Stephen McGrath wrote: I'm getting the latest Batman, Detective, Superman and Action comics...for now.  When The Kuberts start, I'll probably drop whichever book they're on, but keep going on the others.

Tangent, but you're dropping a book because the Kuberts are working on it?  This is certainly where different strokes comes in because I love any Kubert art I can get my hands on, from father to son.  If I wasn't already picking up both Superman books (odd for me since I haven't really followed his titles since "The Death of Superman" until JB came back to ACTION) and I found out the Brothers Kubert were working on one, I'd pick it up in a heartbeat.

Besides, there is a "clubhouse" mentality to comic reading. Always has been. Denying it won't make it go away.

I also don't see the problem with anyone saying that they know something more about a thing than others.  Is that really so bad?  Some of the dialog here has been that the very use of the word "civilian" makes it sound as though we who read comics know more about them then people who don't.  Well, it's true, isn't it?  I wouldn't, for a moment, be opposed to a train collector, a baseball card enthusiast, a first edition seeker, or an avid National Geographic collector telling me that they know more about their hobby than I do, because they do...and using a term that, on it's face, isn't automatically perjorative.  I really don't see the problem.

And saying that a person who doesn't read comics who would come across this site and read "civilian" in reference to them, reinforcing the idea that the comic book world is insular and nerdy?  That's just silly!!  There are a hundred threads, a third of which were started by me, that would give that impression before they ever stumbled across the term "civilian".

Personally I think the list is nonsense. If you read superhero comics to look cool and get women, well good luck, it never worked for me. If you read superhero comics and then write treatises on their sex lives, well good for you, if it's your thing and so on.

I don't think you're ever too old to do anything. Life's too short to worry what others think.

I only have two rules when it comes to reading anything: if I don't like it I stop reading it and I read what I want and not what I think others think I should read.

JB's reason for the coinage of the phrase "civilian" is understandable but when fans/non professionals start to use it all it does is reinforce the "clubhouse" mentality.

I for one do not deny this mentality, but like a lot of other comicbook readers, I sure don't subscribe to it.

(1) You complain about things that "wouldn't work", applying "real world" physics.

When it envolves lazy story writing I complain. 

(2) You fault a point in the latest issue because it contradicts something you read in an issue you bought new off the stands twenty years ago.

What with my memory? That ain't never gonna happen!

(3) You refer to superhero costumes as being made of "Spandex".

I have always hated that term

(4) When you are with your "civilian" friends, you make fun of superheroes whenever they do.

Not guilty

(5) You think superheroes saying "fuck" is "sophisticated".

I don't mind in comics like the Authority or similar but never in something like a Superman or Spider-Man comic

(6) You think the characters should be at least as old as you are, and some a lot older.

I used to think Spider-Man was old when I first started reading him then eventually we caught up with each other. Now I am a lot older than him. I was shocked when I read that Batman and Superman were meant to be 28/29. Like the other guy said I ALWAYS thought they were both in there mid thirties.

(7) You wonder about the sex lives of the characters.

Nope

(8) You wonder about the sex lives of the creators.

Well JB I worry about you. You need to find a nice girl to help you around the house and stuff

(9) You never worry when the hero is in a "death trap" because you know the company has to come out with another issue next month, and anyway you read spoilers about three issues beyond this one in WIZARD

Guilty

(10) You just don't get it.

I get something

Todd Douglas wrote: By the same token, though, Matt, given the examples they have to go by, might they not conclude that Patrick is the proverbial exception that proves the rule?

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Listen, comic book buyers/readers/collectors aren't any different than any other hobby I know of.  Google a bunch of websites focusing on a bunch of different hobbies.  If one wanted to, one could assume that anyone who is passionate about anything is a nerd and, by what they write about, insular in their very nature because you won't know what the hell they're talking about.  All I'm saying is, don't worry about what other people think and do.  I don't.  If me talking passionately about Spider-Man turns you off because, hey, how can a guy get worked up over a comic book, well then that's not my problem.  I'm not going to "dial it down" or act "kewl" so that we can all be on the same playing field. My girlfriend, like Patrick's, knows by my actions that I'm not "comic book guy".  I know it.  My friends know it. They're smart enough to know that there are all sorts of hobbyists and enthusiasts, with wildly different ways of approaching what they love.  What strangers think isn't really my concern.