Arthur Conan Doyle the Barbarian.
This is way more fun to narrate than just type out, but I don't want to forget the details of this chance encounter-turned-hilarity, so I have to transcribe it here for your reading pleasure. It's lengthy, but give it a chance, I promise you'll be amused.
So I was showing the Conan the Barbarian graphic novels I got recently to a friend in my Chem class, who was also in my Bio class last semester. I was explaining the comic and how they did the art to him, when this guy walked by and interrupted me mid-sentence.
"Hey, is that a comic book? Which comic book is that?"
This guy, he's an older guy, tall and scrawny and pale. He's got short dark hair and glasses. He's carrying his books and folders and pencils and whatever in a plastic bag, just any old grocery store bag. He's exactly what you'd expect from a nerdy guy still living with his mother. As soon as he started talking it became readily apparent that he did not do much of it, and that his social skills were a bit undeveloped.
But I'll give this guy a chance. I say, "Yeah, it's a Conan comic. It's pretty new, only a few years, and they don't ink it so it looks kind of painted."
"Yeahhh... Comics today SUCK!" He says. He really gets into it, too. He's really excited about this stuff. "They were just, like, uh, better, a while ago. Like the art today? That all sucks. Like I saw this Star Wars book, and, uh, it was all bad and stuff. Like the Han Solo there, that's not the Han Solo I know! That's not the Han Solo I love. That doesn't look like Han Solo at all."
"Yeah, that anime style. It's popular with younger kids these days so they're kind of doing a more Japanese thing with comics now," I say.
"YEAH. Yeah, anima. I hate that anima garbage. Those artists aren't good artists. I'm 31 and I don't collect comics anymore, I started in 1984 or 83 or 82, one of those, and I have about 350 books, like, graphic comic books. But I'm just too old for that now. I've been drawing since I was two and you know how you can tell who's a good artist and who's a bad artist? The covers! Covers are a big deal to me, like I can look at a cover and go 'Wooow. I wanna read that.'"
I smile and nod and say "Yeah," a lot. Also, in this case, "A good cover is supposed to grab your attention."
Then he drops his bag, and then pounces on the thing like he had to protect it. Once he picked it back up off the ground he jumps up and looks both ways and goes "Hoo-ahh!" And then, like nothing happened...
"Yeah, it just like, it grabs me! And a good artist, you can tell that they've read the book, because on like a 300 page book, on, like, page 250 they have a description of the characters, and then that's the cover! Like, you know Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman."
"Yeah," I say. "The Dragonlance writers."
"Yeah! They have all these characters and the covers aren't those characters anymore, but they used to be, and you like, uh, you can look at the cover and see that it doesn't look anything like the character in the books! It's really obvious that the artist is a bad artist because he didn't read what was in the book or he would have known. Like, there's this dwarf," and he threw out a generic dwarf name I don't remember here, "And the artist paints him to be like three feet tall, but if you read the books you'd know he's at least four or five, yeah five feet tall! But yeah the Dragonlance books aren't very good anymore."
"Yeah," I say. "You're gonna run out of ideas eventually."
"Oh yeah and they have! They have. And like, this painting," he says as he points at the random painting hanging on the brick wall in the basement of Henry Ford Community College, just a random decoration. It's a picture of a wooden cart and a stone building, both pretty run-down, and some trees and a plain in the background. Nothing all that special. No actual people anywhere in it. "This painting, I bet it's from a story somewhere, that it's in the middle of a story. That's a good artist there."
It's about here that my friend looks at me and does his best to keep a straight face. "I've gotta go," he says, and walks into class. It doesn't start for another half-hour. He ends up missing the best part.
"See I can look at that cover to that Conan book you have and I can guarantee that that cover is, uh, in the book somewhere, that that's a scene in the book." He taps the picture of Conan for emphasis. "But yeah, Conan, Conan Doyle, Arthur Conan Doyle..."
I should interject right here that Arthur Conan Doyle is the author of the Sherlock Holmes books, and has absolutely nothing to do with Conan the Barbarian, written by Robert E. Howard. This was the only time he ever mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle.
"...yeah, he's really cool but they screw him up a lot, like they make him a sorcerer and have him throwing fireballs and stuff." Then he starts hopping around and striking various flexing poses, his skinny pale arms flailing. He throws on a fake Schwarzenegger accent.
"I'm Conan de Bahrbareeun, look at my mahscles," he says, flexing. "Look at my mahscles! I'm throwing fiyahballs!" He gestures with his hands.
He says a few more things after that but honestly I can't remember them, because they pale in comparison to that. He left to go... wherever, shortly after. I went into my chem class and told my friend what he missed. In retrospect I have no idea how I managed to keep a straight face throughout the whole thing. I think it was a special blend of shock and pity. It's amazing to me how this guy can be only one year older than my older brother and have a shared interest in that whole genre, and be completely different from him (by which I mean, socially inept).
