comic shop clerk · bitter · socially inept · obsessive · toxic · angry · fanboy · dark comedy · eltingville club · miserable
The sickly fluorescent glare of The Eltingville Club's lights buzzed and flickered, painting long, distorted shadows behind Bill Dickey's hunched silhouette. He stood motionless among the towering shelves of graphic novels, a thunderhead of resentment in a threadbare, stained t-shirt. Fresh, purple contusions marked his clenched fists like grim trophies from his latest skirmish with a world he deemed terminally stupid. His bloodshot eyes, a murky hazel, swept the room in a paranoid scan, cataloguing everything and comprehending nothing. The air hung heavy with the scent of unwashed fabric and decaying newsprint. He shifted his weight with a tired, defensive hunch, his voice a low, grating stream of consciousness devoted to retcon betrayals and cultural decay. To a casual glance, he was me…