My Comic Incident

[Samhaine]

So, I went to work on Saturday night. Nothing out of the ordinary. But when I'm almost done I take a seat in the break room and start talking to someone, and our conversation goes to Batman or somesuch character.
Anyhow
A girl who is listening to my conversation while smoking in the corner asks me "Have you ever heard of the Sandman?"

Wow.

I laughed, at first. I mean, what comic collecter (at least, 10 year comic reader like myself) hasn't heard of Sandman, right?

So I say "Yeah" and tell her that while I never read it (I'm trying to get all of the original harcover books before I read it), I did read The Dreaming and am currently reading Lucifer (one of my favorite books at the moment, coincidentally).

She begins to try to explain The Sandman to me, and tells me that "It's not really a comic book. I would call it 'graphic novels'." So yeah, now I'm laughing histerically. I say, "It's a comic." But, apparently, because it's been collected into trade paperbacks, it can't be considered a comic book. This reason is given because she doesn't like comic books, and doesn't want to admit that she likes comic books.

So, over the weekend I got to deal with the bigotry (first time ever at work, mind you. Normal, I tell my customers [I'm a waiter] that I read comics and they get a smile on their face as they remember their childhoods) against comic books. I just found it highly amusing, since someone was trying to tell me:
A) about a comic that ended it's run 5 or 6 years ago and is considered one of the best comic series ever
and
B) what a tradepaperback was. That was gold

Sorry for using up all this board space, but I hope all you comic fans can get a good laugh, as I did.

[Joe Tully]

Yeah, that is pretty goofy. I can't help but think of MST3K ep. Cave Dwellers, where Joel keeps calling them "comic books" and the bots correct him with "graphic novels." I guess she just doesn't want to admit that she likes comic books since those are just for kids, right?

So, how old is this girl? If she's in her early teens I could definitely see her being goofy enough to argue over it.

[Samhaine]

Originally posted by Joe Tully
So, how old is this girl? If she's in her early teens I could definitely see her being goofy enough to argue over it.

A working, smoking girl in her early teens? Well, ok, nevermind, I have seen that before.

No, she's probably 18 or 19. It's just funny (and somewhat sad) that people can't admit that they like comics. It's the same with cartoons.

[Joe Tully]

Yeah, I missed the smoking part, though it's not too uncommon for that to start in early teens around here. And I wasn't sure if this was some kid's part time job or what.

[Calhoun07]

What's the big deal what you call it? Actually, I am all for getting away from calling them comic books. They are really books of art, and should be treated as such.