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The 5 Comics Fans You Meet in Hell

No Fly Zone: The 5 Comics Fans You Meet in Hell
© Mania

We all love comics. We’re all fans. Let’s not split hairs or mince words. And, most of us are fairly normal folk. We look ourselves in the mirror without cursing at the image that stares back. We don’t think booth babes are for touching. And, in the end, we know comics are an art form, and not a religion. But, there are those fans—and you know who I’m talking about—that the other fans bitch about. They take continuity way too seriously. They complain about unfaithful movies endlessly. They argue about which fictional characters would win in a fight. Hygiene is sometimes optional. They read comics as an expression of their neuroses, and not because they just fucking love sequential art. With that, this week’s No-Fly Zone presents The 5 Comics Fans You Meet in Hell.

5. Porn Comics Guy

Reads: Cherry, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Heavy Metal, Anything from Eros Comix, Power Pack

Profile: The Porn Comics Guy is a staple of any comics shop, but he’s hard to spot. Usually short, balding, and wearing coke bottle glasses, the guy behind the counter has more TMI on this guy than a court-ordered psych eval. Most of the time, the shop owner already knows what this guy’s into and just quietly hands him a stack of books. That’s because one day, when you weren’t around, PCG had a private talk with the clerk about what to order out of Previews Adult. Now, the PCG is something of a dying breed for the same reason that porn everywhere is suffering—the Internet is the undisputed king of free smut. Plunking down $20 for an imported Milo Manara graphic novel seems like a waste when you can see a full on Simpsons/Family Guy gangbang online. Most of the remaining PCGs just really love porn comics—or part of their plea bargain includes not owning a device that connects to the Internet. But, since Previews Adult went web-only a while back, the PCG may have grabbed his last tissue. If you spot the PCG in his natural habitat, take good notes. You may not see him again after he gets caught in an FBI setup at a Wal-Mart parking lot.

4. Marvel Zombie

Reads: Uncanny X-Men, New Avengers, Dark Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, The Ultimates, Anything by Brian Michael Bendis

Profile: It’s not really hard to pick out what the Marvel Zombie reads. Just check out the sales chart from Diamond, and it’s basically the mainstays of American comics. The thing is, though, that the MZ hates just about everything he buys. From continuity lapses in New Avengers to Spidey selling his soul to Mephisto to endless crossovers, the MZ has a patented buy-and-bitch formula that keeps Marvel’s shareholders laughing all the way to the bank. The MZ has a lot in common with your average Star Wars fan. He claims that Marvel has raped (or is raping) his childhood, but keeps giving them hundreds of dollars a year. Why he equates crappy genre fiction with sexual assault is a mystery, but you’d think that Joe Quesada sent him to federal prison with a jar of Vaseline—one filled with sand and a post-it note that has “Ha Ha” written on it. But, Joe Q sleeps easy at night knowing that the MZ will spend half his time buying and reading stacks of variants and crossovers—and the other half ranting on message boards, providing Marvel with gigs of free exposure. No matter what happens, the MZ will keep grasping at a memory of the comics he read as a child, even though he’d certainly despise them now. Regardless, he will never stop reading—or whining.

3. DC History Expert

Reads: Green Lantern, Blackest Night, Justice League, 52, Final Crisis, Legion of Super-Heroes

Profile: You have to distinguish the DC History Expert from other comic fans. Everyone reads a Batman or Superman title. DC is usually smart enough to keep its most popular characters free from the tangled ropes of continuity. If you watched Superman: The Movie as a kid, you can probably follow Action Comics just fine. These aren’t the comics that set the heart of the DHE aflame. Nay, the DHE only enjoys comics that require a vast knowledge of DC history and continuity. He’s memorized the Multiverse, and Highfather help you if you don’t remember what the Emerald Eye of Ekron is. He squeals with glee every time DC rewrites its history with reality-altering punches—or insane editorial mandates to remember storylines from 60 years ago. Deep in his suburban basement lair, he has a flowchart he updates every month. Hidden away from the harsh light of the sun, he posts to message boards and blasts other comic readers that couldn’t follow Final Crisis or 52. For the DHE, these stories pass with the ease of a gentle spring wind. He needs only to tap into the reams of stories, characters, and minutiae he’s memorized over the years to understand exactly what’s going on. Some men know Shakespeare in stunning detail. Others learn Italian so they can read The Divine Comedy in its original language. The DHE can recount every Crisis down to the last detail—making you, the uninformed and casual reader, das untermensch. If they gave a doctorate in DC History, the DHE would be the dean of his own university by now—one you’d never get into.

