An open letter to Robert Kirkman, writer of The Walking Dead

Dear Mr. Kirkman,

As you may well know (from my previous blog entry, of course), I received a recommendation for TWD from a "celebrity'. When someone (at least semi-)famous tells me to read something, well, I read it. And as I like to pretend that I have lots of disposable income, I picked up the first two trades on my next trip to the shop. Wow. Let me state for the record that I hate all things Zombie. Night of the Living Dead annoys me, and I can't stand those stupid Zombie Emergency handbooks everyone's buying now like zombies actually exist. I want to punch all of those people in the solar plexus, truth be told.
However, holy balls. This comic rocks my face off like a karaoke version of "My Heart Will Go On", except instead of sucking, that's how much it rocks. (Go on, click the link, you know you want to...) I went out and picked up all the other trades that were out, and have been reading individual issues ever since. I've recommended TWD to just about anyone who will listen to me, and have lent out my copies to countless people who don't even read comics. (Now they do, of course...)

Ok, so now that I've throughly kissed your ass:

W T F!?!? I just finished issue 48, and I just want to state for the record that I hate you. Hate you, hate you, hate you.

That is all.

Sincerely,

-Dina

Funny Comic Stories, MAD TV Edition

So, this past July I moved to LA, and needed to find a new comic shop. I (regretfully) parted from my beloved Cosmic Comics in NY, and landed by way of a few reccommendations at Golden Apple.

Turns out, I really like this place. The staff are friendly and helpful, and the new releases are arranged in a way that makes sense. Not to mention, the staff picks each week are generally spot-on. (And I don't mean to get anyone in trouble ot anything, but I've been getting the "new customer discount" for like, 9 months now...)

So, I head there for one of my Wednesday stock-up sessions, and I'm waiting in line at the counter. The clerk is talking up a storm with the guy ahead of me, who looks really familiar but I can't put my finger on it. Then he turns around and sees me.

"Whoa, what is this WOMAN doing in a COMIC BOOK STORE?!?1"

I'm pretty used to this, so I just turn to him and say "I'm here pretty often...", figuring he was just some jerk. Then he and the staff people start going through my stack and evaluating my taste as they're checking me out, and saying things like "ooh, Faker! That one's so good!" and "Oh, she's on Volume 8 of Preacher, almost done..." and then he turns to me and suggests Walking Dead, and I'm all "I'm not really into Zombies", and he insists it's good so I write it down and all this time I feel like I know him from somewhere but I'm still kind of miffed at the delay/invasion of privacy and so I'm a little bit cold which in retrospect I shouldn't have been when it hits me:

I'm talking to Phil LaMarr: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0482851/

No way!