The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Comic Book Store Owner

Hey kid--interesting shirt. What kind of t-shirt is that? Bangladeshi Death Ska? Right--Yeah, you probably are the only kid who's cool enough to know their music. So you want to be a music... Oh--comic book store, huh? Right, I know NOT like that guy on The Simpsons. I think it might be interesting...

You're someone who is going to have to overcome one of the most challenging handicaps when it comes to starting a business--your overall disdain for the human race. You've always been that trendy hipster who takes unhealthy obssessive pride that the music, movies, literature, and--dare I say, comics--that you like are a sign of your superiority. Yeah, right--anime is literature. Podiatrists are doctors, too.

Your problem is your love for the esoteric, and your smugness about it. You'll need to actually be nice to the people you approach to help finance your comic store, but your overbearing nature will make it difficult for you to avoid offending them. (I remember the time you threw your drink on that girl who asked you to dance just because she was wearing a "Samurai Pizza Cats" t-shirt.)

Eventually, though, you'll manage to get a lease on a small, mildewed store located in a bad part of downtown. You'll beg and borrow from everyone you know and slide into further debt to stock the store. As much as you hate it, you'll stock the "popular" comics--anime series you spent most of your high school years sneering at. You'll bite your tongue every time some fanboy or fangirl comes in to purchase the overhyped crap that is your store's only chance of survival. Meanwhile, your own favorite series--an obscure comic written in an odd dialect by a former Shinto priest who lives on a tiny Japanese island--languishes untouched on its huge display in the center of your shop.

You become even more frustrated when your taste in J-pop is completely rejected by your customers as well. You up selling off the cds to giggling Japanese tourists for a quarter of their original worth. The tourists smile at your taste in music, and look almost disturbed at the odd flotsam of their culture that fills your store.

Meanwhile, you descend further into misanthropy; even your parents find it difficult to stomach your company more than a few times a year. You are so wrapped up in your fascination with your own passions that you know nothing of politics, hit tv shows or any of the other interests of the common man. Your consciousness is completely dominated by your particular anime obssession--the story of a gentle but wise clam who has the magical ability to shift into another dimension where he solves domestic disputes by telling traditional Shinto parables.

You stave off bankruptcy by tapping into the lucrative social misfit market--you begin staging and supplying various animecon and comic expo events. Although the anime community flocks to your store to outfit themselves for these events, you still creep them out. Your pathetic attempts to "chill" with some kids in their ersatz Cardcaptor costumes just results in derision: "What's with the creepy guy in the clam suit?"

Still, their money is good, and eventually you save up enough to realize your dream--you fly to Japan and go to the island where your hero still lives. You get off the boat and make the long trek up to his simple home--the place where he drew the clam stories that fill your consciousness. He is surprised to see you, but then seems almost a bit frightened when he realizes you are the same person who has been sending him letters on an almost daily basis for the last eight years. Still, over a cup of tea he relaxes, and begins dispensing his wisdom.

Eventually, though, you can't take it. You really had no idea what you would hear from him, but you certainly had not expected him to essentially tell you to "get a life". You begin weeping and run to some cliffs and consider throwing yourself into the sea. The old man follows you and tries to convince you your life is worth living, but he simply angers you more and you push him over the cliff instead.

Japanese prison will not be pleasant. You won't get to keep your clam outfit. The good thing is, though--no one will miss you.