Right to Read

It is ok to read. I fully support it. I also fully support reading comics. I don’t even mind if you read them in my store. However, if you spend an hour reading, and then leave without buying a single thing, let me say, I DON’T APPROVE.

I can understand if you are new to comics, or coming back to them after a few years, you might want to read or page through some, to see what looks good to you.  I can see if you are buying comics for a child you might want to page through some, to be sure they are appropriate for the child.  I can even understand a regular comics reader reading a book in the store if it is a new title, just to see if it might be something they’d like to try.  One might even read a few issues if he just wanted to do a quick catch-up on some book they hadn’t read in years, but a big event was going to happen, so he wanted to get back into it. (although I’d just recommend picking up some of the trade paperbacks to read and catch up). Or maybe you pick up a bunch and read them, and then decide on a few you want to buy.

What I don’t understand is if you are a self-proclaimed comic book reader/fan, and walk into my store and spend over an hour reading the new books on the wall. But then only complain about how nothing looks good and then walk out.  Page through some, if they don’t look good, call it a day. Don’t sit on a stack of boards in the new comics section and carefully read all of the recent issues of your favorite comics.  Especially don’t do it if you are just going to walk out empty handed.  And then, if you do, don’t come back two months later and do the same gosh darn thing.  If you want to read books for free, go to the library, or go on-line and see what’s happened with your favorite comic book characters.  But please don’t waste my time and space reading through all of my new comics and then not buy a single one.  Be polite, and at least pick up one, especially if you are a comic book fan.  It is just rude to assume you are entitled to read several stories off of my shelves without paying for them.  Sure, if you worked here you could, in fact I’d want you to. But you don’t do you.  Where does someone get off thinking it’s ok to just camp out and read comic book after comic book without buying any, in a business that makes its money by selling them?  Do you take a bath at Bath & Body Works with their samples? Do you spend an hour in front of the “free sample lady” when she’s at the grocery store, and then leave without buying anything? What gives you the right to read, for free, comic books that someone else would like to buy?