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Friday, September 16, 2005
Entertaining Conversations
Well, they weren't entertaining at the time. But now I get to write about them on-line. It's my own brand of passive-aggressive vengeance.
Me, answering the phone: Hi, [Store's Name], how can I help you? "Yes, I'd like to buy some of the items you have listed on e-Bay." Were you the winning bidder in one of our auctions? "No, I want you to end the auctions early so that I can buy the items directly." I'm sorry, but we don't do that. If you're interested in purchasing the items, you need to place a bid in the auction. "Well why won't you do it? I do this all the time with people selling things on e-Bay." For one thing it's an unethical business practice, and for another it violates e-Bay's terms. "So what if I offered you $10,000 dollars for them, would you end the auctions early then?" Are you going to offer me $10,000 dollars for them? "No." Then let's keep this conversation confined to reality, shall we? "So, what is it going to take to get you to sell the items to me directly then?" Tell you what...call me back after the auctions are over, and anything that doesn't get bid on, I'll entertain an offer for. "But everything I want to buy has already been bid on!" Oh, well, then I'd suggest trying to out-bid the current high bidders. Good-bye.
"Excuse me sir, but how much are you asking for a near-mint copy of Stupendous Insect Fellow #200?" Let me check...$80. "And what does The Guide say a near-mint copy is worth?" Let me look that up...$90 "Will you accept $70 for it?" Actually, I have a very-fine copy for $70. "No, I want the near-mint copy for $70." So...you want me to sell a book that we're already charging less than The Guide price for, for the same amount we're asking for a lesser condition book? "Yes. Will you?" No.
"Does anyone ever actually buy any of the adult comic books?" Yeah, all the time. In fact, sales on the Eros books help subsidize the less profitable Fantagraphics titles. "Okay, sell me a bunch of Eros books then."
"So, did they kill Hawkman or what?" "So, are they introducing a new Hawkman?" "So what happened to Hawkman?" "Is Hawkman dead?" "Why didn't they give us any advance notice that they were going to kill off Hawkman?" "If Hawkman's dead, why is he running around in JLA and Rann-Thanagar War?" Because. They. Didn't! Kill! Hawkman! It's just another god-damn storyline tease!
"I'm looking for some comics for my kids." Sure, what were you looking for. "Marvel super-hero ones. But, not any of the new ones. I only want the ones that are okay for kids." (Actually, we get this quite a bit. What people mean by this is "Comics written after I stopped reading them are not appropriate for children, because I simply assume that is the case. And I'm certainly not going to let the guy who sells comics for a living offer any input on what my kids may or may not enjoy." The funny thing is, we can always tell when these people stopped reading comics, by what their cut-off for "appropriate" material is. So if they stopped reading comics in 1968, nothing from the seventies on up is okay for kids. If they stopped in 1982, anything more recent than Secret Wars is right out. It's another symptom of the "my children should be nostalgic for my child-hood" thinking that comes up whenever the conversation drifts towards comics for children.) So...which super-heroes in particular, then? "Iron Man and Frank Miller era Daredevil."
I think that's the only time in my life I've heard a Frank Miller comic described as being for children...