One shop, two worlds

It may surprise you to learn this, but I'm a huge nerd.

My love for comics might be the most obvious evidence, but my capacity for nerdity knows no bounds so I'm a pretty active gamer, too. And when I say "gamer" I don't mean the semi-cool console gaming. Oh, no. I'm talking about the old-school paper-and-pencil, character sheet-filling, buying yet another set of funny looking dice kind of gaming.

(And 'cause I can tell you're dying to know; a half-orc warden, thank you very much.)

There have been a few superhero role-playing games that have floated around, and I wish I could've played this one:


Doesn't that look awesome, in a kinda cheesy way?

But coming across this ad reminded me of something I noticed while working at a comic shop a few years ago. The shop was equal parts comics and gaming supplies, complete with dice, miniatures and sourcebooks for a ton of RPGs, as well as comics, trades and manga. It was like heaven ... siiiigggh ...

Ahem. Anyway. After a while something was obvious; the gamers had no time for the comic book geeks, and the comic readers sneered at the gamers. It was a Cold Geek War, with both factions tolerating each other but rarely interacting. Depending on what side of the store you were on determined what kind of snotty remarks you would hear. You would think two groups whose hobbies are based largely on imagination and over-the-top adventures would be like blood brothers — especially considering all the comics based on games available — but that wasn't usually the case.

What made this weirder was the fact that most of the employees read comics and gamed, and did both fanatically. Personally, I could never understand the riff and scorned both equally (I kid because I love!).

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Was it some sort of goofy peer pressure, with Ponyboy peering over the racks and sharing meaningful looks with Cherry Valance over in miniatures? Was it all my imagination? And how many of you fellow comic book readers are also gamers?