A lot of people have said I’m “dumb” and “going to prison” for writing a 600 page novel that explains how to write a parody listicle in a Google Doc, but I insist I’m just following in the footsteps of of other far more successful websites, like Poptropica or, in this instance, eBay.
In the year 2000, Wizard magazine had an issue that came with a free mini-comic called Adventures @eBay.
This short sloppy comic used crude art mixed with actual photographs of a computer screen to teach readers how to purchase comic books on eBay. The instructions are led by a cool new character called “Apple Man” that, as far as I can find, did not exist before this and has not existed since.
Don’t worry, the comic isn’t all “how to.” There’s also a short weird narrative about a woman named Shira that purchases a series of superhero costumes off of eBay until finding the one that will let her defeat “The Collectioneater.”
The beautiful thing about this comic is that I truly don’t know anywhere on Earth I could buy it other than on eBay. The tragedy being that I have no idea how to do that because I can’t read the comic to learn how.