When I was a kid, I loved comic books. I used to look up to my cousin Devin, who used to play action figures with me a lot. Even though Devin was 4 years older than me, we had a pretty tight friendship, I mostly went to his house to hang rather than at mine, mainly because his parents wouldn’t drive him to my place as much as mine would drive me to his. Anyways, we both loved comics and action figures – superheroes and supervillains, weapons, special powers, video games….all things that we had a common interest in, as most boys do. I didn’t really buy that many comic books myself, I remember Devin had a lot – but I didn’t really go anywhere that sold comics as a kid, come to think about it, I think the 1st time I was ever in a comic shop was when I was around 13 or 14. So I rarely bought any or received any as a gift to call my own. I might have had 15 by the time my mother’s girl friend Laura gave me her entire collection from when she was a kid. She had a lot of older ones…Incredible Hulk, Mighty Thor, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Super Friends, Wonder Woman, Thundercats, Green Lantern, etc. After going through them for a few days, I began to collect comics again for a period. It didn’t last long though, for whatever reason – without more than maybe a thought or two crossing my mind concerning comic books for a number of years, I lost my comic craving.
Now, lately… I moved to a bigger city than I’ve lived in before, and with a bigger city comes better shops and stores to find cool things. As far as I know, there are 3 different comic book shops throughout this urban district, only two of which I have y et been in. One is called Strange Adventures – a quaint, small side-shop located on Sackville Street in downtown Halifax. This shop has a decent collection of back-issues, but nothing compared to the other shop (can’t remember the name, if I ever knew it) which has probably 10x the inventory of back-issues than Strange Adventures has. However, in many ways I enjoy shopping at Strange Adventures – for one, they have great decorations of an appropriate theme (comics, superheroes, etc)…a toy Tie-Fighter is suspended by a wire from the ceiling in one place; the walls are peppered here and there with neat-looking comic-related posters, t-shirts tacked up sleeves-out in presentation, and on top of the shelves and edges sit little comic ornaments and toys of all kinds. So, I suppose you could say that the ‘vibe’ in Strange Adventures is the most admirable thing about the joint, the most alluring aspect being the feeling of utmost nostalgia and of wanting to be a little kid all over again, to just leave your job, your responsibilities, your bitchy wife, your whiny kids, your diabetic dog – just leave them to fend for themselves while you traipse around this wonderfully hip comic book store feeling 11 years old all over again. I recommend this shop to anyone who likes to read or collect things, or both. You don’t have to like, or even READ comics, to collect them.
Well, Kaleb got me going to these 2 comic shops with him to look at/purchase comics. So, naturally, I saw a shitload of things I liked and wanted. I found that pretty much each time I returned to each store, I bought more comics. Now I’ve got a rather decent collection altogether: the likes of:
Spider-Man, The Punisher, Thundercats, Batman, Superman, The Super Friends, Web of SpiderMan, JLA (Justice League of America), Batboy, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Silver Surfer, The Mighty Thor, Heathcliff, Underdog, Archie comics (lol, they are not worth shit), Fantastic Four, The Flash, Punisher Max, Captain America, Spawn, X-Men, Wolverine, Gable, The Avengers, Aquaman, etc etc.
When I got back into comic books, I began researching websites to price them. I found this one website called www.ComicsPriceGuide.com that allowed you to select which comics are yours, so that you can virtually keep track of your entire collection in an organized fashion. However, when My Collection reached $575 in value, the website would no longer allow me to add comics to my collection until I ‘upgrade to Premium’ membership, which is like $10 for a month and $30 for 6 months. Either way, doesn’t quite seem worth it to me. I can keep track of them for FREE with my hands withOUT a PC or the Internet. Goddamn internet scams, nothing is what it seems, hardly.
So if you come across any comic books, let me know, and I will gladly take ‘em off your hands if you’re just gonna chuck ‘em anyway. Call my cell phone at 902.473.0327
Peace!
