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In The Doctor is In, Allan “Doc” Dorison operates on a specific part of popular culture.

I recently walked into a comic book store in Brooklyn Heights and picked up the newest issue of Kick Ass.

The guy behind counter asked me: “Would you like a bag and board with that?”

“No I’m just going to roll it up, throw it in my back pocket and chuck it when I’m done,” I replied without thinking. The look on the clerk’s face was priceless.  I continued:  “It’s going to come out in trade paperback  in about six months  anyway.”

He gasped, then gave me a scowl and an unspoken “F&@% YOU!” as I walked out of the store.

As I strolled down the street with a rolled up comic in my pocket, I started to feel a little guilty. Only ten years ago, I would have torn someone’s head off if they treated a comic that way.  Not anymore, though.   Had I grown away from my obsessive fanboy tendencies?

Well, I still make weekly trips to the comic shop…  I read Wizard regularly… I sneak new “exclusive” and “limited edition” Mighty Muggs onto the shelves of my bookcases even though, as my fiancee reminds me, the tchotchke quota of our apartment has exceeded critical mass… So… Nope.  I’m still pretty nerdy.

As I dug deeper into my collector’s soul, I got down to the truth of the matter.  Basically, I feel the single issue is dead.

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On alternating Tuesdays, Allan “Doc” Dorison operates on a specific part of popular culture.

by Allan Dorison

When I was a wee lad, of about five or six years old, I wanted to be a superhero. My parents used to take me to Quick Check and pick me up comic books. Every Friday night they used to plop me in front of the TV and we watched The Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. I loved that green guy — breaking s#!t up and saving people. If fact, I wrote my first letter to Mr. Rogers when the Hulk appeared on his show. A few weeks later, I received an autographed picture from Mr. Rogers and my hero, Lou Ferrigno. Later on that summer, I was at a Jamesway and ripped my shirt off pretending to be the Hulk.

As I got older, around seven or eight, my love for comics and becoming a hero progressed. My mom got a job working for the North Bergen Police Department as a violations clerk. It was awesome!!! I got to meet all these cops. It was a dream come true. It was like meeting real-life superheroes. They wore uniforms just like Batman and Spider-Man. They stopped bad guys just like the Hulk and they carried guns like… um, like guys who were bad a$$. This was a good thing and a bad thing. I used to stand in the middle of the street pretending to direct traffic. I got yelled at quite a bit by both of my parents. It was also pretty funny that I used to ask random people if they were crooks. Most of the time they would say “yes”.

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