The following is very funny, because Nathan Fillion is a native of my own old hometown, Edmonton, and the store he's talking about, Warp 1, is a store I know very well. I had shopped there for years, so long in fact, that when I first started going there, "patchy" had two eyes.
And I can confirm everything that this article suggests about "Patchy": he's a bitter twisted man, intent on price gouging every comic and every RPG. He treats his customers like shit. It doesn't matter if you've been going there for 20 years, you will go through the bag check, the tag detector, and the coat check, because you are a shoplifting suspect.
Hell, the motherfucker is the only gaming store owner I know who vacuum seals all the RPGs in the store. That's right, VACUUM SEALS. So that if you want an RPG, you either better already know you want it for sure, or base your purchase on the cover and back cover blurb, because you will NOT be allowed to read it at Warp 1.
So basically, the guy sucks. Why is it that gaming store owners have to either be total mercenary asshats who despise their own customers and want to bleed the hobby dry, or totally innocent fuckwits who have no idea how to run a business? Is there no COMPETENT gaming store owner out there? I guess anyone competent gets into some other line of work.
Anyways, here's the article, knowing how fanatical Firefly fans are, you can bet Patchy is going to be in for a WORLD of hurt:
Nathan Fillion (Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly) wrote:
It is times like these that I feel like Malcolm Reynolds. This is something that would surely get you kicked into an engine. I just went to a comic store to purchase the Serenity comic for my mom. The sweetheart that she is, gave her issues (with her favorite character on the front) to relatives who were having trouble tracking one down. Please bear in mind that Canada is a wonderous place where the service industry is polite and helpful, and that this experience is not the norm. The store I chose, which shall remain nameless (Warp 1 Comics), at an undisclosed location (just off Whyte Ave), has the singlemost sanctimonious, condescending, dishonest a$$hole I've had the misfortune of meeting. My brother and I called ahead to find out they had one issue left, but upon arriving, found out they are gouging people $20 bucks for the damned thing! "That's what they're worth." he sneered at me. I asked him to show me a listing of some sort to back it up. "Well, I just know what I paid Dark Horse for it." He wouldn't show me that, either. I am aware that Dark Horse wasn't expecting these books to sell as well as they are, and that they are going into a second printing, but I just picked up three of them two days ago at cover price at another store. My brother piped up with a, "What an interesting attitude you have." Let me tell you folks, this fella had an attitude, and a smirk that you wanted to knock off his face with a baseball bat dipped in dog poop. Of course, my brother couldn't help letting this guy know who he was trying to hose by holding the issue next to my face. "This guy look familliar? This isn't some JoJo off the street! He knows what he's talking about!" Check this out- the reply of this one-eyed crap-catcher, who shall remain nameless (Darryl) was, (and imagine a dullards voice- how we make people we don't like sound in a story) "Well, then you can call Joss Whedon and ask him."
Wouldn't a smart business man ask me to sign an issue and sell me one at a fair price? Wouldn't that fetch a prettier penny than ripping me off for one issue? Congratulations, dude! You are now on the Browncoat $hitlist.
Never have I tried to wield power in this way, but if being Malcolm Reynolds has taught me anything, it's to follow my over-developed sense of vengeance. BOYCOTT WARP ONE COMICS! If you are in the neighborhood, drop by to tell "Patchy" that Browncoats don't take $hit from anyone. Tell your friends not to shop there, and lock 'em in the airlock if they do. Copy this post and e-mail it to fellow Edmontonians. Bump it to keep it alive.
Thank you. Thank you for letting me rant. If you feel I'm overboard, please feel free to, as Joss would say, contemplate silently.
The Captain
Yes, this is for real, yes, it was really Nathan Fillion who wrote this, if you don't believe me go check out the firefly forums here:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=11596There's more info there, including Warp 1's address and e-mail and such, if you want to give them hell.
I do this not as a Firefly fan (I'm not), but as an ex-customer of Patchy's, who has long waited for his revenge, served piping cold. BWAH HAH HAH HAHAHAHA!
RPGPundit October 24 2005