an open letter to C&C's mun populace
I have loved comics from as far back as I can remember, and read them as much as I could. I think the idea started when I was all of five or so and being watched by my babysitter, reading MAD magazines in the closet and only coming out to watch the good Nickelodeon shows like Hey Dude and Salute Your Shorts. Shortly afterward, I discovered the joy of actual comic books.
Spider-Man and Batman became fast favorites--and of course things like Archie, because when you're 8 that stuff's really funny. Primortals hit when I was 9, I believe; I collected that one happily.
While my family was too poor to really let me keep up with them on my own time, I borrowed them from friends, snuck in some reads in the convenience store, got them in compilations from the library--whatever I could.
In middle-school or thereabouts, my uncle started to help me collect them properly--every few weeks he would send me a booklet from the enormous (and I mean enormous) shop near where he lived up in Ohio. I would mark off some of the things I was interested in, and he would send me them. I quickly learned to love Silver Age comics, and rapidly fell wildly in love with the Green Lantern series of the Hal Jordan variety (and just as quickly hating Kyle Rayner's stuff when it hit the convenience store racks, but that's another deal entirely).
It became a thing of me keeping a running list of all the GL comics I had, checking off whatever new old ones had rolled into town at that mega-shop and then picking a few of this and that other unrelated series to keep me well-grounded. She-Hulk gave me nightmares of giant green womenbits, Warlord was great, I thought Wonder Woman was boring, there was plenty of Ren and Stimpy--and oh god all the Star Wars I could devour--not to mention several dozen other titles I toyed around with. Godzilla, of course.
But Hal Jordan, man. I couldn't read his issues fast enough. Hell, they couldn't even come in the mail fast enough. But I got a lot of them, and I read them so often I practically had dreams about being a Green Lantern. I... may have even dressed up as him for Halloween one year. I still have the pose-able action figure I got one day, too (though he's been put through so many hideous things in the name of humor that it's probably best he's in a box with most of my other figures a the moment).
Between the mail-outs and a trip to Ohio I made during which I added loads to the collection by going to the shop myself, I eventually ended up with a good chunk of his run with Green Arrow, some of the newer sets like the The Brave and the Bold dealie-o with Flash and crew, bits of the Parallax stuff, some of this and that about John Stewart or Guy Gardner, but most importantly?
I had almost gotten hold of all of the main issues up to where he resigned from the Corps.
Let me assure you that this is a DAMN LOT of comic books, and a DAMN LOT of time and money spent. Not all of them were necessarily in the best of shape; I did take some that were in hideous condition simply because I wanted to have them and read them (and I read them so very often). But most of them were.
One day, I had to move to live with my mother. Being that I couldn't take everything all in one go, and wanting to keep the majority of my comics in one spot, I only took my newest stuff with me to her house. The rest of it I put in a box and kept under my sibling's bed for safekeeping. I pulled them out and read them sometimes on the occasions that I went over to visit, but for the most part I meant them to stay there until I could get a safe storage place for them over at mom's and/or resume my collecting the last ones I was missing since my uncle could no longer help.
On the day that I decided to go get them from my dad, I realized that my box was missing. I tore the house apart, looking frantically for my stuff--and couldn't find it. Later questioning of my parents showed that they'd gotten rid of it while I wasn't there.
I was heartbroken.
I stopped reading American comics, that day. All of the ones I had left to my name back at mom's house were packed into a box, and I taped it up, and put it in my closet. I didn't want to look at them anymore--hell, I couldn't. I quit going to the library for anything besides novels. I stopped buying things in the store. I refused to set foot in a comic shop again because--back then, anyway--they weren't so much into selling merchandise and had more of a setup of rows and rows of comics new/old for sale. Every time I went in I found myself pawing at the Green Lantern section sadly. So I just... stopped. Everything. I didn't even borrow them from friends anymore.
That was just about a decade ago.
Once, for a few weeks two years ago, I decided to read all the manga in the library section that I could find, because I do so love it and they had finally expanded their selection. While I did this, I read Sandman and Batman (including things like The Long Halloween and Black and White) and Spider-Man, Invincible, the Runaways...but only bits and pieces. They were only short collections, after all, and there weren't that many. When I finished them, I realized that it still hurt to have lost all of those comics so many years back. I stopped reading them again, and didn't touch them until October 2008.
Then someone spread word about an LJRP based around the concept of superheroes. It had to be fun. Who didn't spend most of their childhood pretending to fly and beat up bad guys?
Over the last 10 months, this community has been slowly reawakening my inner nerd. Elle got Ty hooked on Blue Beetle comics, and he happily dived right in. Going with him so many times to the shop got me to move a little out of my comfort zone, and when I saw that they had Season 8 I figured I'd go ahead and try that. I mean, it's not really a comic, just... a continuation of the television show, but on paper and with word balloons. So it was safe.
Today, I poked at a box of old Silver Age stuff on a whim after grabbing up the next few Buffy books, and was disappointed to see that they had no Green Lantern. Just old rubbish that I had never liked even as a middle-schooler. I mentioned this to Ty, and he said to try the main set of backstock anyway because sometimes they did get a few bits of old this and that in.
My mouth almost came away from my face. They had some. None of them were particularly old--the majority being from #120 or later--but memories came flooding back to me, and honestly I kind of had to not cry looking at them. I'd had them all, once. One of the employees there inquired as to what Ty and I were looking at; we explained how I'd once lost my collection and how he'd lost his.
The employee brought out ones from way back, and even though the prices on them nowadays made my heart drop to the bottom of my shoes, it made me happy to see ones I hadn't touched in ten years. There was a #19 in there for $100; I laughed, because I'd had one of that issue, too.
Ty let me take one of the ones that was $25, and although I don't think I'll ever truly forgive my parents for throwing away what's now a few thousand dollars' worth of my childhood, I have a promise that I can slowly collect the old ones again, a couple at a time. Maybe it'll be a long, long time before I can afford to get the first few dozen issues over again, but I loved the last few dozen just as much as both those and the ones in the middle.
We also both just found out about Blackest Night. I'll be collecting those too. Guess I have two weeks to get ready, huh?
I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. And that wouldn't be the case if it weren't for you guys.
So, thank you--you haven't got even the slightest idea how much.