Men Are Martian Manhunters, Women Are From Amazon

And so begins the probably final chapter in my likely trilogy of posts that make me sound like an incredible sexist. The first being about the "Phoenix" who I had the misfortune of working with and the second being about the fight against evil led by anorexics. But in my defense, at the time of the anorexic post there were ads all the time for the Terminator tv show and for Doomsday, and as for the Phoenix... well she plain sucks.

I sort of intimated on this particular pet peeve with my post on the Phoenix, but here it is: moderately attractive girls who like comics seem to be, more often than not, really annoying and full of themselves. It's like they lord over the fact that the ratio of male-to-female comic fans are 357:1 and male to decent-looking female comic fans look like 7,892:1. As I said before, if these girls were to go to the local discotheque/bar/what have you they would be mostly ignored by the typical dudes who go there. Put them in an area where there are horny, hard-up lonely guys around and... jackpot! I say this with no malice, just an observant eye calling it as I see it. Take it from me, one of my close female friends from way back in high school grew up to be a cosplayer. I asked her her favorite characters and she named a buncha broads whose costumes she liked. So there.

A perfect example can be found in the Lying In The Gutters column found here. Rich Johnston came upon a craigslist ad and posted the thing for all to see. I don't recall if it truly became the industry meme that he predicted (i.e. breaking internets in half, blonde latinas looking like hookers, etc etc) but it certainly caught my eye. I'm going to post the ad here and intersperse my thoughts through:

Midtown Comics boy, you're hot. - w4m - 23 (Midtown West)

Date: 2007-09-12, 1:03PM EDT

You- gorgeous comic shop cashier, maybe 20ish years old, black t-shirt, asked blonde/red-head (like the band?) boy in white polo to "hold down the fort," lip ring (but then, you all had lip rings, didn't you?)Me - 23, brunette, red tank top, black skirt-only girl in comic shop, Monday, sept. 10, afternoon

I waited in line to ask you about a special comic order. I am ashamed to admit that I stared heartily at your beautiful dark eyes while I stood there. I fantasized about nibbling that hot lip ring on the right side of your lip and grabbing your crotch. I didn't get a look at your crotch. Damn. On most guys, lip rings don't work but there is something about you that makes it the hottest thing in the world. Cute comic shop boy (have I mentioned how I hate it when girls call guys "boy". What is he, 12 or something? Is she a schoolteacher?), I want to make out with you. I want to feel your lip ring all over my body. I came in with a guy, but I was not dating him. He is my trainee at work. I am not interested in him at all. (and I am sure that he is flattered and thrilled that you made such a point of saying that)

Cute comic shop boy, I fantasized about throwing you into a supply closet and tearing off your pants and raping you until you couldn't walk (when did rape become acceptable? Or is it only acceptable if you're a chick? Guys, go out sometime and tell a girl she looks good... and you want to rape her. Then report back on how it went). I guess that's somewhat unlady-like and rather slutty (yes). If you remember, though, I did not tear off your pants or even rape you while we exchanged sexually charged comic banter (what did that sound like? "Hey, want to see my Giant Sized Man-Thing?"). I wanted to. I wanted to take off those loose fit jeans and go. To. Town. I am sorry I led you on when you showed me some comic recommendations. I'll probably buy another one next week so I can see you. But I don't think I'm that into comics. I want to be, for you. But my heart isn't into it (then... what was the special order comic about? Huh? It's only a craigslist ad and you're already lying to him about something). My heart is into your body. I hope you wanted it ("it"? You have a penis?). I hope you wanted me to give it to you (the penis?). But I can't. Because I have a boyfriend. We've been together for three years. I know it doesn't matter to most hot guys but it matters to me (yes, it matters so much that you went behind his back and placed a craigslist ad. You can't cheat on your boyfriend so bad you write about how you want to cheat on him). So even though I wanted to rape you crooked, sideways and covered in chocolate sauce, it can't ever happen. I'm sorry. I am hoping this is a letdown for you (I hope I teased you and gave you blue balls. Nice). I am hoping you wanted me covered in chocolate sauce as well. I suppose there is always the chance that you didn't want to rape me, too (I hope and pray irony is a stranger to her lest she find out that rape is definitely not something you want to happen to you under any kind of circumstance). You told me your name and where you live, though, so I think the wanna-rape-ratio had to be pretty even. So I'm sorry. But look on the bright side. There's something you don't know. It's terrible. While I am, to the general population, pretty cute (and have a top notch rack), I harbor an insidious secret. (uh, that is thinking way too highly about oneself. You're alright. But pretty cute? With that schnozz? And "top notch rack"? You hide it well, madam. And what's with everyone from New York having black hair and olive skin? Is that town 98 % Italian and Greek, or 99%?)

