Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about a recent comic convention and The Big Bang Theory.

Well, I made it to last weekend's Cincinnati Comic Expo.  I don't mean to make that sound like some kind of accomplishment seeing as how I literally live twelve minutes away (according to Google Maps anyway) from where it was being held in downtown Cincinnati.  I took the bus, which was definitely the preferable method of travel because while the area is usually fairly unoccupied during the weekend that particular Saturday it was hosting not just  the Expo but a Reds game and Oktoberfest.

While there was precious little glitz or glamour on display at the Duke Energy Center (if I had to choose an adjective to describe it I'd have to go with "dingy;" frankly, it had all the ambience of somebody's basement) but there was a good turnout.  Happily it was mostly younger people, by which I mean people younger than me,* but there was also a goodly number of actual kids in attendance.  My personal Expo highlight came when the eight year old came up to Super-Fly Comics & Games table and (politely!) asked if we had any Marvel Masterworks.  And I can't swear to it but I think I saw a ten year old walking around carrying a volume of Fantastic Four Visionaries by John Byrne.  As much as I believe there should always be good new comics for kids I think we ought to reconsider that whole "kids hate old stuff" canard.  Because there are a lot of older Marvel and DC comics that would be perfect for that age group.

Marvel NOW! announced an upcoming title that caught my eye, Avengers Arena, where 16 superpowered teens will be killing each other in a Battle Royale/The Hunger Games/Lord of the Flies kind of a deal set in Arcade's Murder World.  Which, apparently will finally start living up to its name.  Besides sounding a bit too "me too!" (DC just did something very similar with their "The Culling" storyline which ran through all of their super teen titles), it also sounds a tad too much like teenage torture porn for my tastes.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say this sounds like a really, really, really bad idea.

The Big Bang Theory (a.k.a. TBBT a.k.a. "The Bing Bad Theory" as I originally typed it) is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly again this week to promote its upcoming new season, a.k.a. its "A Celebration of a Geek Sensation."  It will undoubtedly set off the TBBT haters among us, but the incredibly popular show continues to get even more popular.  I realize it won't change any minds but recently the show got a spirited defense in Lianna Brinded's "Geek Speak: Why Big Bang Theory is Universally Awesome" which appeared in the UK's International Business Times.   She's of the opinion the show is "celebrating, not denigrating nerds," and, having worked at a comic shop, she is one of us.

As previously established (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--The Brotherhood of Broken Toys"), I rather like the show, while Tony Barry of Super-Fly Comics most certainly does not.  He has problems with how the show deals with "nerd culture" but mostly his dislike seems to come from the fact he has to deal with the image of comic shops it perpetuates on a daily basis.  At the Expo Tony told me the story of how one day a group of Chinese tourists came into the store who couldn't understand a word of English but promptly went to the back issue bins and clearly said, "Got it, got it, got it, need it, got it," a recurring bit from the show.  They then promptly left without buying anything.

Which might seem unlikely until you know that, yes, TBBT is also incredibly popular in China.  How popular?  Last season episodes of the show featured a paid product placement from Shuhua Milk, made by the Chinese dairy Yili.  The justification?  It's low lactose milk and the character Leonard is lactose intolerant.  And while it seems unlikely, to me anyway, the China Daily reports these product placements have boosted Shuhua Milk by around 12 percent.

And, just in case you missed it, it turns out actor Kevin Sussman, who plays Stuart, the owner of the comic book shop on TBBT, once really was a comic book guy.  He used to work at a New York City comic shop and has been quoted as saying, "Had I known working at Jim Hanley's Universe was research, the vacuuming would’ve gone a lot smoother."

* Which isn't hard.  In the past I've confessed that I've gotten all kinds of exciting offers from AARP but today, unsolicited, I received my AARP membership card in the mail.  I guess it's time to stop reading Super Dinosaur and start reading Mary Worth.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.