xp_logs | Julian & Doreen: New Comic Book Day

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Julian takes Doreen out for New Comic Book Day and nerdiness ensues...

Wednesday- a holy day to nerds across the country. Not because this day was halfway through the week and meant they were halfway to another weekend of eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew in their mom's basement while playing Dungeons and Dorks. No, this was the day that new comic books came out- and that meant today would be important to Doreen. She had always loved comic books- and after seeing how she chose to decorate her room, he was sure she'd love a quick trip into town to pick up her comics. He also wanted to make sure that she was doing okay. Her situation with her parents sounded like it was getting worse and the reason she wasn't home was because her mother couldn't afford it and her father was a jackass. The protective feeling that had developed back in LA still remained and Julian didn't want to see his bushy tailed friend upset.

After locating the comic shop on YellowPages.com and checking out a car, Julian was ready and went in search of his friend outside- where she'd been spending most of her time lately.

Doreen was laying stomach down on the grass, Monkey Joe by her side and a bunch of other squirrels getting in closer. She didn’t make any sudden movements because these squirrels didn’t know her and they were pretty suspicious of the bushy tailed human who was trying to win them over with treats they could normally get by jimmying the bird feeder.

One had finally come forward and was starting to talk to her but was filled with all these questions about why she had a tail and why she even knew how to make sense in the first place and Monkey Joe would click back about how country squirrels obviously didn’t know much as city squirrels and then Doreen would have to make with the peace offerings. She didn’t want a fight on her hands. But at least they were coming out now when she called them.

Julian spotted Doreen's tail before he saw her. The fuzzy appendage was twitching oddly over a hedge a little way across the lawn in the shade of some trees. "Doreen!" he shouted, hoping she'd hear him from this far off and trying to remember if super hearing came with the squirrel package. He had to take a roundabout way to get to her, not wanting to have to jump over the hedge that separated them.

As he rounded a bend and could finally see her, he stopped. Julian noticed a collection of squirrels around, chattering away. He knew she was having some trouble getting their trust from their talk earlier in the week, so he decided to sit down on the sidewalk and watch to see if they made any progress.

She didn’t move at the sound though some of the squirrels on the outside ends of the group took off. To her, even just her name was gibberish right now. But she smiled at the gray girl who stayed in and came in to take the food. Once she didn’t fall over from it the others moved in and started taking the food. Progress! Monkey Joe gave her a look and clicked something about her wasting the good granola on hicks.

Doreen face palmed and apologized to the remaining squirrels and looked at Monkey Joe and clicked, [You said you’d be nice to them.]

[Big sister, I’m nice.]

Doreen rolled her eyes and shook her head and then smelled Julian. She sat up, looked around and waved her friend over, forcing her thinking back into human as the other squirrels gathered up the food and scampered off. Monkey Joe stayed by her side.

“Hi Julian!”

Once the squirrels had scattered, Julian got up and dusted himself off, "Hey, didn't want to interrupt your talks." He ambled over, the car keys in hand and stood next to her, "Making any progress?"

“Kinda,” Doreen said and the poked Monkey Joe who had picked up some of the food left behind, “The ‘diplomat’ here isn’t making things easier by calling the locals hicks,” she said. Monkey Joe just shoved more food into his face, and Doreen wondered if that had been his goal all along. It wasn’t like she DIDN’T feed him, so she couldn’t figure out why he was being like this. He was okay with her talking to the other squirrels back home.

“But they hung out, so that’s progress,” she said brightly.

"Yes, and soon your invincible squirrel army will be ready for world domination," Julian gave his best impression of a super villain laugh before descending into a chuckle. He gripped the keys in his hand a little tighter, knowing there was likely to be some hugging involved in breaking this idea to her and not wanting them to go flying into a bush. "Doreen, do you know what today is?"

“Don’t be silly. They’re not invincible,” Doreen said with a laugh. Besides, it wasn’t like she could really get them to do what she wanted. Right now it was more like talking than it was anything else. Though not how people talked, “And yeah, today’s Wednesday,” she said, with a slight droop of the tail. Wednesday hadn’t been anything more than ‘only wish she had money’ day for quite awhile now.

Dori's subtle tail language was something he'd only started to learn when he was sent away, but this signal was unmistakable. "What's wrong?" he asked, with only a hint of the concern he actually had showing in his voice. 'Hope that didn't come off as too sarcastic.'

Even if it had come across as sarcastic, Doreen wouldn’t have noticed it. She kept sitting cross-legged on the ground, “It’s Wednesday,” she repeated with a heavy sigh. “And I’m poor. And today’s Comic Book Day,” she added almost as an after thought. Julian should know that much. She would go to the store back home and read, if nothing else, before she came here.

"It's a good thing you've got rich friends then, come on, I need some help checking out the comic book store in town." Julian jingled the keys.

