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What's not clear is whether nerds are all that thrilled to be embraced by the same mainstream America that used to make them eat grass during gym class. (Again: or so I've heard.) "We're in this weird world," Gaiman says bemusedly. "Anansi Boys is coming out, and it's a fantasy novel, and it's being published as a mainstream thing. It should have been 10,000 copies, just for people who love them, who would have had to go to a science-fiction specialty shop with a cat in it just to find it."
Now that everybody wants to get down with the dorks, will they vanish altogether, assimilated into the mainstream the way the Borg assimilated Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager? Will their colorful indigenous culture be lost forever, drowned in an ocean of weenie wannabes?
Not quite yet. "I miss a little of that element. The danger of, Oh, I'm holding this science-fiction magazine," says Whedon, who's currently slated to direct a Wonder Woman movie. "That's pretty much gone. We've been co-opted by the Man." He sighs, then brightens up a bit. "Although when I walk into a restaurant with a stack of comic books, I still do get stared at a little bit." Thank God for that. If he's lucky, maybe they'll even beat him up behind the backstop.
Read the complete conversation with Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon here.