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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Eric: "...I understand that it was - and possibly still is - treated as a derogatory term. But I don't take it that way...."

A lot of people in our community don't look at it negatively when used in the community. It definitely has been normalized within our ranks, so to speak. No question about that. But, I do think the general public uses those terms negatively more often than not when referring to comic fans and fans of similar things, like animation and gaming.

As I noted above, it's more an irritant than something that angers me. I accept that those terms are embraced by many fans and used proudly, I just would prefer something else that didn't start out as a slam against our ilk.

Oh, and I agree with you about self-professed experts! LOL!

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Brian Rhodes
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

See? I can't be a nerd.


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Brian Rhodes
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

There are guys who paint their chests and frolic shirtless in freezing weather at football games. In their frenzied buffoonery, scoffing at (or ignorant of) social norms, they passionately cheer on extremely athletic, and/or unusually powerful men in purposely colorful clothes in direct physical conflict with one another.

And don't even get me started on "wrasslin'".

But I like superheroes, so I'm the geek. Ok.


Edited by Brian Rhodes on 26 October 2020 at 2:27pm
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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Brian, exactly!

There's also the irony that many of those people in the general public who watch the movies and TV shows still look diwn on actual comic book fans, and wouldn't be caught dead reading a comic. They'll sport a shirt based on a comic book movies,  though!
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John Byrne
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

“Wouldn’t be caught dead reading a comic” also describes many who read “graphic novels”.
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Posted: 26 October 2020 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

In my experience, lots of people like the “jocks” and “hip chicks” are interested in reading comic books after being exposed to them in other media, but they get turned off by the gatekeeping attitude in comic shops and from long-term comic fans. YMMV

Agree on this.


There are guys who paint their chests and frolic shirtless in freezing weather at football games. In their frenzied buffoonery, scoffing at (or ignorant of) social norms, they passionately cheer on extremely athletic, and/or unusually powerful men in purposely colorful clothes in direct physical conflict with one another.

But I like superheroes, so I'm the geek. Ok.

The classic Nerd Superiority Complex. Someone convinced an entire generation that if they liked science fiction and disliked sports then they were smart.

Obviously completely untrue. In "geek" related scenarios I've met some of the dumbest, most annoying people I've seen in my life and some of the smartest and most interesting ones in sports bars or locker rooms.



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John Byrne
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Posted: 27 October 2020 at 6:30am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

The classic Nerd Superiority Complex. Someone convinced an entire generation that if they liked science fiction and disliked sports then they were smart.

••

I've told before the story of how an episode of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW crushed my spirit.

I was in 10th grade, and I had a different kind of crush on the "Cousin Kathy" character on that old sitcom. The episode in question had Patty (also played by Patty Duke) upset that her English cousin was getting more attention than her, being smarter and more sophisticated. She resolved that, if she could not improve her own standing, she would at least insure that her children fared better.

So she set out to examine the boys at her high school, looking for a perfect mate. She seemed to have found one when she heard one of the top jocks expounding on scientific principles. Alas, she quickly discovered he had learned the science stuff from reading comic books! Off her radar he went, as I cried "But he still KNOWS it!!"

That was around 1965 or so.

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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 27 October 2020 at 8:07am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I like comic books, and super hero movies. I also like most major sports*. So I'm an idiot to TWO groups of friends. Comic fans and sci-fi fans who mock the living hell out of anyone who likes sports, and sports fans who can't understand how I can still read "funny books." (Of all phrases that I wish would go away, that might be the first.)

Or even better... the fans who like the Cleveland Indians, but who torture people who watch the Browns and Cavalier (mix and match those teams as  you like.) I answer, "But baseball is still a sport" and they answer, "Yeah, but I understand baseball."
A) I try not to laugh at them.
B) "Oh really? Explain [the infield fly rule / free kicks / technical fouls for ejections] to me."

Yeah, I'm a sad little man... :)

*Just not a big enough hockey fan. Maybe if we had a team in Greater Cleveland, where I live, I'd be into it.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 27 October 2020 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Lots of interesting and informative reading here. I have had the comfortable comic shop experience and I've had the very uncomfortable one too. The uncomfortable shops first: dark inside, guys hanging around that seem to live there and comment on customers and/or their purchases, artwork prominently displayed that is graphic ('adult' doesn't quite fit), clerks that are bothering themselves to interact with anyone other than their pals, prices that change at the cash register or are even no longer for sale suddenly. That isn't a single shop but all parts of shops I did experience, sometimes there'd be two of those things but a helpful respectful clerk.

Now the good shops: bright(er), open, lots of general public and kid friendly stuff up front in the window near the door, clerks that say have you seen such-and-such based on what you are buying, no insider crowd clumped together all day not shopping or playing role-playing game in middle of shop, any 'adult' material in an easily monitored area away from the toys, Archies and Disney etc. things. I'm thinking of one shop that painted Calvin and Hobbes directly on the wall outside by the door as an especially smart move! And another that had gumball and similar small toy machines outside the front door!

As to the 'geek' or 'nerd' and general outsider business, I respond positively to people based on if they are enjoying thmselves and being themself as opposed to an act, so those are the cool and interesting people to me! Someone having the right hairdo or trendy clothes means zilch since junior highschool. The people who are enthused only by the most violent supposedly 'adult' comics and games, who look down on kids comics or whatever else that isn't 'serious' enough, they are not cool. If you associate or cater to the semi-psychotic antisocial seeming you are going to push away others. So having a blood spattered hyper-muscled Punisher/Lobo/Wolverine/Death t-shirt says to me I don't want to know and nothing much there to communicate with probably. Not that I didn't enjoy the first Rambo or Transporter movie at all, but it's not something to take as an identity. Maybe those people are trying hard not to be the uncool geek or nerd?

I think the mature graphic novels as great literature for the ages people are mostly tedious, but primarily no fun. You can be a true scholar of the form without it being negative and even enthuse others about it, but somewhere there is a line where you wonder why they didn't move on to read the great works of literature without so many pictures because they seem to genuinely hate and even despise so many comics and creators. Can I not enjoy George Herriman, Art Spiegelman or Charles Burns and Dan DeCarlo, Stan Lee and George Tuska? I would say the snob, the graphic violence and big guns types, and dare I say the investor condition freak sort, would be the negatives more than anybody in a gaudy Flash shirt or even an actual costume. If comic books aren't fun (and also affordable) there really is no bloody point to the things. All kinds of adults engage in fun childish things besides comic book readers/collectors/accumulators. I can really enjoy following soccer and ice hockey too, and they have colorful uniforms and iconic image identities. Have fun, be fun!

Having thus passed my own (thick glasses, stringy-haired, overly wordy) harsh judgements, anyone who wants to call me nerd, geek or freak is entitled to their opinion! I don't care if I'm actually having fun and enjoying thinking. They probably have a timber in their own eye that needs seeing to anyway. :^)

Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 27 October 2020 at 12:52pm
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Posted: 27 October 2020 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Alas, she quickly discovered he had learned the science stuff from reading comic books!

That reminded me of Wertham defining "juvenile delinquents" as the target audience for comic books. While obviously wrong, it is funny now as that seems to be the furthest away from "nerds" as I can imagine (don't know if the word "nerd" even existed then).

Can I not enjoy George Herriman, Art Spiegelman or Charles Burns and Dan DeCarlo, Stan Lee and George Tuska?

I've never met or seen even in the darkest dungeons of the internets a single person that said you couldn't, or anything of the sort.






Edited by Rodrigo castellanos on 27 October 2020 at 5:28pm
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