ThreeStrikesandOut

Just because I poke fun at him from time to time; don’t get confused, I’m a Lakers fan to the bone, and aside from that I’m a huge Kobe Bryant fan.  I’m also, in a previous life, an avid comic book collector, with leanings toward the DC/Vertigo line, Dark Horse Comics, and anything ever done by Alan Moore.  So, it’s no surprise that I totally had a mark-out moment, when I saw this on the Big Lead via Tirico Suave via its original source-comicbookresources, who tells the story of a comic book shop clerk who has a very special meeting with the man they call Kobe.

I looked up and saw a man in a suit with a silver mustache and military cut tapping at the glass. I continued to count dimes as I politely said, “I’m sorry, sir, we closed at 8:00pm and it’s already 8:30.”

He then smiled back at me and stepped aside to say, “Well… Would you open up for him?”

There he was, standing in all of his 81-Points-in-one-game glory, wearing his blue and red NBA-approved sweat suit. The dimes fell from my hand onto the counter like copper and tin rain as I gasped out a meager, “Kobe!”

And what did the great one buy you may ask?  That’s where my total geekness was appeased:

Kobe happily replied, “I’m into that dark shit. I’ve got a 13-hour flight to China and need something good to read.” Immediately I recommended my favorite author Garth Ennis and “Preacher” to him, explaining the intricacies of the faithless Reverend Custer, his assassin girlfriend Tulip, best-friend/Irish Vampire Cassidy, and his quest to make God pay for abandoning humanity. Kobe’s eyes lit up as I told him the tale of Jesse and the reasons why Preacher would change his view on comics forever.

He chuckled, saying, “My Man!” and giving me a high-five and taking the first two “Preacher” volumes. I also helped him track down the latest volume of “100 Bullets,” of which he is an avid fan, as well as “The Dark Knight Strikes Again,” “Across the Universe: DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore,” “Batman vs. Two-Face” and “Batman: The Joker’s Last Laugh.” Quite the list of well-written stories (all of which can be found at Lee’s Comics).

Preacher=Greatest Comic Ever (with the exception of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, which is honestly, just on another plane of existence from everything else.)

Also, since we share the same views on comics, this officially means that me and Kobe are now BFFs.  Totally.  Damn, though, now those Shaq-Superman, Kobe-Batman, comparisons take on a whole new meaning.

Oh, and before you start posting it, I’ll save you the trouble.  Yes, I’m a dork.