Occupation: Highly respected assistant manager of a very, very popular comic store.
Group Affilliation: I have chosen to grace the SBC with my wisdom.
Base of Operations: Florida
First Appearance: Nearly 40 years ago.
History: For more than seven years I have been an invaluable asset to the comic industry as a knowledgeable and talented assistant manager.
Powers and Weapons: Unlike so many other columnists and "professionals," I know the truth about comics. I will not waste your time with opinions, dear reader, I will give you only the facts.
As the assistant manager of a well-liked and very successful comic book store and with my more than thirty years of experience reading comics; it is safe to pronounce that I know how comics are made. Being in my enviable position, I have the wisdom to answer the age old question, “Who is more important, the writer or the artist?”
As far as the comic buying public should be concerned, retailers are the creators of comics. This is the truth.
Whenever the debate over writers and artists starts up in my store, I take center stage. In my flawless Klingon I silence them with a growl. Then I take the comics out of their hands and look over the books they are buying. I run off the creators’ names and then tell the fans that it would not do any good for these writers and artists to create these comics, if I weren’t here to sell the comics. I’ve left the participants of such debates visibly shaken. They know not to argue with me. If I hear so much as a whimper, there’ll be no 10% discount at the register.
Over the years I’ve heard every side to this debate. The writers say that they create the plot and therefore the very essence of the story, and so they are the most important member of the team. Artists always say that because comics are a visual medium, and that they are creating all of the visual context, that they are the key to the partnership.
Their reasoning is flawed. How could something that is the intersection of two creators, and is a union of text and art merging to make one holistic story, have one of it’s parts be more important than the other? It can’t. That’s where the debate falls apart and my inarguable logic comes in.
These creators and their playboy lifestyles and questionable skills have had it too easy for too long and I’m not about to praise any of them. Did Kevin Smith have to sleep with a hot water bottle on his back after lifting several cases of Green Arrow? Did Ennis lose all his fingernails because of handling backing boards? Did Hitch ever have a long box of JLA fall on him? Did Quitely have to go to the bathroom into an old two-liter bottle because he couldn’t leave the register? And these are the so-called creators of the books that leave my store? I am there on the front lines for those fans, only to overhear them wondering about who really made those comics. Shameful!
New comics don’t exist until I cut open the box they are packed in. When I set them out in front of the hungry fans, I am creating that comic. Those high-life writers and artists have nothing to do with getting you those comics, other than a few blah-blah’s and a handful of scribbles.
Walk into any recreation room in any mental institute and you’ll find a room full of creators ready to give you their “comics.” But if you want a real comic, birthed from the back of my store, delivered by my trained hands, then come to my store and stop quibbling over which moron created the beautiful comic I just put in your grasp.
Just because I am the assistant manager of the comic shop, doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. Sometimes it’s hard to realize that the noble figures you look up to are only human, but people, that’s exactly what I am. The next time you get your new books, especially if you are fortunate enough to be a patron of my shop, remember who has really been working to get that comic to you.
Would it kill you to say, “Thank you?”
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.
