If someone writes a book about him, that ought to be Ken. I think he worked part time in the shop.

Shops run by unpleasant people don’t survive. The shop the scary comics shop guy counted as his big rival is still around. I saw The Rival at Charlotte Heroes Con. I used to do a lot of business with him. He is a great guy.

And yeah, I don’t get a lot of time to shop at shows. I made the rounds at Heroes Con, but I only had about an hour.

And I echoyour last statement on comic shop owners. Most of the ones I have been in lately have very cool people running the store.

There was one guy I had the misfortune to encounter who ran his store like a cult. He was obsessed with serial killers, slipped mash notes to me when I visited his store, told everyone who shopped there I was his girlfriend (he told everyone who shopped there almost all females who shopped there were girlfriends, so it was nothing personal, but I was damn insulted because I would not have touched that guy with sterilized instruments, even to study parts under a microscope,) made weird phone calls, and then denied he made them (I could actually hear the pinball machines in his shop in the background ) and would just show up at my home claiming to just be in the neighborhood though it was a 2 hour round trip to get there.

To prove he had not made the phone calls, he circulated a phone bill showing no calls to my home. A phone bill covering a period during which I had not received phone calls. Like, six months prior.

At one point, he claimed he could not be in the shop for days at a time, because he was living with and tending me when I was sick. Which never happened, of course. At that point, I hadn’t even seen the dude or been to his shop in something like 6 months.

He also claimed that we were all wiccans, were part of a coven which met at his home (where I’ve never been,) and that I used my magical powers to further my career.

In general, he was a psycho.

When his shop finally collapsed due to the big sucking black hole of weird he created, I dunno how many people (including me) got letters threatening to sue us for destroying his kingdom of comics. There was no lawsuit, of course. Just more drama from the drama king.

He had a particular mad-on for poor Ken Talton (who sometimes posts here as Brickmuppet, http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/) and for over a year, Ken was the target of harassment, including vandalism.

Yes, the creepy shop owner actually convinced some of his customers that poor Ken was Teh Evil, and some customers – like the good cultists they were – responded by punishing Ken for crimes against the Comic Shop Owner. There were also random acts of vandalism and harassment toward other comic shops in the general area.

That went on for months.

The crazy shop owner eventually moved away and no one I know has heard from him since, but I sincerely hope he got the medical help he clearly needed.

None of it was funny while it was going on. And he was so creepy and weird, it’s not even really funny now, I guess.

I will never forget the black gunk he always had on his teeth. I have no idea what that stuff was. I assume it was snuff or something. God knows.

Most of the other comic shop owners I have known have been pretty cool. Especially in comparison to that guy.