟Why would anybody want to do that?” she asked. ‟We'll all be in a real one soon enough.”

She’s not wrong, and at her age I’m sure it feels more real than to the rest of us. I talked some about how it’s psychologically healthy for people to deal with frightening things in a safe and fun environment. But, as much as I love Halloween it’s not my place to change her mind on this and I respect her feelings.

Then, she told me a Halloween story from her youth. She was a late teen at the time and she and her friend Vida, who would become my aunt by marrying Uncle Carl, were out looking for something to do. There was a party being held but they had not been invited. Apparently the hostess was a girl they were feuding right then. Mom couldn’t remember why, but all of their friends were there and they had been excluded.

Based on what I know of the personalities of my Mom and my Aunt Vida I have to assume the next part of their evening was Vida’s idea... but maybe not.

The two of them went to the house where the party was being held and soaped the windshields of every car there. Mom said they were thorough. No one was going to be able to see to drive home without a lot of clean up.

They got away with it. No one ever confronted them. If they were suspected no one ever let on.

I have never participated in this level of vandalism in my life. At 95 Mom giggled gleefully while telling this story that I had never heard before. Maybe she doesn’t dislike Halloween as much as she thinks she does.

Bend it...

A handsome young man came into the store today. Very quiet. Very polite. It’s new book day here, our busiest day of the week, so he kind of disappeared into the background noise. After browsing for awhile he asked us where to find a comic he was looking for. Things had calmed down a little so a conversation ensued.

He was in town just for the day. He was traveling on a tour bus as the opening act for another musician. The name didn’t register with me. We’re a big enough city that many small name acts pass through here playing clubs and bars and smaller venues. He didn’t say very much about what he played, and seemed a little shy when we asked about the tour, just telling us he had been in Toronto yesterday. He has his bike on the bus with him, so he was tooling around Pittsburgh on a cold rainy fall day, just checking out the sights while here. He said he always tries to find local comic book stores when he’s in a new city and the internet had pointed him to us. He was very complimentary of the store (the ‟best one I’ve been to in my travels”), and before he left he asked us where the closest movie theater was. Thanked us, got on his bike and was on his way.

So of course, after he left, we Googled his name to see what kind of music he played. His name is Clark Beckham and he was the first runner up on season fourteen of American Idol. We’re listening to one of his albums in the store right now.

Artists walk among us, unseen and unheard.