“You… do….?” Doreen squeaked with joy and then Julian was tackled with a flying hug of ~~death~~ cute. “Awesome! Let’s go!”

As they got up, it dawned on him that even though he was doing something nice for Doreen, he'd never been to a comic book store before in his life. He had no idea what to expect and given her reaction, this may have been another case of Julian Keller biting off more than he can chew. "Okay, I checked out a car, hope you don't mind my driving."

* * *

Doreen didn’t mind Julian’s driving at all. She was so excited to be going to a comic store that she was twitching the whole time. Now she was almost bouncing up and down in the seat as they came to a parking spot. Monkey Joe was picking up on her energy and was also bouncing around with a huge amount of energy. One thing she did do before she got out of the car was click quite seriously to Monkey Joe, [You’ll have to wait outside. Stay out of traffic, I’ll whistle when we get out, okay? Stay close.] She gave Monkey Joe quite a hug then.

Julian was busy looking up and down the street for something that resembled a comic store. "Um, it's supposed to be in this block..." he wasn't seeing it. Turning back to Dory, he noticed that Monkey Joe was scampering off, "Is he going to be okay out here by himself?"

“Yeah,” Doreen said, having switched back to thinking in English in time to catch all of that, “I told him to stay close and keep out of the street, but most places don’t let you bring in pets. He’ll be fine,” Doreen said with a smile and looked up and down the block, “I see it!” she announced, “It’s on the end of the street,” she said cheerfully. She loved having sharp eyes.

Taking her word for it, Julian allowed Doreen to drag him up the block toward the corner shop which a large window display of the Battle of Hoth. He was at least nerdy enough to recognize something from main stream culture and had to admit the detail work the decorator had done with all of the white armored guys and the tan armored guys was interesting- but ultimately it seemed like somebody had too much spare time on hand. "Alright, you're the expert here, anything I should know before we go in?"

“Nope. It’s a store, just a cool one,” Doreen said. She hadn’t been here before so she didn’t know any of the little quirks yet. She’d find out. She liked the shop by school where she knew everyone who worked their by name, but she wasn’t in LA anymore. This would do. She hoped they didn’t mind mutants, “I mean, the sales staff and the customers will have their quirks, but that’s what it’s like anywhere. I’ll ask if they’re okay with pets when we get inside. If they are, next time I’ll bring in Monkey Joe,” she was twitching happily as she opened the door. It had been ages since she had actually been able to BUY books.

He followed her through the glass door, covered from head to toe in posters and flyers. The store hours were written on what appeared to be a napkin and the logo, a cartoon of a slightly balding man with a ridiculous mustache giving a thumbs up, was hand painted over the name of the store: Uncle Stan's Comics. A chime went off as Julian entered and he was suddenly in a strange and foreign place. He looked around in awe at all of the various characters on the walls; some he recognized, some he did not.

Though he tried to stick close to Dori, but quickly found himself seperated by the army of greasy nerds who were clammering over some thicker comics on book shelves. Suddenly he found himself in front of a long and deep display case, full of statues and toys...a collection that put Doreen's to shame. "Whoa...geek motherload."

Doreen happily got lost in the crowd. People were staring at her tail, and she was acutely aware of that but didn’t focus on that, instead carefully pawing through various issues of comics. Batman she had sworn off since Morrison’s run. He had done something horrible to one of her favorite series. She did pick up the JSA comics though, the last couple months worth and then considered putting them back. She really couldn’t ask Julian to buy these for her. Thinking about that she looked around and then saw him by a case.

She went over and stood by him, “Isn’t it just awesome! One day, I’m going to get that one,” she said, pointing to a Super Man statue, a very, very detailed one. “Or that one!” she said, pointing to a Spider-Man figure. “I’ll show you where the comics are!” she said brightly. “And then we can find the posters and the books and the cds and the cards and there’s role playing stuff if you’re into that,” she had never had a group of friends to play those with. “Thanks so much for bringing me here!” she squeaked pulling him towards This Week’s releases.

Julian made a mental note about the two that she pointed out for when Doreen's birthday rolled around. They were statues and his parents wouldn't get mad at him for purchasing some cheep piece of art. He allowed Dori to drag him through the shop, making brief eye contact with a cute blond who was working behind the counter. In fact, the only people who seemed to be in shape in the store- aside from Doreen and himself- were working on raking in a killing from the children...and adults...who were crowded around the counter. After a few moments of forcing through the crowd, who seemed to be clamoring over large white boxes full of shrink wrapped comics, Julian found himself in front of a wall with a glowing neon sign above it that read New Releases in bright pink lettering. The wall itself was covered with rows of wire racks that held fifty or so books, movies and comics- the last of which was stacked twenty or so deep for each title.

