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 looks at fan reactions to new geek culture.

There's a part of me that can’t help but feel writing about Mystery Science Theater 3000 two weeks running the way I did was, at the very least, a little self-indulgent.  I mean it being my favorite TV show, it would be easy to see the whole thing as a massive conflict of interest, if Joel Hodgson's fundraiser to make a new season of the series wasn't a significant story.  It shows that instead of making our fannish stuff more mainstream to appeal to a wider audience, we always have the option of just passing the hat amongst ourselves.  It's not crowdsourcing; it's fan-sourcing.  I'd happily put a $100 in the bucket if we finally got to finally to see Hellboy III, that is  if director Guillermo del Toro agrees to keep his sense of "humor" in check this time.

In television terms that would be our "A" story, the "B" being, boy, can some fans seem incredibly ungrateful.  As I pointed out last time, it sure seems as if the default position of some fans today is to pick, parse, and pull apart every little thing about every movie, TV series or comic book, even those that are currently only theoretical.  I find myself somewhat puzzled by what sure seems to be a desperate desire to count coup by finding fault.

For instance on Monday, Joel announced that playing evil sidekick to Felicia Day's mad scientist would be stand-up comedian and geek culture icon Patton Oswalt, who would be playing the son of TV's Frank, the hapless henchman played by Frank Conniff.  His official title: TV's Son of TV's Frank.  The news was happily dissected and discussed by the Internet.  The general consensus was, as a headline on the CinemaBlend website put it, it was "The Perfect Role" for Oswalt.  But naturally there were some naysayers who seemed to hate just about everything about it.  "I hate how the characters are all related to the original ones; now I don't even want to see it."  Meh.  "They're bringing in geek culture people instead of unknowns."  Feh.

I'd like to think that this goes without saying but, I'm not saying that it’s just MST3K fans that act this way.  It says that today fans of just about everything these days are in a desperate race to be the first person to be disappointed in the latest news leak or film clip.  I’m only marginally interested in seeing them myself, but it would be hard to miss the way Star Wars fans have been obsessing over every single frame of footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens that gets released.

But don't worry; I'm not going to blame all this negativity on the internet or say that it's only "kids today" who act like this.  I've been a member of all manner of fandoms over the years and I can assure you that these sorts of things are hardly new.  As far as I can tell, fans have always been a cranky, cantankerous bunch, as known for their negativity as their irrational and ill-placed affections.  However, with that having been said, it sure seems like "today's kids" are intentionally leaning a lot further into the dark side (to turn a phrase) than we ever did.  I'd like to think this goes without saying, but, Grumpy Cat shouldn't be anybody's role model.  And for those of you out there who aren't having fun being fans, have you ever thought about collecting stamps?

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was Local Comic Shop Day.  This year more than 385 stores participated in this event conceived by ComicsPRO, the non-profit comic retailer trade association.  It’s no coincidence that it takes place on the same day American Express has dubbed "Small Business Saturday."  To quote from the ComicsPRO website, LCS Day is "designed to call attention to locally owned independent comic book specialty stores, celebrating their unique and vital role in being the primary fire-starters of pop culture."

Like Free Comic Book Day, the big attraction of LCSD is unique comics (see "ComicsPRO Announces Local Comic Shop Day Exclusives").  This year stores were selling 21 exclusive LCBS edition versions of such comics as Jughead #1, Shield #1, Hangman #1, Project Nemesis, We Can Never Go Home, Space Riders, Black Mask Box Set, Klaus #1, Call of Duty Black Ops III #1, Dark Knight III: Master Race #1, Back To The Future #1, Bitch Planet Hardcover, Luminae Limited Black & White Line Art Edition, All New All Different Avengers #1 Marquez Variant, All-New Wolverine #1 Bengal Sketch Variant, Invader Zim Treasury Edition, Rick & Morty Treasury Edition, Exodus Life After #1, Book of Death Fall of Harbinger #1, Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #1 and Welcome to Showside #1.

A couple of weeks ago (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Maybe Next Christmas") I was wondering how the direct sales market could get in on some of that sweet Christmas commercialism.  Well, Local Comic Shop Day seems like it's definitely a step in that direction.

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.