Hi. I'm Erin-with-an-e and I'm here to talk to you about what it's like walking into your friendly local comic book store in a skirt. Not that, you know, I shop every month in a skirt. Sometimes I slink in camouflaged, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and looking at my shoes. Either way, you know when you're trying to look at the new issues and there's a girl with a handful of singles looking at a thick manga with a starry-eyed girl on the cover and tapping her lip thoughtfully and you keep bumping into her and she doesn't make eye contact during the apologies? Well, that's me.

Don't take the lack of eye contact personally. I'd love to talk, it's just that there are more important things to think about. Like if I should commit to the newest Tokyo Pop book and wondering which seven books Warren Ellis has out this month.

And therein lies the contradiction in being a comics girl. What kind are you? Are you the kind that does cosplay and reads everything that Tokyo Beat and CMX puts out? Are you the kind that reads capes exclusively? Do you read sensitive indie comics-as-lit and handmade mini-books? Did you decide, drawing that line in the sand that says you specialize?

I totally used to buy into this grand myth that I couldn't buy certain things because they were "girlie" and I wanted to hang with the boys. Oddly enough, this was perpetuated by one of the assistant managers at my local store for years before I caught on. This was the same man who piled my stack high with Liberty Meadows and Transmetropolitan and robot manga, which he definitely qualified as "not usually [his] thing" while sliding it into my pull box. I often wondered how much money they could've been making had I just had the guts to boldly flip through those tempting ice cream colored paperbacks back then.

At the time, though, I smirked at Liberty Meadows' sheer gall and flipped through the robot manga, bored, bored, bored. I have to confess, if I'm bored, I usually have someone else to blame as I don't typically pick out my own comics. Sure, I'll skim the racks but I depend mostly on recommendations. But, I digress. During this round, I found Transmet fascinating, all filth and politics and even the vaguest hint of the strangest love story ever so he continued to be a major factor in what I was reading for years and still is, to this day, having led me through the racks to Mr. Ellis' door.

Then several things happened - I moved, the store moved and, somehow, this staff member and I parted ways. And I slowly, slowly started exploring my options. There was so much I hadn't read just because it didn't seem cool. I started skimming the manga racks at my store and even had the courage to drag along a team of fellow message board denizens through the racks in Chicago to help me spot any stray booths. I discovered that, even though I took some flak the one time I ran into my former friend, it was totally okay to add both Doktor Sleepless and Faker and High School Debut in the same month without worrying about being labeled a big ol' girl.

Mostly because, umm, I am a girl. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that it's even okay for big tough X-Men fans to read those pastel slices of escapism, too. Seriously. Sometimes they feature boys who play sports, if you need a cover story for the first few books. And if anyone gives you any static about it, smile sweetly and wonder if it's tough being that cool.