Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about the wide variety of people that walk into a comic store.

Last time (see 'Confessions of a Comic Book Guy -- You'll Never Know what You Need to Know'), I suggested after decades of reaching out to the mainstream audience that isn't reading comic books, they're finally reaching back.  If you want ample evidence that they've become culturally ubiquitous, just follow the funnies.

For two weeks the comic strip Luann had its cast go to what was obviously Comic-Con in San Diego.  A week of Mutts was devoted to characters recast as superheroes and there was a recent Crankshaft Sunday that had the bus driver teaming up with Superman in his dreams.  And even the prickly, political La Cucaracha has had a running gag about an old man who believed Stan Lee ripped him off -- leading to appearances by The Man himself.

A comic strip in your daily paper has to reach the widest possible audience, so the cartoonists wouldn't include comic book references unless they expected their readership to 'get' them.  No doubt this has more to due with super-hero movies and the media attention they get rather than the comics themselves. And I don't delude myself into thinking comic strip readers can be 'converted' into comic book readers.

But thanks to regular coverage in Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, and even your local free paper, you never know who'll be intrigued enough to walk through your door, actively interested in reading comics.  That's my bullet point; You Never Know Who'll Come Through Your Door.  I'm sure you have a pretty good idea, especially on Wednesday, but that's not the same as knowing.  The punch line of my opening 'joke' being; '...and they all bought comics'.

Given a little help and some respect.

OK, it didn't take a genius to put a copy of Birth of a Nation by Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin and Kyle Baker into Dave Chappelle's hand when he visited Dark Star one Saturday with his wife and kids.  But the last thing you want to do is assume you know a customer's taste because you know something superficial about them.  I'd never assume he'd want a copy of Black Panther; it would be a quick way to end up in one of his routines about clueless white guys.

Gay people are trickier; they usually don't wear signs and their sexual orientation may have absolutely nothing to do with their purchases.  From various indicators I've always assumed one of my regular customers, a hard-core DC super-hero fan, is gay.  

But whenever I've suggested titles slightly 'off genre' (like DC's spy spoof Codename:  Knockout, where the lead had a gay sidekick) he's always politely put them back on the shelf.

Of course the opposite can also be true.  A middle aged woman who looked like a soccer mom came up to the counter with copies of Charm School and I felt I had to caution her about the comic's 'lesbian themes' for fear she was mistakenly buying them for her kids.  Turns out she was buying them for her wife.

And when a nice lesbian couple came into the store and asked if I could recommend any gay-friendly titles, the 'usual suspect' titles (Jane's World, Strangers in Paradise) immediately leapt to mind.  But they also selected a copy of Girls #1; I assume for the same reason my other customers did -- the attractive girl on the cover.

And, finally, three girls (only one of whom I'd say 'looked middle eastern') wearing the hijab came into the store.  They spent a quick minute cruising the manga we keep by the door but then went straight for the Marvels -- about which they knew more than a little.  They seemed torn over the burka- (a loose garment usually with veiled holes for the eyes worn by women especially in India and Pakistan) wearing Dust of New X-Men; on the one hand it was nice there was an Afghani Muslim super-hero, on the other her power was kind of crummy.

They wanted to know if there were Arab super-heroes (I talked about the AK Comic line being published in Egypt that got some American media attention a while ago) and sold one a set of Spider-Man India after managing to convince her it wasn't done in a 'silly' way.

Summing up, I've learned the hard way to put aside my own expectations, not to make assumptions or anticipate a customer's taste and basically just listen to them.  And while your store probably won't be knee deep in girls wearing the hijab any time soon (but, wouldn't it be nice?), someone unexpected definitely will drop by sometime.  When it happens just know you don't have to do anything heroic in the name of The Brotherhood of Man.

Just smile, listen and take their money.