Dave's Fanboy Sermon

We didn't see it coming. It's part of our business to anticipate the next big thing. A little less than a year ago, like most stores, I was preparing for the onslaught of Star Wars Episode One mania. Every day I received e-mails that informed me of one thing or another, and all of them either began or ended with "...Only x more days until the Phantom Menace opens. Mortgage the house. Sell the children. Do whatever you have to do to stock your store with massive amounts of Star Wars paraphernalia or you will be hopelessly left behind as everyone else makes their fortune."

Well, Star Wars opened to impressive business at the theaters, but the merchandising aspect... well, let's just be charitable and say that it left a little to be desired.

Meanwhile, as fans were arguing over the best way to exterminate Jar Jar Binks, another obnoxiously cute franchise slipped into our stores with much less fanfare. Anyone who says that they looked at Pikachu and knew that it would be the next marketing phenomenon is, quite frankly, lying through their teeth. I sat through the Pokemon Movie (or actually slept through most of it) and I still don't understand it. But of course, I'm not supposed to. Pokemon is simply not aimed at me. I'm way too old. My tolerance for artificial sweetening is simply not sufficient to fully enjoy the world of the Pikachu and the Charizard.

Every day, like most of the other comic and toy shops in America, I take call after call after call from mothers desperately trying to find more Pokemon cards to keep their children happy. Sometimes it seems that every local child under the age of twelve has our number programmed into their phones speed dial. I would love to explain the appeal of the Pokemon phenomenon, but quite frankly, I don't understand it myself. It's just one of those totally inexplicable things, like male pattern baldness and William Shatners acting.

Even less explicable is the attitude that I have observed concerning Pokemon comics. It begins this way: A young child was in my store during one of the many times when I had no Pokemon cards for sale, when he notice my display of Pokemon comics (located directly adjacent to where the Pokemon cards would be, if we had had any). "Mom!" he squealed, "They make a comic book about Pokemon!" The mother frowned disapprovingly and snapped, "We are NOT buying you a (her words dripped contempt here) comic book!" This disturbed me. As a parent, I cannot understand not being delighted at my child expressing interest in reading anything, whether it's Shakespeare or the back of a cereal box. It was as if that parent was saying that it was ok to spend insane amounts of money on cards because, of course, they were collectible, but the comic... well, you couldn't do anything but read the comic. It was a waste of money!

Our little industry boomed a few years ago not when people discovered what fun reading a comic could be, but rather when speculators started viewing them as collectibles. They were purchased more for their appreciation potential than their entertainment value. Now everyone reading this knows where that led us. Bust. Disaster. Stacks and stacks of Deathmate comics. We lost sight of what it was in the first place that entertained us about comics and could only watch in horror as the investors left our market bare like a hoard of locust and moved on to the next big thing (action figures, I think).

Which brings us back to Pokemon (you thought I had no idea where I was going, didn't you). I have a nine year old son. He taught me how to play the game, and while I think that Chess and Monopoly face no real threat, it was a cute diversion. I could see how young kids could enjoy it. Unfortunately, it seems that a rather substantial group of these children aren't actually playing the game. They're only collecting the cards. It's become a status symbol in the schools. Now the whole concept of peer pressure and what have you is really not a topic for this column, but the point that I'm slowly getting at is: Why can't this be turned into a positive thing? Show these children that those cards that they are carrying around are actually part of a game. Open up a whole world of imagination for them. Let them know that there are comic books with adventures about Pikachu and whoever that kid is that is always running around with the Pokeballs. Comics and games should not be beneath these kids. I understand that greed is the most universal motivator around, but fun has to be running somewhere around second for people under the age of twelve.

I don't have to understand Pokemon. It isn't meant for me. But I do remember what it was like to discover that I could read about characters that interested me. Already we're seeing glimpses of it. Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon seemed to be waning in popularity before Pokemon exploded and both of those are now more popular than ever. We actually sell more Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon comics than we do Pokemon comics. Hopefully the "trickle-up" process will continue. To that parent who felt that a Pokemon comic was a waste of money- well, the Pokemon fad will fade, no question. The worlds that can be opened up to her child by reading, however, is something that will continue to grow far beyond the value of a Charizard.