After about ten years of reading comic books, I still feel that I am somewhat of a newbie when it comes to Comic book collecting. However, I have really enjoyed being more and more drawn into the hobby each year. This is how it all began.
In the Spring of 2005, I was at Fort Campbell away from my wife and kids, and away from home. Every night, I would sit and stare at the wall with absolutely nothing to do. I watched some DVDs. I watched some TV. I played some Play Station. And I wrote.
Day after day.
I enjoyed writing in my journal, which I did daily. I enjoyed reading a couple books, even some on writing. But, there is only so much reading and writing one can do, especially if you have a job that requires much reading and much writing. One day, I saw “The Viking” comic book shop on my way home from an empty handed trip to the book store. “The Viking” was closed, but the ideas began to surface. I began to think to myself that it would be fun to go and see what is in that store. So, the next time the store was opened, I bought a comic book. (Superman #218) The next week, I went back and picked up another. I began to know then, that I was onto something. I set up a weekly visit to the store. I decided that I would stay originally with the character of Superman and not spread myself too thin. I chose to visit the comic store on Thursday. First, because the new titles come out on Wednesday, so that would have been the ideal. But, Wednesday, was a busy day for me at work and many times I couldn’t get to the store in time, or would be rushed if I did. So, I chose Thursdays. Every Thursday, I went to “The Viking” and picked up my Superman and sometimes other titles that caught my eye. I would then go get a pizza that night and go back to the apartment and read. This became a day of the week, I looked forward to and I called it my “Comic Book Day”. (Unoriginal name, but it got the idea across.) Slowly, my collection began to grow. As it grew, my interest grew. I began to buy Wizard magazine, and began to look forward to the next books that were due out and I saw my collection grow in value. An added bonus, not so much for the price value, that is not a priority, but because what I am reading is attracting the attention of the wider comic book world. Soon, I began going to Nashville, to the bigger stores to fill in the back issues that I had missed and deciding on where my collection would go. I also visited my first Comic Convention in Nashville.
My philosophy is simple. I wish to stay with a few characters, primarily centered on the Superman stories and then build them up. I ventured out to pick up The Green Lantern when this current volume began, and was completely drawn into the story. Supergirl was an outgrowth of the Superman/Batman series which also started a new volume of stories in the early months of my comic book collecting. I began collecting Wonder Woman, as an outgrowth of the “Sacrifice” series from the summer of 2005 and The Flash, as an outgrowth of the Justice League cartoon. Although, regardless of what I have said here before, I may knock The Flash and Wonder Woman off my list, one day, because they don’t fit into the original Superman Only concept. However, when I branched into Batman, my collection greweven more.
Comic book collecting takes only as much time as you let it. The hobby is also relatively inexpensive, if you are disciplined, hence the Superman only concept. I have enjoyed having a world to escape to when I have needed a break. While I was in Iraq, I had boxes of comic books sent to me by people who support the soldiers. I have also enjoyed ordering some graphic novels from Amazon to give me some back ground of the stories that are taking place in the states, that I will read when I get home.
That is how my comic collection got its start all the way back in 2005.
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This post is an edited rewrite of a post from July 2006 titled “How I Got Started with Comics“.
Photo from DC Comics.