CSBG Archive
How a Bone made me optimistic and nostalgic at the same time
- by Brad Curran
- in General
- 9 Comments
Allow me to indulge in a bit of nostalgia for a spell here.
During my formative years as a comic nerd, my primary source for my fix wasn’t a comic shop. It was the local grocery stores. I could always get my mom to buy me at least one comic, and since we went at least once a week, it was a precursor to my weekly buying habit. Well, if I still had one of those, but that’s another story.
What’s appropriate for this one is that comics used to be plentiful at the grocery store, and they stayed that way long after I lost interest in them, during the time I like to call puberty. A spinner rack with the newest Marvel and DC Comics was a constant at the local grocery store we frequented, along with a healthy comic presence at all of the convenience stores. Anytime I went in any of them, I tended to get at least comic, and it was fun trying to keep up with my favorites by scowering the spinner and magazine racks for that one issue of X-Men or Spectacular Spider-Man that I was missing. The thrill of that hunt has been replaced by the percision of finding exactly what you want from E-Bay and Amazon, and while it’s better in an infinite number of ways, the thrill will never quite be the same of unearthing that gem of a comic you were looking for in the poorly organized stacks on that there spinner rack.
The comic shop wasn’t the only place you could find single issues back then, and as such, trips there were special, not routine, and spent mainly combing the back issue bins. What’s sad is, my story’s really similar to someone like Greg Hatcher’s youth in comics, but this was only about ten years ago in my case.
A funny thing happened when I decided to start reading comics again the summer after I graduated from high school, though; all the comics disappeared from the grocery stores. They were there when I started sampling books I’d heard good things about online. I picked up a few issues of Morrison and Quitely’s X-Men, which was the beginings of a nerd boner* that remains to this day. They even stuck around long enough for me to get the first issue of Bendis’s Daredevil there, before I realized Bendis reads terribly in single issues. But eventually, they were gone. I’m not sure if this is a coincidence. The paranoid egocentirc in me says no, but I tend to try not to listen to him.
It was a sad sight. Partially because I was buying the damn things again, but more because it was like I was losing a part of my childhood. Comics at the grocery store had been a constant. A constant! (Sorry for the redundancy.) And now they were gone. Given that this was in 2001, it seemed to verify the pessimistic outlook for the medium’s future that I was reading a lot about online as I got back in to fandom.
Flash forward five years, give or take, and I’m in one of those aforementioned local grocery stores, checking out their surprisingly impressive selection of books, when I saw something in the children’s section that gave me hope for the future of comics and made me nostalgic for my past with them, all at the same time; a couple of copies of Scholastic’s color Bone trades.**
It wasn’t the glorious spinner racks with every Spider-Man comic for months on end of my youth, but it was sure as hell something positive for comics, if only in a small way. It also seems to reflect where the medium’s heading. In the place of flimsy singles, we have book length collections in genres that encompass more than “capes” and “tights”. It’s not the volume of selection of my youth (even if they did basically only come in those two varieties I mentioned earlier), hell, it’s only one book that may be there by accident. But as far as strained metaphors for the state of comics go, it’s better than the total void that preceded it for so long. It’s not my ideal of comics accessiblity, but until Scott Pilgrim is sold in every video game and convenience store**, I’ll take it.
*- I am going to get that phrase over or die trying. Probably the latter.
**- There was also a Wizard in the magazine racks, but come on, it’s Wizard.
***- I pretty much want Scott Pilgrim sold everywhere.
9 Comments
Ryan H
November 13, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Really, I think this highlights one of the biggest problems with modern comics. When a 10 or 12 or 14 year old comes out of the latest comic movie and is still raving about how awesome the character(s) are they might be in the mood to see more. Now, if this kid wants to buy a comic, can they stop in at the book store at the mall? No. Can they pick up something at the local 7-11? No. If they want a comic, they likely will need to have mom or dad look up the address of a comic store and drive them there. No chance for impulse purchase, no ability to read comics without 100% support from parents. No wonder there are few young readers.
joffe
November 13, 2006 at 11:15 pm
you know where I’d like to see comics? vending machines. I just thought that up just now. The fancy-dan upper class ones could have a screen on it that let you preview the first few pages of each book or something.
Eric Gimlin
November 14, 2006 at 1:12 am
As cool as it is to see Bone in a grocery store, you shoudn’t miss the great survivor of comics in those venues: Archie Digests. At least around here, they’re in most of the grocery stores at the checkstand.
And there is a decent selection of regular comics at the local Fred Meyer. Mostly Archies, A Bongo or two, and Marvel Adventures or Flip books. DC seems to be scarce, but I find that comics aren’t as scarce as we think when we actually look…
Cheeseburger
November 14, 2006 at 9:06 am
Just like Scott Pilgrim should be sold in all video game stores (along with Sidescrollers GN), Phonogram should be present in all music outlets like HMV and Virgin Records and small time music stores as well.
Matt Brady
November 14, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Actually, most bookstores I go to have a small comics rack (sometimes it’s even a spinner rack) in the magazine section. So the kid that comes out of Superman Returns or Spider-Man 3 should be able to check out a selection of recent comics at his local Waldenbooks or Borders. And that’s not even mentioning the graphic novel section. Sure, it’s not a grocery store, but the comics aren’t that hard to find if you’re looking for them.
MarkAndrew
November 14, 2006 at 11:17 pm
“Actually, most bookstores I go to have a small comics rack (sometimes it’s even a spinner rack) in the magazine section.”
This isn’t true in most cities in America. I’ve lived in… 14(?) states in my adult life, and been to the bookstores in most of them.
The bigger bookstores will, and some of the smaller ones might. But by and large well under 50% of your average downtown bookstores will.
John Seavey
November 16, 2006 at 12:11 am
At the risk of once again plugging my own blog:
http://fraggmented.blogspot.com/2006/10/more-comics-marketing-ideas.html
discusses what I think Marvel and DC don’t have right now, and desperately need–an impulse-buying presence. Comics are, or should be, the perfect impulse purchase for parents; they’re about the same price as candy (or they should be, in an ideal world), but offer a lot more entertainment value. Yes, it’s nice to see that comics have a presence outside of comics stores “if you’re looking for them”, but the whole point is that you shouldn’t need to look for them, they should be jumping out at you.
(And OK, it’s not a “risk” of plugging my own blog, it’s a risk of being seen as one of those guys who’s always plugging his own blog…ie, a jerk. But all too frequently, when I get to the comments section, I find myself saying, “Gee, I’ve already said something about this, and said it better, on my own site.”)
Lynxara
November 16, 2006 at 2:15 am
A kid-friendly comic saga in the 52 format would be a really good impulse guy. It’s sort of what Shounen Jump is right now with manga, only monthly instead of weekly.
John Seavey
November 17, 2006 at 11:09 am
Addendum: When I say, “said something about this, and said it better”, I don’t mean “said it better than the bloggers here”. I mean “said it better than I could say in a short comment on someone else’s blog.” I really really apologize if anyone took the former meaning instead of the latter–it wasn’t until a moment ago that I looked at what I’d written and realized I’d left out a very key clarifying phrase in a way that made me look really really arrogant. That was completely and totally not the intent of my statement.