Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a huge fan of superheroes and comic books. However, despite my ongoing passion, I never really had too many friends who knew about comics too well. There were a few friends here and there who knew casual knowledge, and the rare friends who could match wits with me, but rarely did I have an friend (or friends) to talk shop with who could keep up. In fact, up until high school, I really didn’t talk about my “geeky hobbies” often, if at all. I was always a quiet kid in school, and most of that was because, up until a few years ago when superhero movies took over and it was suddenly “cool” to be a geek, many of my peers didn’t take too kindly to talking about comic books in public, especially in middle school. The friends that I did have at the time weren’t to knowledgeable about the material at the time, and aside from general knowledge, didn’t really care to learn. I was mostly a loner in my own world of “geekdom” with no one to share my passion with. Enter my local comic book store.
This comic book store had been my local comic shop (or LCS) since I was 4 years old, and I would frequent the store every Wednesday looking for the new comics on sale. I had asked the owner for a job when I was a freshman in high school, but wasn’t until I was a junior in high school and looking for work seriously that I finally got my dream job. Since I loved comics and knew everything there was about current stuff, I knew that I would be an asset to the shop as a whole. However, my own insecurities talking about comic books kept me from being the “social butterfly” I knew I could be. It took me awhile to feel comfortable talking to other customers, but once I started, it was hard to not want to talk about the latest “Spider-Man,” or “Walking Dead” comics. I learned to socialize with other people, not just my peers, but fellow geeks. Over time, I came to view my customers as more than that, they became the very friends I was looking for since I was a kid. Not to say anything about my non-geeky friends, because I’ve had plenty of great friends who didn’t like comics, but it was hard to discuss my hobby with them when they had no real investment in it themselves. With my friends at the store, I could be open about hobbies with people who were just as invested as I was.
It was because of this socializing that I became more open about my hobbies in school, and made plenty of new friends in the process. It wasn’t long before “Walking Dead” became a regular discussion in several of my classes, as well as the various superhero movies that came out at the time. I had also made several friends later on in college who also share my interests in comic books and superheroes. If there is one thing that working in a comic book store has taught me, it’s that there are always people who will accept you for who you are, and that it’s OK to be oneself. I still work at the comic book store to this day, still talking with my weekly crew in between doing various jobs and making new customers feel as welcome as my customers made me feel welcome years ago.
