Comic Book Store Clerks of America, No. 6: Dayton, Ohio

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They have no superpowers, but they are heroic: They are the store employees across America who sell comics and, like the guys in ‘High Fidelity,’ bicker with one another all day long about the true treasures of the discount bin. They are the Comic Book Store Clerks of America, and we salute them.

If you’re looking for a pick-up game of Magic: The Gathering or a ‘Star Wars’ role-playing game, enter the domain of Bell, Book & Comic (458 Patterson Road, Dayton, OH; [937] 643-9006). The store (with a name paying homage to ‘Bell, Book and Candle’) is the site of biweekly and weekly tournaments of World of Warcraft, Yu-Gi-Oh and other games, but don’t forget the comics that line the walls too. We rolled the dice and asked 35-year-old owner Peter Bell a few questions...

What comic needs to be made into a role-playing game?

I would say ‘G.I Joe’ and ‘Transformers.’ A lot of people ask about it, saying, ‘This would make a great game!’

If Superman had to give up one thing, what should it be?

Oxygen! Sorry, I don’t like Superman. If he had to give one power, it should be flight. I think it would make things a little bit more interesting. Everybody flies, but for him not to be able to and keep everything else would be interesting. I’d like to see how he would adapt to it.

Hollywood gets it wrong a lot when it comes to comics. But what comic-book adaptation nailed it?

‘The Crow.’ It would probably be the most direct from the comic book to how the movie was done. Not that the Batman movie was bad, but it didn’t follow a specific storyline. ‘The Crow’ was definitely the best literal comic book to movie adaptation.

What TV show deserves a second run?

‘Friday the 13th, the series.’ We just saw the series again when the first and second season came out on DVD recently, and I thought, ‘This would be awesome if it was on the air.’ It’s not about the horror anthology. This series has nothing to do with Jason. It’s a television show back in the late ‘80s about an antiques shop, where the owner made a deal with the devil. The devil curses items, and it harms people by making them do the devil’s bidding. However, the store owner double-crossed the devil, who gets mad and gets rid of the store owner. His niece and nephew take over the shop. They have to find the cursed artifacts and get rid of them. It was on Fox. It’s nostalgic seeing it.

-- Michelle Castillo

Think your fav store has a clerk we should interview? Tell us in the comments section below...