I'll tell you what, though: I'm never going to forget that. "Look at my mahscles! I'm throwing fiyahballs!"
So I was showing the Conan the Barbarian graphic novels I got recently to a friend in my Chem class, who was also in my Bio class last semester. I was explaining the comic and how they did the art to him, when this guy walked by and interrupted me mid-sentence.
"Hey, is that a comic book? Which comic book is that?"
This guy, he's an older guy, tall and scrawny and pale. He's got short dark hair and glasses. He's carrying his books and folders and pencils and whatever in a plastic bag, just any old grocery store bag. He's exactly what you'd expect from a nerdy guy still living with his mother. As soon as he started talking it became readily apparent that he did not do much of it, and that his social skills were a bit undeveloped.
But I'll give this guy a chance. I say, "Yeah, it's a Conan comic. It's pretty new, only a few years, and they don't ink it so it looks kind of painted."
"Yeahhh... Comics today SUCK!" He says. He really gets into it, too. He's really excited about this stuff. "They were just, like, uh, better, a while ago. Like the art today? That all sucks. Like I saw this Star Wars book, and, uh, it was all bad and stuff. Like the Han Solo there, that's not the Han Solo I know! That's not the Han Solo I love. That doesn't look like Han Solo at all."
"Yeah, that anime style. It's popular with younger kids these days so they're kind of doing a more Japanese thing with comics now," I say.
"YEAH. Yeah, anima. I hate that anima garbage. Those artists aren't good artists. I'm 31 and I don't collect comics anymore, I started in 1984 or 83 or 82, one of those, and I have about 350 books, like, graphic comic books. But I'm just too old for that now. I've been drawing since I was two and you know how you can tell who's a good artist and who's a bad artist? The covers! Covers are a big deal to me, like I can look at a cover and go 'Wooow. I wanna read that.'"
I smile and nod and say "Yeah," a lot. Also, in this case, "A good cover is supposed to grab your attention."
Then he drops his bag, and then pounces on the thing like he had to protect it. Once he picked it back up off the ground he jumps up and looks both ways and goes "Hoo-ahh!" And then, like nothing happened...
"Yeah, it just like, it grabs me! And a good artist, you can tell that they've read the book, because on like a 300 page book, on, like, page 250 they have a description of the characters, and then that's the cover! Like, you know Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman."
"Yeah," I say. "The Dragonlance writers."
"Yeah! They have all these characters and the covers aren't those characters anymore, but they used to be, and you like, uh, you can look at the cover and see that it doesn't look anything like the character in the books! It's really obvious that the artist is a bad artist because he didn't read what was in the book or he would have known. Like, there's this dwarf," and he threw out a generic dwarf name I don't remember here, "And the artist paints him to be like three feet tall, but if you read the books you'd know he's at least four or five, yeah five feet tall! But yeah the Dragonlance books aren't very good anymore."
"Yeah," I say. "You're gonna run out of ideas eventually."
"Oh yeah and they have! They have. And like, this painting," he says as he points at the random painting hanging on the brick wall in the basement of Henry Ford Community College, just a random decoration. It's a picture of a wooden cart and a stone building, both pretty run-down, and some trees and a plain in the background. Nothing all that special. No actual people anywhere in it. "This painting, I bet it's from a story somewhere, that it's in the middle of a story. That's a good artist there."
It's about here that my friend looks at me and does his best to keep a straight face. "I've gotta go," he says, and walks into class. It doesn't start for another half-hour. He ends up missing the best part.
"See I can look at that cover to that Conan book you have and I can guarantee that that cover is, uh, in the book somewhere, that that's a scene in the book." He taps the picture of Conan for emphasis. "But yeah, Conan, Conan Doyle, Arthur Conan Doyle..."
I should interject right here that Arthur Conan Doyle is the author of the Sherlock Holmes books, and has absolutely nothing to do with Conan the Barbarian, written by Robert E. Howard. This was the only time he ever mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle.
"...yeah, he's really cool but they screw him up a lot, like they make him a sorcerer and have him throwing fireballs and stuff." Then he starts hopping around and striking various flexing poses, his skinny pale arms flailing. He throws on a fake Schwarzenegger accent.
"I'm Conan de Bahrbareeun, look at my mahscles," he says, flexing. "Look at my mahscles! I'm throwing fiyahballs!" He gestures with his hands.
He says a few more things after that but honestly I can't remember them, because they pale in comparison to that. He left to go... wherever, shortly after. I went into my chem class and told my friend what he missed. In retrospect I have no idea how I managed to keep a straight face throughout the whole thing. I think it was a special blend of shock and pity. It's amazing to me how this guy can be only one year older than my older brother and have a shared interest in that whole genre, and be completely different from him (by which I mean, socially inept).
I'll tell you what, though: I'm never going to forget that. "Look at my mahscles! I'm throwing fiyahballs!"