Jeremy Rowley
Jrowley1@uwyo.edu
Nowadays, superheroes are a mainstay of our generation’s culture.
With comic book movies coming in as some of the highest-grossing films in the world, it is undeniable that these stories no longer belong to the nerdy and unpopular. Comic book characters have become mainstream. Knowing this, it is not unreasonable to assume that more people would be willing to pick up a comic now than at any point in the past.
Sure, not every person that went and saw “The Avengers” is going to delve deep into the literary lore of a bunch of fictitious super-powered men and women. The same can be said for other movie adaptations–Not every person that went to the “Harry Potter” films picked up the books afterwards. Nevertheless, surely some percentage of the viewers crossed over to the paper side of the stories after seeing the films. The same would be true for comic books if they were as readily available as paperback copies of “The Deathly Hallows.”
Unfortunately, comics do not have the luxury of being in every Wal-Mart, Safeway and friend’s house as some of our favorite book-turned-movie series’ do. They are comparatively hard to find and even when you do, the problems do not let up.
The only place in this town that sells comic books is Hastings, your one stop shop for everything you could find cheaper on Amazon. Even though it is nice to know comics exist in our city, Hastings has a tendency to price some of their comics higher than they are listed for on the book’s cover. Sure, this only happens from time to time, but it would certainly be enough to curb a new reader’s interest in the medium.
However, the real problem with buying from Hastings is that there is no reliability. If you buy the first few issues in a series, there is no guarantee that they will continue to receive issues in said series. It is far too often that I find myself four issues into a six part series, only to discover that they did not order the fifth part. Then, as if only to salt the wound, they have the sixth part come in a few weeks later. If the price hike fails to turn somebody off from comic books, this is sure to finish the job.
It is simply not easy enough for a person to introduce themselves to the current comic book world. We know the audience is out there; the sheer number of comic book movie ticket sales is proof enough of that. Yet how can a person get involved without your friendly neighborhood comic book shop there to make the process fun and, more importantly, easy?
Our town could use more places to walk around every weekend, so why not bring Laramie some of the backstory behind our favorite caped crusaders? The payoff would be super.