Doreen started looking through the books again, but she didn’t keep any off the shelf. She’d pull out a title and page through it, her tail twitching happily and then put it back. She wasn’t the only one doing that. Though others seemed to grab one or two of everything and others only went after one or two titles. Some flipped through the stores, trying to find variant covers and the like.

“This… is so great,” she said, reluctantly putting back a back issue of the last Birds of Prey and picking up a Huntress comic. “I haven’t been able to make it to a store in ages!”

One cover caught his eye, it featured The Hulk, Spider-man and Iron Man (who he only recognized after seeing the Robert Downy Jr. movie the previous summer). He picked it up and flipped through colorful pages and a separate story for each of the covered heroes. To his surprise, not once did the stories intersect. He scoffed, "Well this is a rip off, these guys," he held the cover up to show it to Doreen, "never meet up. You'd figure it's on the cover," he put the book back, "it should be in the book." One of the teenagers perusing a volume with scantily clad, to nude, women in it started to laugh and Julian flushed slightly.

“They don’t always do that,” Doreen said simply, “It just says that they’re in the book. Normally when it’s a team up they’ll say on the cover. Like when Spider-Man teams up with someone they always make a big deal of it,” Doreen said, picking up another book and happily reading it – after putting the one she was looking at back – “I mean, not even with normal books do the covers always match.”

She did have a point, which he conceded after moving to her other side. He picked up another cover, this one more artistic, and flipped through pages of poorly drawn, black and white images before putting it back. He didn't get what Dori liked about this place, but her tail was twitching excitedly and the look on her face was that of pure, unadulterated joy.

The girl from behind the counter came back and started putting a few individual comics back on the shelves. She smiled at him and, since it would have been rude to do otherwise, Julian smiled back- a little non-verbal flirting wasn't against the rules afterall. Behind her, a teenage boy with thick glasses and a Slurpee was staring at her in a not-so-subtle way. When the girl turned the boy gave a squeak and headed away. Once she was gone, the teen quickly made his way over to the rack and grabbed a couple of the comics she'd just put away before slinking away. Julian watched the odd behavior with some mild interest and suddenly found himself thinking Doreen was probably the most normal person in this place...next to himself of course.

Doreen looked over a few more of the New Releases and then grabbed Julian again, “Come on, I’ll show you the BEST way to buy comics,” she said sagely. “I think I saw the trade paperbacks this way,” she said, pulling him towards the back of the store, “It’s cheaper this way so I try to do it like this even though I haven’t bought anything in ages, because Mom needed the money for bills and stuff and no one would hire me for a part time job or anything,” Doreen said. Of course, Ryan, her little brother, always had spending money. But she knew her Dad was providing that.

She was sure that her Dad had to be saving up for something for her. Maybe a car. She was almost sixteen.

They were moving again, or rather, Doreen was moving and Julian was along for the ride. It took a moment but they found themselves in another section of the store, which was larger than it let on from the outside, which seemed more library than comic shop. Row after row of book shelves were back to back or lining the walls and on them were those thicker comics that some of the older nerds seemed to be carrying. As Doreen started plucking books off the shelves Julian perused the titles with an index finger on the spines. Again, some were familiar, like Batman and Superman, while others, like Order of the Stick and Hack/Slash were not. "So what are these things?" he asked while pulling one off the shelf and flipping through it, "Super comics?"

“Collections of miniseries and stuff,” Doreen said, plopping down on the floor, her tail up and happily waving, “It’s cheaper to buy them this way and you get them all at once.”

Careful to put it back in the perfectly formed gap that the book had left, Julian started to peruse the shelves. He watched as nerd after nerd would filter in and out, only some of them taking what they looked at. Occasionally, Julian would pick up a title and flip through it, scanning a page where a spandex clad, body builder would throw a tank at the equally muscled bad guy.

Finally he came upon a book that did catch his eye: Fables. Throughout the semester, the students of Mister Beaubier's class had been reading about the various Grimm's fairy tales and fables, but this was the last thing he'd expected, an illustrated version. He plucked it from the shelf and began to leaf through it...but none of it was recognizable from what he'd read in class. "Hey, Dori, what's up with this one? Fables."

Doreen looked up, “That one? It’s retelling some of the old fairy tells with super heroes. It’s pretty cool,” she said, sliding a big, fat book back into its place on the shelves and came over to look. “I like it. Some of them are really neat.”

Julian flipped through the pages again, more carefully this time, reading the balloons of dialogue. He started to spot characters that he could recognize: Snow White, The Frog Prince, Prince Charming. "Huh, seems kind of interesting." Closing the book he inspected the cover, which made no allusions to what was inside. The artwork was actually kind of cool, in a geeky sort of way. "Think I should get it?"

“Yeah!” Doreen said brightly, “It’s a really cool book. I mean, comics are a lot like everything else. Some are really cool and some are really bad. But almost all of them are a lot of fun.”

