Comic Book Men is by far my favorite reality show ever made. If you haven’t seen it yet, it airs Sunday night at midnight. The show features Kevin Smith and his friends Walt Flanagan, Mike Zapcic, and Ming Chen who run his comic book store, The Secret Stash, as well as Bryan Johnson who just hangs out there everyday. I’ve been a Kevin Smith fan for years, I’ve worked in nerd retail, and I love comic books, so this is the perfect show for me.
The show just made a comeback for season three just a few weeks ago and we’re two episodes out. On the first episode, Kevin Smith hires Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) to get Bryan back into shape. I love this picture of Ming Chen with the Hulk because I look like that compared to pretty much any average sized adult.
The second episode of season three was the absolute best though. A guy came in looking for the Hot Toys line of The Dark Night Rises and The Stash had the Christian Bale Batman for $495. If you’ve never seen Hot Toys, go to the website. These toys are unreal. They look like real people in the pictures. The customer gets Walt to drop the price for a trip to his real life Bat Cave.
All the guys except Mike go to this guy’s house, and his whole basement is dedicated to Batman. The first room in the basement looks like a typical “man cave.” There’s a big screen tv, an air hockey table, some Batman comics and toys on display. On his display shelves, there’s a bust statue of Albert Einstein where if you flip up his head, there’s a button inside. When you push the button, the bookshelf swings open, and you can go inside the real Batcave. He designed the walls to look like rock and he has a full size replica of Christian Bale’s Batman suit. He also has a few rows of theater seats and a 120 inch projector screen. It was absolutely amazing.
I thought the content of the show was a little ironic, because all week I’ve been thinking about man caves, how to make one, and what to put in it. I guess for me, it would be more of just a “nerd cave,” since I am obviously not a man. I had been thinking about writing a post about the perfect items to buy for one.
My boyfriend and I used to have our own separate nerd caves, but then he moved into my nerd cave, so I bought a laptop so I can go anywhere in the apartment and not be cramped up. Lately I’ve been thinking about establishing a new nerd cave for myself.
Kevin Smith made the perfect point at the end of the show. When you’re a kid, you have your own play room. When you’re an adult, you have your own house, but you still need to have a room you can call your own where you can relax by yourself. So, I have an open question to anyone who reads this. What would you put in your nerd cave?