Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Guest Post: Dave Loves Comics!

In the immortal words of my Best Man...Do you want to see my comic collection?!?!? I've been collecting comics a very long time. Actually, it's been over 20 years now! Until recently, I've always said I collect comics, but in actuality, what I am is a comic reader. I'm not worried about the worth of the comics I have, or that I don't have any golden age gems, or that I may not have every single issue of a certain run of comics. What I love are stories. And for some reason, what I love most, are superhero stories.


The Longbox Closet
I'm on holidays right now, and one of the things I've been wanting to do for a while is open up all the longboxes above to organize, catalog, and appreciate what's inside. It was a big job that I needed an extended period of time to tackle, so this seemed like the perfect time!


Here's the start of the unpacking. As I began sorting my comics, it brought back a lot of memories of not only the stories within the pages, but the stories around where, when, and how I found some of them. For example, many of my early comics were bought after earning $0.25 per 10 minutes of massaging my dad's feet, including The Original Ghost Rider #1. Another favourite story came when I found out Superman's powers were changing to some sort of energy being. At the time, I was just collecting JLA. I was young and grabbing more than one title was costly, but I just had to follow the story leading to Superman Red/Superman Blue. I would ride my bike from the Husky to McGirr's, and sometimes to Abraham's or Paramart to find the next piece of the story until I came to an issue that was nowhere to be found. It was hard to figure out where the next issue would be because it seemed like a random crapshoot on where the Superman comic would be that week. I searched all around town to find the copy of Action Comics I was missing. I went to the usual spots, and then started just going to any business I could find that sold magazines or books. It wasn't at the Rexall, or Treasure Island. Then I went into the basement of Harper's Pharmacy, and there it was!!!! I could finally read how the battle between Superman and the Atomic Skull would turn out. (He won...Superman always wins!)

One box down!
Once all the longboxes were unpacked and put in the various piles, I could tell that my biggest stack of comics was JLA/Justice League. However, Action Comics was a close second, and when you tally up Superman, Superman: Man of Steel, Adventures of Superman, and many, many Superman mini-series, trades, and specials, Superman was wayyyyy ahead. Other large stacks included Daredevil (one of my current favourite titles), Green Arrow, Superman/Batman, and everything Kevin Smith has written.

The series of photos below show my entire collection of comics. Totalling over 2830 in number. With comics from friends like Sol and Jon, auction finds from my father-in-law, some from Kelly's grandma's attic, and other old comics I've picked up along the way, it's well over the 3000 mark. That is a lot of reading time! That also doesn't count the hundreds of comics I've read digitally on my computer, and on my iPad!





I love comics, I love reading comics, I love talking about comics, but most of all, I love a good story.

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