Romance Comics

By Hal Roth
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At just a couple years shy of forty years old, I am the admired and respected assistant manager of the premier comic shop in Florida. After more than thirty years of reading comics, I have learned much about human behavior and the relation between men and women. Human behavior and interaction is an area of expertise of mine, do not doubt this for one second.

I think I am in love. This is the truth.

This week, the unthinkable has happened. I was having my usual afternoon burrito-break at the store. Thankfully, there were no customers in the store at the time, since the owner has told me that I can eat something on my break, but that I am still on the clock. The owner was away for the day and Jimmy, my stock-boy had not arrived yet. Jimmy is such a half-wit, that I am amazed when he makes it into work each day rather than forgetting the address and his own name.

I was finishing my second bean burrito with extra sour cream when I heard the door open behind me. I was sitting with my back to the door. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that a black woman was walking into the store. My first reaction was instinctive. I did not want to get tied up by some busy-body with too much time on their hands, who was looking for comics for her grandkids, so I turned my back to her and continued eating.
After only a few minutes, the inevitable happened. She asked for my help. I was more than a little upset that my break was interrupted so I wiped my mouth with a napkin and turned towards her from behind the counter. I glared at this woman until she asked me what she was looking for.

“Do you have the first appearance of the Silver Age Green Lantern?”

I sighed at the question. I reached down and grabbed a recent issue of JLA, which needed to be bagged and boarded after my break and pointed to Kyle Rainer on the cover. I asked her if this was the character she was looking for. Surprisingly, she told me no. She said she was looking for Showcase #22, the first appearance of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern.

I was not impressed by her peripheral knowledge of comics because this information is easily attainable through any number of common resources.

I walked over to the back issue bins and looked for the issue she was seeking. To amuse myself as I searched, I asked her with a laugh, “Do you even know what the Silver Age is?”

She answered, “It’s an era in comics that started in 1956.”

I found the issue she was looking for and turned to her. I had a trick question ready for her. I asked, “When did the Silver Age end?”

She answered, “June, 1973.”

I nearly dropped the issue of Showcase right out of my hands. How could she have known this? My world was spinning. Any true comics fan knows that date, but how did she know? How could she have known that when Gwen Stacy died, so died the Silver Age?

I handed her the issue as I stood there stunned. She looked at the price tag in the upper left hand corner. In my shop we grade each comic before bagging it the correct way and then we price it and write the grade underneath the price on the price tag. She asked if she could open the bag and look at the book. I was in such a state of shock that I said yes. Carefully, she inspected the book with the most professional handling style. The grade on the price tag read VF++, that’s very fine plus plus, to you who may not be familiar with comics grading, collecting or care. After inspecting the book she placed it back in the bag carefully and declared that the book was not VF ++ but just F+ and would only pay the appropriate F+ price.

Enraged, I almost asked this woman, who was beginning to look familiar, to leave the store immediately. To humor her I picked up the comic, which I must admit was graded by the shop’s owner and not me, and reviewed its condition. Here a tear at the top of the cover, a lack of luster to the cover when held to light, there a tiny crease to the spine. My face turned pale as I realized she was right. The book was squarely F+. Who was this bewitching woman?

Right then and there it hit both of us. We already knew each other. “Hal?” she asked. “Ms. Webster?” I asked back. There was an odd moment as I realized that this lovely Ororo Munroe-esque, silver-haired woman was Ms. Webster, my third grade teacher.

A note is necessary here: Ms. Webster is a one in a million. She is not the usual vapid, high-fashion girl that comes into my shop acting like they are the last Dilithium-crystal in all of Star Fleet. She is an intelligent woman who’s more than thirty years of seniority amount to a parallel level of maturity with me.

I sold her that issue at the correct F+ price and then we spoke for a few minutes, she told me how she had moved back to Louisiana when I must have been in High School and how she never married. Now she was back in Florida. We exchanged phone numbers and plan to have dinner together one night soon.

Now I am re-reading select issues of Iron Man and Batman to make sure I am suave enough and make a good impression on our “date.” Ms. Webster has called me at the store several times, but she must be nervous and hangs up after I answer. I’m sure it’s her though.

I present this information to you, reader, because it’s a fact that the ordinary are interested in the lives and affairs of respected citizens, like myself. Once Ms. Webster and I meet, and no doubt delve further into a relationship founded on our fathomless intellects, I will keep you informed; so as to brighten all of your otherwise bleak lives.

The opinions expressed above are entirely the author's and do not represent those of Silver Bullet Comics, or any of its staff, or contributors.

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