2. The Doesn’t-Read-Comics Fan

Reads: Sandman, Watchmen, Y: The Last Man, Preacher, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, The Dark Tower, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Profile: The Doesn’t-Read-Comics-Fan is really difficult to spot in the wild, but that’s only because he blends in with other groups. But, they’re just as—if not more—likely to be women as they are to be men. They are the chameleon of comic readers. For instance: it’s a safe bet that a Sandman or Johnny fan will be drinking at your local Goth bar, but someone who owns all of the Preacher trades is harder to pin down. You see, the DRCF has denied that they read comics for years, and you certainly won’t find them at your local shop. More often than not, they got into comics by way of Vertigo trade paperbacks. You see, someone else practically forced them to read the first volume of Y: The Last Man, and then they returned to Barnes & Noble the next day and bought the rest of the run. Then (they’ll be glad to tell you) they spent, like, the whole weekend reading through it, faster than they got caught up on Mad Men a few days ago. One thing leads to another, and the DRCF will probably get into Transmetropolitan or maybe even Hellblazer soon after. But, they’ll sell out their mothers to the mob before they’ll call themselves a fan—even though they actually had to go into a comic shop to buy the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They just couldn’t wait, you know?

1. Aging ‘90s Speculator

Reads: Spawn, Youngblood,  Deathblow,  X-Force (v. 1), The Death of Superman, Wizard

Profile: The Aging ‘90s Speculator is a dying breed—one that sits atop the endangered species list of fanboy assholery. With great luck, you may see him trying to hawk his collection of polybagged number ones at your comic shop. To see this means to look into the eyes of God—a god that loves a cruel joke. Almost anyone that has ever read comics knows that, in the end, they’re rarely worth the paper they’re printed on. Older comics are worth something, because there aren’t many of them floating around. But during the ‘90s, fans everywhere thought they’d make their fortune on multiple copies of polybagged books with holofoil covers. Thousands of crappy comics were sold. We were all supposed to be rich. The 1990s boom saw a lot of fans and retailers get into a sort of clapboard stock market of buying and selling based on speculation. Good storytelling took a backseat to flashy art and manufactured collectibles. Everyone bought into it. The smart ones jumped ship before the bottom fell out, but plenty of fans were left with boxes of pristine comics that no one wanted. Most realized that the emperor had no clothes when they sold their collections for pennies on the dollar 10 or 15 years ago. That’s what makes the A9S so hard to find. Most of them moved from comics to shady mortgages a while back, and we know how that turned out. But, in these tough economic times, you can always depend on the last few to come crawling out of the garage, having not even heard of the 1990s crash. With a few boxes of comics in their car, they’ll head to the shop. Years of waiting must be worth a couple of hundred bucks—at least enough for the cable bill, right? We all know how the encounter across the counter ends, but seeing it unfold is a thing of beauty. If you can, take pictures. Usually, the whole experience is over quickly enough. The clerk explains the ‘90s crash and that they aren’t buying, anyway. The A9S takes his books and shuffles out the door—back to his gas-guzzling SUV, crippling mortgage, and ungrateful kids; back to another evening of killing the pain with World of Warcraft; back to a world where the 1990s never ended, where his dreams can frolic with X-Force through a field of money trees and variant covers that grow like wildflowers. If you’re really lucky though, you may witness a screaming meltdown in your comic shop. The clerk may have to consider the store handgun he’s always wanted to use. Or, if you watch long enough, you may see the A9S weeping in the car, or even chucking his collection in the dumpster, profanity raining down alongside the 15 copies of Deathblow #1 that flutter to the bottom of the trash—never to be speculated upon again.

You are now exiting The No-Fly Zone.

Kurt Amacker is the writer of The No-Fly Zone, Mania’s weekly alternative comics column. He is also the author of the comic miniseries Dead Souls, published by Seraphemera Books. Dead Souls is available from the Seraphemera Books website, Amazon.com, and at comic shops everywhere. He can be reached at kurt_amacker@seraphemera.org.