When I say that comics have been a big part of my life I am not kidding. As a small child my father used to take me with him every Sunday to walk down to the corner store and get the newspaper. There they had a rack of old comics and he would let me pick one out. They were primarily Superman related titles like Superboy, Superman Family, Justice League, etc. Real old school books, the 100 page multi-story books with original cover prices of like 50 cents. I am not sure what he paid for them but each week I was excited to dive into a new adventure.

This was how I learned to read, before school even began for me. A few years later he found an old bookstore in our town that had a circular rack of comics. The guy sold them for like 25 cents each, and they were newer books a few months to a year old in terms of their release. I started saving my allowance for a weekly trip to this store. I was discovering new companies and titles. The X-Men, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and others were soon my favorites. The turning point in my comic collecting was when I came across a few early issues of the New Mutants. The book spoke to me and I wanted to know more. The shop owner explained to me that comics came out every week and that I could actually find places to get them as soon as they were released.

Oh man, a whole new world opened up to me and I was soon hooked on my weekly fix at the comic store. I started small with my old favorites and new reads. I was at the comic shop every Wednesday after school to get my books. I became a staple in the shop. My allowance was meager so I had to choose my titles wisely. This continued for a while, and then I got a paper route, and had more money. My pull list grew. By the time I was in High School and working full time hours at a local restaurant I was reading pretty much every title put out by DC and Marvel. There was no Image yet or any other of the publishers to come along. The shop owner would pull titles for me he thought I might like, and I was always happy. I was loyal to that store even when it moved all over the place, even if the walk to the store grew by leaps and bounds. Needless to say I was quite happy when I got a car!

Comics stayed with me all through high school and college even. I wrote several papers in college using comics as source material. Can you imagine the impact this had on my budget? And I saved every book I had even as I graduated college and moved into the “real world.” For a few years as I moved around, my saintly grandparents hosted my collection until I had a place where I could store them. When I moved two years ago I had to get rid of the collection. I sold it to a lucky buyer who made out like a bandit. I had two deep closets full of long boxes. I told him I had around 25 boxes. Turns out when all the closets were cleared I had 42. It was not easy to part with the collection and I saved a few titles that were important to me, like the New Mutants.

Today, I am still an avid reader but my collection is not as large. Here I will post my weekly reviews of the books that stand out to me. The first review coming goes back to the title that really showed me that comics could be more than just capes and Kryptonite, the New Mutants. Their series has been revived again and the current storyline fascinates me, but more on that to follow.