Comic book movies are all the rage right now (well Marvel at least) but I’ve been a fan since childhood. The first comic book I ever got was a silver age Flash that my friend Matt Bradly gifted me when his dad bought him two by accident. I read it and was enchanted by the story and the artwork. My father didn’t see the appeal but would occasionally give in and buy me one at a convenience store or off a random rack we’d encounter.
I spent a lot of time with my grandmother as a kid and when we visited antique stores I would always seek out the inventible box of comics. Usually they would be in poor shape or a storyline I didn’t care about but occasionally I’d come across one that had potential. After a few overpriced selections I used my allowance to invest in an Overstreet price guide and would cart that with me when at my grandma’s house. My best find was a Conan the Barbarian #1 in good shape for $2.00 in a bin at the back of a store in Blue Springs. According to the price guide it was worth $300 and the going rate now is more than double that.
My real passion was X-Men comics though and I would pick them up whenever I could. I was a fan of the cartoon TV show and read all the X-Men material I could get my hands on. At one point I had a decent cross section of early comics but many were lost when staying at my parents house (pretty sure they took them and sold them). The oldest one still in my collection is X-Men #27 with the tag line “Re-Enter the Mimic” that I sent off to get graded. The Mimic was one of my favorite X-Men heroes/villains from the early days (he went back and forth fighting and helping the team). He got his name because he could copy the powers of all the mutants around him with very interesting results.
Other than that I collected Green Lantern, Superman, the Flash, Cable and What If comics so in my youth I tended to skew towards DC but really would read anything I could get my hands on. I followed the death and return of Superman saga in detail and have all those books in protective cases. My kids are interested in the stories but have never really shown interest in picking up and reading through my collection as indicated by the fine level of dust on the boxes when I went to crack them open. I suppose now that you can stream everything and even read comics in a digital format the appeal of holding the actual book isn’t there for the new generation. Still, I am proud of my small collection and hope to pass it onto whichever one of them shows interest. 😉
4/1/2021