annoyed.. I love comic.. and I'm a girl.. I'm not into romance comics.. but when I go shopping for comics.. its assumed that
A.) I'm lost.. (the owner of the comic shop told me how to find the nail polish shop..)

B.) that I am there as a driver for a child..( told to watch my kids when I had no kids with me)

C.) that I only read romance comics…

D.) that I only buy cheep comics.. ( I was told where to find the buck comics..)

then the guys in the shop spent the next 5 min. talking about my a..

I ordered the comic I wanted on the web..

is this normal.. girls do you ever feel really unwanted when shopping for comics.. is it just the comic shop in my area..

My local comic book shop is managed by a woman. So no, I never get treated that way. XD

wish it was like that here… as its to far to go any where else… i just don't buy unless i can get it on line..

That's painfully bad. The comic shop ‘round my area of the world wouldn’t do that either. Sounds like your store is run like the one from The Simpsons.

no,i've never been treated that way anywhere!
did they just come out of the blue and say this to you, or was there any kinda conversation before it?

I don't know if I'd say “normal” but it is actually a fairly common complaint I hear. My local shops probably aren't as bad as some I've heard about as most of them actually have a very high ratio of women to men working in them. But sometimes it's the other shoppers can make people (women in particular) uncomfortable. And I've had friends complain that certain employees in the stores treat them as potential shoplifters every time they go in a comic shop, watching over them like a hawk, because they aren't “regulars”.

When my girlfriend comes with me to look at comics she tends to sit there bored and buggers off to the “dark romance” section. Id say its more about the expectations rather than the actual stereotyping thing. Same thing happens in reverse though. But i tend to laugh at guys reading romance novels.
Its strange.
Ill accept girls reading graphic novels but guys reading romance novels is totally out of bounds.

I once asked a girl at my local comic book store if she was lost… Sorry.
It did get me a chuckle from the guys working there.

I don't think there are many actual CB-store employees THAT stupid.

My sisters like comics too and they've had their share of hassles.

My comics place actually has a good number of female shoppers though. And, there are a couple of women who work there as well. So, it doesn't get as bad as some of the stories listed above.

Still, my sisters often get accosted by obnoxious fanboys who assume that they know nothing about mainstream superhero continuity. This seems awfully silly to me, especially since it's pretty dumb to chastise somebody for not memorizing seven decades of a fictional superhero's history.

There are also a couple of clerks there who ridicule the purchasing choices of female clientele. And yes, right to their face just like those scenes in High Fidelity. I haven't witnessed anything like that in a while though, so I'm guessing the owner caught wind of it. It's probably a bad idea to do that to customers.

It's also assumed that women go in there for manga, Neil Gaiman, or Jhonen Vasquez rather than anything else. I haven't heard anything about a romance comics stereotype. Do they even still print romance comics in significant quantities?

I've never gotten that reaction when I shop in a comic book store… but then again, as somebody up above mentioned, plenty of girls buy manga.
and well, I do buy manga alongside my DC stuff and the like…. so in some ways I'm both confirming to the stereotype and defying it at the same time without even trying to.

although, I do get that sort of thing when I shop in a game store, looking for the new video games that I wanted. :P and the clerks makes all sorts of comments at check out too.
like this: “Killzone 2? *acts shocked due to the fact that I'm an actual chick buying an very masculine shooting game for one second, and then calms down* oh, you must be buying it for some guy's birthday, eh? Brother or boyfriend?”
I just basically stare at them like “What? I can't enjoy killzone because I'm a girl?” and say nothing at all.

they of course don't say anything at all if I happen to be buying a role-playing games, or simulation games like harvest moon because everyone knows that girls are into rpgs while boys are into manly things like killzone! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! =P

C.) that I only read romance comics…

lmao!!!

Anyway this reminds me of the time I was at a 2nd hand store and I had a stack of harlequin romanace novels (This was when I was younger and obsessively studying the psychology of women) The clerk looked at me funny. Its probably because I'm a guy, I'm supposedly into anything BUT the romance stuff.

I once went into a comic book store with my sister, who's a real comic enthusiast. I don't remember why I went in with her, but by God did I feel like a fish out of water. There were other girls there, but they all sort of fit into a certain… look. Like, wearing blue stockings, a black tutu, and combat boots in July. Meanwhile, I was all made up and dressed fancy-like because I had a party to go to on the same day. I must have looked like a stuck up bitch. No one talked to me. :P

I haven't actually seen a comic store in years. I thought they were extinct. Go figure.

I've never had that experience…the guys at my local comic book shop know me pretty well though. It's close to my house so I walk down there quite often.

Someone
I feel like a fish out of water. There were other girls there, but they all sort of fit into a certain..look

I think that is it I don't fit that type.. I think if a space alien with a poodle had walked in .. they would of been less shocked .. then to have a woman come in to ask for a superhero comic.. part of the fun is looking finding a title that's new.. a artist that worked on this project is now working on this.. finding an old friend.. the oh wow I haven't read this since I was a kid.. moment.. that why go hunting comics.. if the fish out of water feeling is common I can understand why comic stories are becoming an endangered species..

Happens to me all the time when I walk into a comic book store and I've showered recently.

usedbooks
I haven't actually seen a comic store in years. I thought they were extinct. Go figure.

Blame it on:

1) The Banksters – Go Figure how they are deliberately (if not deliberate, they're so stupid that they have to be replaced by high school students) destroying the economy.

2) Webcomics – there's literally more than 50,000 (low probably outdated estimate) of them. Even if you spend every second of your life reading webcomics, you wont read them all in your lifetime. Why pay money when you can just go to drunkduck or smackjeeves or deviantart? But… 99% of them are crap!!! If 1% of them are good, that means 500. Try keeping up with 500 good comics.

3) “Print comics turning into crap” – In quotation because I can't really say anything about this. I havent bought a comic since I was 13 years old so I am not up-do-date on what the comic heroes are up to. But this is the word I get everytime I skim through various comic forums. Its full of hardcore comic geeks bitching and whining about comics turning into crap. Most of them say that the comics in the 80s or earlier were alot better.

Sounds like they were running every stereotype possible. I'm surprised any comic book store in this day and age, taking into account the industry and economy, can willingly go that route. They earn the coveted ‘deserves to fail’ stamp.

Comic stores are a rarity. Back in the early 90's, somewhat common. Used to be four of em around here. Now, closest one is 16 miles down the road.

smkinoshita
run like the one from The Simpsons.

Worst ……… Comic Store ……… Ever

I think print comics have to some extent got stuck in a pattern that use to work.. but has got old.. and maybe the folks who sale them have got stuck in a rut to..however if not for comic shops I would If never found “Bone”… I use the bone books to teach reading.. to folks who don't want to start out reading baby book… at this point I cant hand a web comic to everyone..i work with, but comics I can.. take anywhere..

stereotypes are working against comics and web comics at all levels.. when we say geeks read comics.. or only boys read comic..we just turned away a reader… a buyer.. less buyers means less new print comics and fewer new ideas.. new plots.. new characters to love..

because of that I'm glad to see those thousand and thousands of web comics.. and if only a few are really great.. let us hope the ones we write can be counted in that number as one of the great comics..

Welcome to the entertainment industry in general. The only way we can fight such stereotypes is simply to challenge them and to prove them wrong over and over again. Besides, your money is just as good as anyone of a y-chromosone's; in this economy, especially with print comics in a slump, losing any potential customers at all hurts them financially.