By IAN GONZALES

To the cute girl in the comic shop,

A few years back (OK, probably closer to a decade), I found myself perusing the shelves of an East Village comic shop. You were working behind the counter. You had short, fire engine red hair, wore a tank top and had an ankh necklace. Customers shuffled in and out of the store, less than subtly gawking at you. The atmosphere was all kinds of awkward.

It was the summer before the first Spider-Man movie. Reading comics had not yet been elevated to a socially acceptable activity. We “mainstream” comic fans were still recovering from garbage like Electric Boogaloo Superman and the evil Professor X/Magneto hybrid, Onslaught. Indeed, our embarrassment was sound and warranted. On the other hand, these were the days after DC Comics published Neil Gaiman’s 1990s classic, Sandman, and the book was still bringing new kinds of readers to comics. (more…)