Cute comic shop boy, I'm a nerd. I play World of Warcraft and like to read gaming webcomics. I sit around in my pajamas and lead midlevel instances over Ventrilo. I'm dying for my epic flying mount. I like to go to Staples and purchase office supplies and organize my desk. There is a of picture me in a World of Warcraft shirt at jinx.com, with a fork in my hair. I love Age of Mythology, even though it's about a hundred in gaming years. I have a Playstation 2 and Xinaghua pwns my face. I say pwns, even in real life (I hate people that do this. Things typed should never be said. I knew this girl who said "pwn", "win" and "fail". I stopped talking to her. True story). I wish I could sew so that I could wear her sexy bellyshirt outfit and parade around town, hooking up with other nerds who like hot chicks in skimpy gaming outfits (what a whore). I go to I-CON at Stonybrook every year so I can watch Voltaire sing about Star Trek, and so I can flirt with him because he's in my 'five.' I love Stargate SG-1 and Richard Dean Anderson. Claudia Black is a goddess.

Cute comic shop boy, I hope one day I hope I let my inhibitions and your pants down and our rape to rape ratio with each other becomes 1:1. Maybe another girl can even get in on it (oh what a surprise she's "bisexual". Just like every other woman in this country between the ages of 14 and 32). In the meantime, I'm going to take you (and this hot girl) to bed with me every night for the rest of the week. I've already thought about you twice. You were great. So was she.

I love your lip ring.

P.S. I'm sorry about my terrible lesbian vampires joke. (wait, there was a lesbian vampire joke?)

<3>

Girl who doesn't love comics that much but loves your eyes.

So there we go. I did google this and found a discussion and a blog post, both from Newsarama, I think. The Newsarama commenters seemed to think she was a psycho stalker tease. Of course, later in the year, something not altogether surprising was revealed here.

Can you imagine the poor sap who dated her for 3 years? Probably thought he found the jackpot with having a moderately attractive female into geek stuff, only for her to glimpse a guy that looks like CM Punk's little brother on a whim and send him straight to Masturbationville. With stopovers in Latenightcryingjagland and Selfloathingtown.

It only took 3 months at the max, probably less, to put the kibosh on a 3-year relationship. Furthermore, just a month later LITG fans were privy to this. I hope it was worth losing a longtime boyfriend for a dude to rape you in chocolate sauce while lesbian vampires watched for 4 months. Four months, tops. The dude quit the comic shop. She probably scared him out of the hobby. Now he's into the Yankees and Jovi. For shame.

Okay, let's everyone cut the shit. Normal people are slowly but surely pouring into this hobby. I can go to Borders and see nice, cute girls reading manga. Maybe not Iron Man, but sequential art nonetheless. Everyone likes comic book movies. Every single young person has played the Wii. Being a geek has never been more socially acceptable. That being said, please stop acting like you're doing us a favor by deigning to hang out with the losers. Yes, there are a ton of mouth-breathing, sweaty fatties that have bizarre and sad personal lives and treat these characters as if they are family instead of a paycheck for a huge corporation. There are also nice, normal guys that think this stuff is fun and/or funny.

I've always hated people that fished for compliments, and you won't find a better example than girls dressing up as Dawn or Witchblade or whatever. And you won't find so many aspiring Mae Wests anywhere else. Seriously, talk to a girl in a comic shop and she'll tell you many a joke on how she's probably scaring all the dudes there and they're probably all up in arms that she knows who Optimus Prime is. I took a photography class last semester with a girl that looked an awful lot like Lana Lang from Smallville (i.e. a Canadian Eurasian goddess) and she saw Transformers in the theaters three times. Three! I've never seen any movie in the theaters three times. I think the most was The Departed and Jackass Number Two at two times each. So really, we're not that impressed with your Cobra Commander shirt and Green Lantern tatttoo. Just be cool. Capische?

As for the rest of you... get your comments on! I'm (obviously) not making any money from doing this, so the second most-important thing I can get from this (besides peace of mind) is knowing that people are out there reading and enjoying. Or reading and hating. But at least reading. Make up a fake name, it's the internet!