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Warning, my timeline on these events may be off, but I'm writing as I recall them, so don't bug me. it's a rambling.
Comic books. Ah, sequential art. I grew up not allowed to have comic books, my mother didn't see a point in them. I still got a couple issues, I think three comics up until I was 10. An Iron Man, a Captain America, and some other comic, I want to say Fantastic Four, but I'm not sure. Then I made friends with a guy who was a huge Wolverine fan. I read his comics and fell in love with the X-Men.
So, I forget how old I was, but I entered comics through thos cheap sets you find in bargain things at bookstores. Those Masterpiece Collections that really suck so you can get them for a buck. The first comics I paid cover price for were X-Men #1 and #2. Kick ass, I was hooked, for a few months, and then money dried up, I lost favor with comics.
So, I went for a couple years collecting baseball cards and the comic cards. I even got that hologram Spider Man vs. Venom card that used to be worth $90 (no kidding). Then I read somewhere that Superman was dying. Viola, I was back into comics, hunting down every single book in the fight, death, funeral, and return of Superman. I finished the collection with the Green Lantern tie-in to the destruction of Coast City that I found in a gift store at an amusement park.
Then, again, the money ran out.
So, years going by, I was in a flea market type thing a year ago, last October, and found a booth that used to be one of the comic stores I haunted when a few years back. I had a few bucks, I bought X-Men #80. Damn it all, I was hooked and back.
I had no money after all of this, but i kept coming back.
Then th eplace started to go out of buisiness and all back issues were 75 cents a pop. Holy crap, I put down $100 in one week. Oh man, but I got the first issue Jim Lee did of X-Men, a bunch of his old Punnisher stuff, old issue of X-Men galore, the whole Genosha crossover with X-Men/X-Factor/New Mutants (the name slips my mind right now) I got into Deadpool, tons of Hellblazer back issues, WildCATS, most of the Onslaught crossover, more more more.
Then they went out of business and I had to haunt the more expensive but good enough comic place across town, where I went up until a couple weeks ago.
Now I'm 3 weeks behind on going to the comic store, but it doesn't really bother me. I've got planty of back reading.
But, my tastes had changed between my second and third foray into the comic world. I had grown up a bit, reading and enjoying more Vertigo and indie titles than I used to. I appreciated stories more than art, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Alan Moore, I even got analytical of Claremont and others. It was weird, but it was what I realize dcomics should be, a literary form, in order to keep fans.
But, a little while later, I stumbled onto this thing called fanfiction, which is a whol different story i'll cover next month since that marks my first anniversary of fanfiction. Yep, a continuation, almost.
Okay, so this whole damn thing had no point, but, hey we have a kick ass issue this month. I interview Gary and Tom from Visions and elsewhere and we all have a good time. Erik Burnham gets into it with Rob Nott, who writes a kick ass Black Canary at DCF, Ryan talks to totdoneta about Transformers, Brian Campo looks at a few cliches, Marvel-X presents their first awards, Sam fills us in on Reviews, we've got Classifieds, Previews, News & Rumors, more, more, more!
And, fill out our first ever survey and let us know how the hell we're doing with this thing!!!!
Yeah, thanks, and see y'all next month.
Jason Kenney
10.6.1999