Thinking it over for a moment, Julian turned the book in his hand from cover to cover. He smiled as he stopped and made eye contact with Doreen, "Promise you won't tell anyone?" It would be worth a look- so long as no one saw him reading it- since he enjoyed Jean-Paul's literature class.

“I won’t,” she said brightly. “See, they’re not just for nerds,” Doreen said, elbowing her friend.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Julian rolled his eyes and let the book drop to his side. He looked at his empty handed friend, "What about you, what are you getting? Or did you want to look at some more stuff first?"

Doreen shook her head, “Oh, you don’t have to buy me anything. It’s enough we just got to come here. This place is so neat!”

His eyes rolled again, "Come on, Dori. I brought you here and said that I'd finance a shopping spree and you're going to pass up the chance to go crazy in this place?" He motioned to the wracks around him, "Consider it my making up for all those lunches I missed when I disappeared."

“You don’t have to make up for those,” Doreen pointed out, “And um… I’m sure… dad…allowance…” she muttered the last two words. She wanted to believe it, even so it sounded ludicrous.

His hand found a perch on her shoulder, "Dori, it's okay." He thought for a moment, "I'm not getting this," Julian shook the book, in the air, "unless you let me get something too." A quasi-evil grin settled on his face.

“Um… Okay,” Doreen said, “But I’m only going to get one book,” she said simply. One for one, that was fair.

Julian turned back to the shelf and quickly found the next two volumes, assuming the little numbers at the bottom (which they seemed to be arranged by). "I have three here, so you're getting three...no arguments."

Doreen nodded, “Okay. Three then,” she said, wondering if to go with issue comics or with the trade paperbacks, she thought about it, her cheeks puffing out a bit, “Gimme a minute…”

Happy that Doreen was happy, Julian set off toward the front of the store, determined to get a good place in line for check-out. Even more people were in the store now and the line was extending down to a collective of folding tables where an adult was playing a card game with several kids. He took his place and three people immediately got into line behind him. As he waited he looked around at the various patrons, assessing their status by force-of-habit. Out of the corner of his eye, Julian spotted several girls stealing glances at him and giggling from behind some of the large, white boxes of comics. Despite their being flatscans, and Angel, he couldn't help but smile.

Doreen picked out, in the end, three one issue comics, so she wouldn’t be spending too much of her friend’s money and wandered back over with the new Huntress, JSA and an Iron Man special, “Okay, I have three things,” she caught where his gaze was going, “Hey… aren’t you taken,” it was said in a joking manner.

Julian smiled, "Happily so, but it doesn't hurt anyone to let them look." They were nearing the front of the line, "Besides, flatscans don't hold my interest anyway." He took her selections and added them to his stack, taking a look over them, "Just these? Are you sure?"

“It’s not nice to call them that. They’re still people and people can surprise you,” Doreen said with a smile, “And yeah, I’m sure. I’m just so glad I got to come here on a Wednesday!”

"Sorry, baselines or humans or whatever," aside from the ego boost, Julian didn't get much out of them. "You know..." he continued, "we could make this a regular thing. I'll drive until you get your license."

“Just people,” Doreen said simply, “And I’d love that. I mean, I can take my test sometime next month, after my birthday. Wow, it’s almost May already. I wish I could’ve stayed home through the summer, but Mom had to comply with the social worker,” Doreen said, her tail drooping before picking back up.

It wasn't a surprise that Doreen missed home, despite how horrible people had treated her there. She had a naturally sunny disposition and tended to see only the best in people, even if they didn't deserve it. "I know you miss home, but this place will grow on you. I love it here and the fact that you're here now," Julian paused as they got to the front of the line, "that makes it all the better."

“Yeah, it does,” Doreen said brightly, putting her books on the counter with Julian’s, “I’m glad you’re here and I’m here and I know you’re right,” she said. It didn’t mean she didn’t miss her Mom. And her little brother. And her Dad (even if Dad didn’t miss her).

“Hi!” she said brightly to the person behind the counter. After they were rung up she’d ask ‘bout Monkey Joe.

The blond was still back there and forced the other employee out of the way to ring up their sales. The man she switched tills regarded Julian with the same sort of disdain he'd grown used to over the years. The fact that he was handsome had its advantages, but this was definitely not one of them. It was obvious to him that he had some sort of crush on the blond, who was shamelessly flirting with him as she slowly rung up the books. All Julian could do was to stand there and smile politely as she completed the transaction with only a quick flash of plastic. Before they could depart she insisted on giving him his receipt, which she took a moment to scribble something on. Julian didn't have to look, he was already groaning internally as he picked up the books and turned to Doreen, "Ready to go?"

She thought about it for a moment, she could ask next time about Monkey Joe. She nodded, “Yeah, let’s go get Monkey Joe and go back to the school,” she said. Not fazed by what she had just seen. After all, it happened to Julian all the time.