I feel like I need a shower for a myriad of insufficiently understood reasons.

I thought the headline said "Brookstone"

Prozac.

I think this fury comes from the lenses of a collector and is based on the assumption that a book or comic wants to be like new.

Like plastic covers on sofas, couples that seek enduring botox youth, or the relationship whose physical contact is always formal and restrained, I sense a prudish relationship between reader and book. Maybe the love that is felt by a book comes from aging together, as opposed to standing at perfect attention as a freshly minted piece of literature. The book matures during the relationship, the cover gets slight wrinkles and maybe worn from travelling everywhere with its enraptured reader. Maybe the cover is scuffed from being carried in knapsack or pocket, folded in an effort to a reader's refusal to leave it behind. The pages develop slight folds in the corners from where the reader hastily had to put it down after devouring just one more paragraph or rushing to complete a chapter before getting off the train or finishin lunch hour for the day. The pages will age, they will lose their fresh off the print smell, but much of that is from exposure to the sun, the light, in the hands of the avid reader.

Surely the books mentioned here are in a bookstore, and folks dont want to buy new, yet used, items. However if we think of it from the books perspective... maybe it hungers for the warmth of touch and to share in those eager reading sessions. The alternative is terrifying.. wrapped in an airtight plastic coffin, never to see the direct light of day, nor feel the warmth of a human hand. Displayed on a wall, placed on a shelf or most horrifying, preserved as some perfect fossil in a dark, dark box, in a dark dark cellar or closet.

We should stop a moment to rejoice in all the wrinkles of age and the joy that comes from use, for the relationship, however brief becomes a tale of both the reader and 'the read' and one paragraph in the very chapters of our lives...

(This treatise is submitted by the hypocritical and fictional pen of Irongut, who babies his paperback collection and game boxes .... )

In reading this, I was excited to find out that big bookstores may in fact have graphic novel sections since I dont have one in my town. Then.. I was saddened to know that there is a good chance I'll discover grease, sugar and possibly testicular residue if I dare to venture into one.

It has little to do with what Chiggie has planned for his comics. Whether he wants to keep them covered in vacuum-sealed plastic containers or he wants to use them for toilet paper is irrelevant. What is relevant is the other person's lack of respect for other people's property. I do not care what he does with HIS books/comics. He is desecrating someone else's property. Even if no one will ever dare to purchase the deflowered text, it still belonged to the bookstore and is a form of vandalism.

I find the Graphic Novels section of the bookstore.... interesting. I do not collect comics. I do not collect anything for that matter. Yet I am reluctant to even touch many of the Graphic Novels on the shelves. I'll pick up and flip through books (I try not to rip or crease or fold pages, but I'll give them a thorough handling), but there is something about comics that makes me treat them with more care. I blame Mallrats.

I don't know, Chig. In my town, the graphic novel section is carpeted with dozens of 15-year-old girls who seem to think Borders is their own personal manga library, who, when asked to move so you can get to the *actual* graphic novels, sigh loudly and call you names in Japanese (because they think you don't know know what "baka" means, because they're mutant otaku fleshpiles - speaking of which: using "so desu ne" and "so ka", if you don't actually speak Japanese? Makes you sound like an idiot. Just FYI). Personally I've never seen these gross lardmen you rail against - but that may be because they're scared off by all the X chromosomes.

Still, I don't think I'll ever be able to get the image of someone teabagging Birds of Prey out of my head, so maybe I should just stay away from the comics section for awhile.

I am reminded of You've Got Mail when Meg Ryan first walks into Tom Hanks' Fox Books superstore - the camera rises as if ascending into heaven up the store's grand staircase, over tasteful decorations onto the childrens' book section where kids bounce happily from aisle to aisle, and clean cut store employees stand polite, one to every customer or child. It's ok, Meg, don't worry about losing your mother's bookstore to the man, it's alright now. We'll take care of you at Fox Books.

Nora Ephron, you filthy trumpet, it's all a LIE!

Agreed.
And don't come back to the info desk and pretend you 'found this gay mag in the toilet', just so you have the dubious honor of giving it back to the staff to shelve.

I know the type, Chig. And Kat. And Unntrl.

I liked the pictures Chiggie. An excellent addition to your rant.

Every time I rant I get a few of these responses and I always feel a little sheepish because I've already had the thought that I can just take myself out of the situation that pisses me off. I actually agree with them at first.

But, I have ultimately decided not to change my habits, because, it seems counter productive on a societal scale to simply move on when a previously enjoyed environment deteriorates. The rant is a form of venting that helps me go back to that place and know that it's not ludicrous to expect things to be nice and for people to be able to handle that.

You paint such a vivid picture, I may never enter a brick and mortar bookstore again.

But the bookstore isn't failing me. The prices are reasonable, the atmosphere pleasant, the staff are knowledgeable. It's the other patrons that are the problem. Peers of the shopping community, and to let them move their crusty butts into my good bookstore seems like helping the problem. The best I can do now is to just inform the management each time I wanted to purchase something but couldn't because it was slimed, and then hope that the bookstore's need to not be a pigsty will prompt action against it. Along with me personally asking people not to puke all over the Hellboys.

I thought that phenomenon was localized in my area! I am glad to see that's not the case. Or frightened. They are ALWAYS in front of my Warhammer 40K books!

Well, you're in luck there Quintin, because it looks like a potent combination of my short temper and society's endless idiocy just about guarantees that there are going to be more of these.