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ence’s eye with its sassy demeanor and stylish clothes (this being a metaphor for its undeniably high quality recent creative work), but just as that car starts to slow down, somebody over there says something like, "If you don’t like what we’re doing, you’ve got low IQ," or "Since [insert names of two well-known, well-respected, heck, even well-loved retailers here] are vocal critics of ours, we shall call them names, as if we were seven years old" or, and this is my favorite: "We are selling more comics than we ever have! You know, if you look at this fudged data from three regimes ago, and compare it to this flawed information here, without tak ing into account all the various factors that effect that here, and, viola! We sell more comics than Bill Gates has got dollar bills! If, you know, you hold all that up to the light just right."

When all they have to do, really, is stop at the crosswalk, wait for the light to change, and proceed in a "clear and unambiguous" manner.

Metaphorically.

Just let the really high quality of comics they are producing speak for themselves, and the sales will happen because the retailers will be happy. And, you know, I’ve never heard a copy of X-Men insult anyone, yet, so there’s that.

I found the ad for "Louis’ Italian American Restaurant" to be quite funny. But I’m kind of a coarse guy, so there you go.

Was over at James Sime’s store Comics and Da Kind last Friday, and I have to say, I love having a few cocktails after hours in a comics store with an impressive trade paperback display and a few hip customers. If you hit the link in that last sentence, you can read about my first impressions of James’ store, and the few months he’s been working on it has only increased my admiration for the work he’s done. Kieron (The Avengers) Dwyer was there, the indescribably mad-in-the British-way Mike O’Brien (who may be more well-known around these parts as the face model for Spider Jerusalem’s editor Mitchell Royce in Transmetropolitan ) made an appearance, and John The Bod Heebink showed up, if only so afterwards he could stick his head into Amazon, the bar across the street owned by Asian hookers. Even Rory Root, of Berkeley’s Comic Relief stopped in, sharing, as is his wont, the incredibly good Scotch he always keeps about his person on the off chance he runs across occasions such as these. And this, honestly, is the sort of thing that happens with disturbing, possibly even alarming reg ularity at this shop.

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