After running errands on Saturday, I decided to visit Terry at his comic book shop. A little while later, a young mother came in with two small boys (both probably under five). They were very polite, but very curious and had lots of questions about the characters, so I decided to help.
"Excuse me!" one would say to me and then lead me to a comic. "Who is that?"
"That's Hobgoblin."
"What does he do?"
I don't really know much about Marvel characters, so my answer was vague. "Um, he's a bad guy. He doesn't like Spiderman, so flies around and throws things at him."
"What does he fly on?" he asked.
Terry helped me out with "a glider." And then the other brother had a question.
"Excuse me! Who's that?"
An easy question. "That's Supergirl. She's Superman's cousin. She has powers like Superman's."
"Excuse me! What's that?"
I turned and saw the other boy was pointing at a comic called North 40. For those of you know don't know, it's a book about librarians accidentally raising Cthulhu in a small, southern town. The cover has a deputy cowering while tentacles from offscreen slither towards him.
"Um, that's a sheriff." I deflected.
"What's a sheriff?" he asked.
"He's like a policeman."
He pointed to a tentacle. "What's that?"
"Um, that's Cthulhu," I said brightly.
"What does he do?"
I smiled brightly. "He's an elder evil god."
Before the boy could ask anything else, Terry mercifully interrupted. "He's a giant frog that lives in the ocean."
"Maybe we should look at the comics over here," his mother suggested, leading him to the kid-friendly section.
