Comics Gave Me a Social Life
Last year while driving with my wife and son, I made a declaration that my goal for the year was to make new friends. Part of the motive behind this avowal of mine was to show my son, who was 8 at the time, that the process of making friends is a lifelong undertaking. He had lots of friends on his hockey team but he wasn’t connecting with any of the kids in his class so school wasn’t his favorite place to be. On top of me doing my best to provide him with a life lesson, the other reason for me stating that I wanted to make new friends is because it was the truth. The majority of my friend-base came from my days of playing music but that was ages ago and now we were all busy raising families so while I still kept in touch with them through text, I rarely saw any of my old friends anymore which left me feeling disconnected and a bit lonely. Never would I have imagined that a new social life awaited me inside the doors of a local comic book shop.
The Geekery 19 Little Street Matawan, NJ 07747
The Geekery in Matawan, New Jersey was established in 2018 by brothers Doug and Justin Preston. There are a handful of establishments that bear what I like to call The Empire Records Effect. You know, the types of places that make you feel like a know-nothing noob upon walking in. Guitar stores come to mind. Vegan restaurants too. And tattoo shops, forget about it. Because I don’t have a couple of job-stoppers on my hands and a face tattoo I might as well be an 18 year old girl asking for a tramp stamp. Likely due to Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, I’d also considered comic book shops to be a part of this category. So when my son got into a comic book phase and asked me to take him into The Geekery, a place we’d driven past countless times, I was a tad intimidated to say the least. But I did what any good father would do: I took a deep breath, used my son as a human shield, and walked in the door. Upon entering, Doug’s welcoming greeting and big smile (even evident behind his mask) showed me that I was projecting my own bullshit onto an entire industry that I knew nothing about, prompting me to remove comic book shops from my list of Pretentious Places to Avoid.
As the interests of 8 year olds tend to do, my son’s fascination with comics was short-lived. By this time though, I’d been bitten by the nostalgia bug and loved revisiting characters I hadn’t seen since I was 12. While carrying my issues of US Agent and The Maxx to the counter, I’d add on a pack of Pokemon cards and make sure to let Doug or Justin know I was here on behalf of my son. I dropped the act as soon as they began posting on their Instagram the most alluring cover art I’d ever seen of a book called What’s the Furthest Place From Here? I went in and bought every issue available to that point. It was unlike anything I’d known comics to be (in my admittedly limited experience). There were no superheroes nor capes within its pages. The story followed a group of teenagers navigating a post-apocalyptic world where adults were nowhere to be found. To me it was like The Outsiders had it been written by Cormac McCarthy, littered with punk rock references that were right up my elitist alley. Doug, recognizing my enthusiasm for the book, recommended another title: 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank. It was written by the creators of What’s the Furthest Place From Here, its issues has been compiled into a paperback, and it was the subject of The Geekery Book Club meeting that was being held at the end of the month. A meeting where like-minded people get together to dissect and discuss a book that they are also obsessed with?! Thank goodness for The Geekery’s mask policy which hid my inability to close my goddamn mouth.
Despite a lifetime love affair with books, I’d never before joined a book club for 3 main reasons:
I figured it’d be me and a roomful of old ladies. I’ve got nothing against old ladies but the weekly yoga classes I attend give me my fill of them so I felt I needed to find an outlet with people closer to my age.
If you’ve read this far you can clearly see that I’m no intellectual so I figured I’d be out of my depths in a book club.
While I love sharing the things I enjoy, I’m no good at pontificating why I like them. I just do, ok?!
Setting aside my hesitations I decided to make good on my declaration to find new friends. Armed with my copy of 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, this 41 year old manchild walked into a comic book club and had the time of his life. Soon after, he realized how off-putting referring to himself in the third person was so he vowed to stop. Hi, I’m back.
I’m now a regular at the monthly Geekery Book Club meetings along with being a shop regular. Inside the doors of this little shop in Matawan I’ve found new friends and a new (to me) medium filled with amazing stories and worlds whose pages I can lose myself within. I’m sure there’s an idiom out there that tells us that the things we’re looking for can be found in places we’d never think to look and The Geekery has proven that to be true for me. A few weeks back I was a guest on The Geekery Radio Hour Podcast to promote Nimrod and the first question asked was: Who are you? Here is my updated answer: father/husband, dog walker, novelist, comic book fan.
