Ah, yes. Comics.
My father and uncle have been collecting since high school. So, naturally, I picked up the bug. I think it was somewhere around 1990 or 1991 when my family took on the task of sorting, organizing and bagging the collection of around 20 long boxes. In 1993 I recall traveling to the local comic shop for the first time with my father and meeting my uncle at the store to pick up the latest releases that week. I was shuffled over to the children's section where I found a whole host of colorful issues that would keep my seven-year-old self occupied for hours. Over the course of several trips I soon had several titles added to my father's pull box - most of which were based of of cartoons I loved at the time. I poured over the pages of Darkwing Duck, Back to the Future, The Batman Adventures and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog. I had received a Sega Genesis for Christmas in 1992 and was quite eager to follow the further adventures of the Blue Blur.
We made it a regular habit to pass all the comics around so my uncle, father, sister and myself could flip through the pages. At one point we were pulling a copy of pretty much every title that came into the shop. We've had to scale back some, partly due to the increasing cost of the books and the decreasing story quality (story arcs like Trinity that DC put out in 2008 was like watching a train wreck). I purchased the wonderful ComicBase software to catalog and organize the growing collection. It was a bit of slow-going entering the older comics into the database but I was able to fly through boxes once I got into the barcode era. I think I could do a long box in a little over an hour, although many boxes would take quite a bit longer as I became distracted by old story lines and antiquated video game advertisements. Storage became an issue some time ago; I finally finished converting all of the traditional long boxes over to the DrawerBox system, allowing me full access to all the books in the collection without having to move boxes. We were up to almost 120 long boxes as of last count of the main collection; I have nine short DrawerBoxes that house my personal collection.
I've been frequenting our local comic shop for the past eight years and have built up a wonderful relationship with the owner and staff. I'll sometimes swing by after work and spend an hour or two hanging out and chatting with the owner and some of the other customers. Sometimes the Nerf guns come out and all-out war ensues. They've done an excellent job at building a store that is inviting and friendly and attempts to eliminate the stereotype of comic enthusiasts being basement-dwelling neck beards. The staff has figured out my taste in comics and make recommendations on titles I might like, whether it be a recent story arc in one of the mainstream books or an indie title that I may have overlooked. Every once in a while I'll get a call about something "interesting" that came in; that's how I managed to score an Amazing Fantasy #15 (first appearance of Spider-Man). Never thought I'd actually get to see one, never mind hold it.
One of my friends just got me into collecting original art from the books. Just like with animation cels there are a ton of fantastic, one-of-a-kind original art pieces floating around out there. I picked up page 15 from The Batman Adventures (2nd series) #15 and had it signed by the inker; just need to get it framed next to the completed page now.
