Do you find yourself wondering who I am? Do you say to yourself “I simply must know more about the person behind this blog.”? If you answered yes to either or both of these questions you have come to the right place. If you answered no to either or both of these questions, then you should move on quickly. (For the record, I answered “no” to both.)

Now that we have gotten rid of the riff-raff, I’ll introduce myself. The first thing I should mention is that my name is Mark. The second thing I should mention is that I am not a professional writer. I doubt you guessed the former, the latter however, should come as no great surprise.

As I write this, a snake just slithered by my window. (A black racer, for the herpetologists in the audience.)

I was first exposed to comic books when I was but a small lad. My father would pick them up at the newsstand and bring them home for us kids. (This was in the mid-to-late 70’s so I have a fondness for Bronze Age stories.) We would read them, draw pictures out of them (occasionally in them), beat the hell out of them, all while thoroughly enjoying them. I loved them. I picked up a paperback collection of reprints of early Lee-Ditko Amazing Spider-Man issues at a used bookstore one time and it was like discovering religion. However I hadn’t started collecting yet.

When I was 14, I got pretty sick and was stuck in bed for a week. My brother, who was working at a grocery store at the time, brought home a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 257 for me. That was when I became a collector. As soon as I could, I picked up as many comic books as I could get my hands on. Riding my bike all around town to every grocery and drug store I could find, I scoured the magazine racks for more comics. Then a friend of mine told me about a comic book shop he had seen in the next town over. A comic book shop!

I hopped on my bike to seek out this Shangri-La, this comic book shop. The comic shop was small and noticeably rectangular, but it was an actual comic shop! (Technically it was a comic shoppe.) It had back issues and everything. Back issues! In bags! I learned about shipping schedules and I showed up at the shop every week. I got my first long box and package of bags and boards. And from then on I was a comic book collector. I was a reader first, but collecting was a close second.

I have always been primarily a Marvel fan. I read DC, Darkhorse, and others as well, but on the whole, over the years my tastes have skewed Marvel. Throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s I picked up my comics every week. Then came the mid 90’s.

For those of you who didn’t get to experience the comic book industry of the mid 90’s let me give you a quick synopsis. It was an age of die-cut, holo-foil, chromium card-stock covers. An age of pre-bagged manufactured collectible first issues. It was the age of Image comics. It just plain sucked.

Slowly I started losing interest. I tried to stay enthusiastic, but when it seemed like every week at least one of the titles I read was a super collectible issue with some universe shattering cover gimmick and an inflated price for a lousy story I finally gave up.

I want to note that I never felt like I outgrew comics. I felt like I was abandoned by the industry. If not abandoned then at least taken for granted. I felt like they were simply milking me for my money. The publishers seemed to be slavishly catering to the speculator collector market with no concern for quality. You see this was also the age of the speculator investor and the manufactured superstar artists of questionable comprehension of anatomy. But that is a story for another time.

Lets get back to why we are all here: my story. So there I was, a lifelong reader who had walked away from what had become an abusive relationship. But an interesting thing happened. My life went on just fine. I poked my head in from time to time to say hello, but I took a break for several years. I don’t feel like I missed much.

But over time I felt the siren song of spandex clad superheroes summoning me back. I started back slowly, and I liked a lot of what I saw. Before long I found myself anxiously awaiting the next month’s installments of the titles I was reading. And now I’m back!

Reading comics is fun again, and that is what it is mostly about. Some comics should also make you think, but it is the sense of wonder, excitement and adventure that is most important to me.

So that’s my story about how I got where I am in the world of comic book collecting. And for those of you who stuck around for the whole story, here’s a little sumpin-sumpin.

Do you find yourself wondering who I am? Do you say to yourself “I simply must know more about the person behind this blog.”? If you answered yes to either or both of these questions you have come to the right place. If you answered no to either or both of these questions, then you should move on quickly. (For the record, I answered “no” to both.)

Now that we have gotten rid of the riff-raff, I’ll introduce myself. The first thing I should mention is that my name is Mark. The second thing I should mention is that I am not a professional writer. I doubt you guessed the former, the latter however, should come as no great surprise.

As I write this, a snake just slithered by my window. (A black racer, for the herpetologists in the audience.)

I was first exposed to comic books when I was but a small lad. My father would pick them up at the newsstand and bring them home for us kids. (This was in the mid-to-late 70’s so I have a fondness for Bronze Age stories.) We would read them, draw pictures out of them (occasionally in them), beat the hell out of them, all while thoroughly enjoying them. I loved them. I picked up a paperback collection of reprints of early Lee-Ditko Amazing Spider-Man issues at a used bookstore one time and it was like discovering religion. However I hadn’t started collecting yet.

When I was 14, I got pretty sick and was stuck in bed for a week. My brother, who was working at a grocery store at the time, brought home a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 257 for me. That was when I became a collector. As soon as I could, I picked up as many comic books as I could get my hands on. Riding my bike all around town to every grocery and drug store I could find, I scoured the magazine racks for more comics. Then a friend of mine told me about a comic book shop he had seen in the next town over. A comic book shop!

I hopped on my bike to seek out this Shangri-La, this comic book shop. The comic shop was small and noticeably rectangular, but it was an actual comic shop! (Technically it was a comic shoppe.) It had back issues and everything. Back issues! In bags! I learned about shipping schedules and I showed up at the shop every week. I got my first long box and package of bags and boards. And from then on I was a comic book collector. I was a reader first, but collecting was a close second.

I have always been primarily a Marvel fan. I read DC, Darkhorse, and others as well, but on the whole, over the years my tastes have skewed Marvel. Throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s I picked up my comics every week. Then came the mid 90’s.

For those of you who didn’t get to experience the comic book industry of the mid 90’s let me give you a quick synopsis. It was an age of die-cut, holo-foil, chromium card-stock covers. An age of pre-bagged manufactured collectible first issues. It was the age of Image comics. It just plain sucked.

Slowly I started losing interest. I tried to stay enthusiastic, but when it seemed like every week at least one of the titles I read was a super collectible issue with some universe shattering cover gimmick and an inflated price for a lousy story I finally gave up.

I want to note that I never felt like I outgrew comics. I felt like I was abandoned by the industry. If not abandoned then at least taken for granted. I felt like they were simply milking me for my money. The publishers seemed to be slavishly catering to the speculator collector market with no concern for quality. You see this was also the age of the speculator investor and the manufactured superstar artists of questionable comprehension of anatomy. But that is a story for another time.

Lets get back to why we are all here: my story. So there I was, a lifelong reader who had walked away from what had become an abusive relationship. But an interesting thing happened. My life went on just fine. I poked my head in from time to time to say hello, but I took a break for several years. I don’t feel like I missed much.

But over time I felt the siren song of spandex clad superheroes summoning me back. I started back slowly, and I liked a lot of what I saw. Before long I found myself anxiously awaiting the next month’s installments of the titles I was reading. And now I’m back!

Reading comics is fun again, and that is what it is mostly about. Some comics should also make you think, but it is the sense of wonder, excitement and adventure that is most important to me.

So that’s my story about how I got where I am in the world of comic book collecting. And for those of you who stuck around for the whole story, here’s a little sumpin-sumpin.