I'm sure I've mentioned it a few times over the years, but Spider-Man Brand New Day destroyed my love of Spider-Man, and eventually wanting to continue collecting at all.

Looks like some people are pissed about something going on with the current Spider-Man series. You might find it interesting.

After 30 years of collecting, and having a complete unbroken run going back 55 years to #68, I've just cancelled Amazing Spider-Man. Am I alone? : r/comicbookcollecting

I was going to post all the covers for the offending issue #68 but there are 9(!) fucking covers. JFC.





I kinda like that last Romita-ish Sr. cover.

There are a minimum of 8 different covers for EVERY issue of the new volume of The Amazing Spider-Man. I actually feel sorry for collectors who feel they have to have everything released nowadays.

The first issue of this volume has approximately 70 different covers. 70! Seventy! SEVENTY! What the literal fuck?

I'm very confused why they list different creative teams?

^Good question. I have no clue.

That last cover is not a Spider-Man #68 variant. It's Spider-Man #68.DEATHS. A different issue.

I survived the Image/gimmick cover era, though it taught me a lot about why I at the time read comics. When I was a kid, my mom collected comics and we had these comics in, I did you not, paper bags outside just stacked up, all out of order, and I read all kinds of stuff just endlessly in the Summer time. There were these carnivals that my school would put on annually and the prizes were basically stuff given away by other people, and I got a ton of stuff like Starlin's Adam Warlock run which I had never seen before and seemed so far out from the "regular" Marvel Universe. My mom collected all kinds of stuff... independent comics, DC, Marvel, etc. and while as a little kid I didn't get individual comics as much I bought digests and collections as much as I could when we went to the grocery store. I kind of undervalued just how many comics I was exposed to in the late 70s early 80s and how great stuff like Byrne's FF, New Teen Titans (which was NOT for kids), LoSH, Claremont's Uncanny, etc. really molded me (and helped me expand my vocabulary).

Like most others I got caught up in the Image craze, mainly because I was already collecting basically everything those guys were putting out, even Valentino's Guardians. And yes the aftermath of getting all these comics not to read but collect took it's toll, but I still loved comics enough to get through it. I think it started with the Death of Superman... I had been reading Jurgen's Justice League and the Gene Ha drawn Green Lantern at the time, so it was a natural fit, but the way they just threw Hal under the bus really bothered me. Actually maybe a little before that they had basically done a similar thing to Hank Hall/Hawk, all because people guessed who Monarch was supposed to be. I think the Eclipso series was the first time I realized that characters were just treated as cannon fodder for some writer's pet project. Even the great Starman series did this. Fate's helmet was melted down and turned into a dagger. The Legion was completely replaced (though I liked the replacement well enough).

Then Geoff Johns, who at the time I thought could do no wrong, brought back Barry Allen. Now he brought back Hal Jordan too and I appreciated that, but nobody (except him) was calling for a return of Barry Allen, and he basically replaced Wally West's Flash. But it wasn't until Flashpoint directly led into the New 52 and they replaced almost everything that I realized I was mainly collecting a lot of these comics because of the characters I had grown up with, and on a whim they could just wipe the slate clean and replace everyone and everything. And I whittled down my monthly spending until my monthly pull list was down to nothing. I still caught up in tpbs and omnibuses but losing that month to month drip feed really lessened my desire to read as much. Why collect month to month when series could be cancelled before completing, artists and storylines could change at a moment's notice, etc. The best would be collected (this was before EVERYTHING was collected) and I could read it later. The FOMO was gone. Digital just hastened this because again my main motivation was to read and not collect and if I wanted I could get any backissue I wanted without having to dig through stacks of comics and hope the store had a continuous run available that wasn't marked up to hell. It's one reason why I can't relate to the multiple limited cover craze of today, even if I understand it helps keeps stores afloat. The comic inside could be blank and nobody would care because people just want the cover, they're not getting it to read, and if you really like the artwork on the cover just buy a poster.

Anyway apologies for the long winded reply that is off topic. It did help that even as a little kid I was really into manga (I would get the Japanese volumes without knowing much Japanese but often the art conveyed the story well enough that I could follow along effortlessly), and I never really stopped collecting manga, mainly because while the threat of premature cancellation wasn't gone, it kept on schedule, had a consistent artist/writer, and often had a conclusion.

^Sounds like you had a cool mom!

My mom was pretty cool too. She would wash, clean and help me organize all my Star Wars figures. she even used a word processor (remember those?) to keep a list of all my Star Wars toys and the figures I was still looking for.

I remember at one point that we could not, for the life of us, find a Bespin Han Solo figure. We went to every store in the nearby area and went through each and every figure we could find. You have to remember that this was around 1982, and Star Wars figures were sold in about every store you could think of, and some would literally have thousands hanging on a rack or tossed in a huge bin you would have to dig through. Anyway, she was bound and determined to help me find this figure because this was before the ROTJ figures had come out and it was the only one I was missing of all the ones released. One Saturday, we hit every store within probably a 25-mile radius. Mind you, this was a lot of stores. I remember we finally found one buried under a pile of other SW figures at a Big B drug store or maybe a TG&Y. Can't remember which.

Thank goodness neither of us knew about the tall Snaggletooth figure or we both probably would have lost our minds.

One other cool story about her. I was at home sick with the flu, and she sat with me for days trying to help me figure out how to win(?) the Atari 2600 Raider Of The Lost Ark game. We basically read every single word in that cryptic manual 100 times. I think it led to some tears from both of us. But somehow, we finally figured it out and found the ark. What sucks is I can't remember if it was from us finally doing it ourselves or some kid mercifully telling me how when I got back to school.

This is one of my favorite Star Wars stories from the original comic book series.



And everyone forgets this series:

I read the old one. I grew up on SA/BA JLA but became a big fan of the Legion. Googling tells me there was a more recent crossover, though.

Yes to all 3?

I don't remember ever seeing Web of Spider-Man 1. I'm sure I would've picked it up.

I do remember a 3 pack of all 3 A-Team issues being readily available for a long time. I think I bought issue 1 new off the stands.

I'm amazed at the variety of time periods represented in the multi-packs at Ollie's. There's usually something to give me instant nostalgia mixed in with the modern. I always want to buy some, but never do. Maybe if I could hand pick the issues...

I've had a few stops & starts with comic buying. I'm not sure if there was any specific thing that ended it for me. It was probably gradual - like when you realize you've been buying a title out of habit, but haven't actually read an issue in months - like you're treading water, waiting for a creative team to change on a title you used to care about. I do know that I've been afraid to walk into a comic shop for years - afraid I'll see something that will suck me back in. I'd have to go to another town to find a shop anyway.

That's the storyline.

Heh. I feel his pain. In restrospect, I'm actually glad I stopped collecting when I did because it really has become a major clusterfuck to try to keep up with it all. Even beyond all the covers! It seems like every third month there's a new Spider-Man #1 relaunch happening. It used to be so much easier to be a collector. My first issue of Amazing Spider-Man was #101, and I eventually built my collection to ALL issues (including two #1s!), and all the annuals. Stopped at #570. I couldn't imagine trying to collect everything Spider-Man now. Too crazy.

I remember when the first issue of this came out in 1968. I was a wee lad just starting to collect comic books, and 25 cents was a BIG DEAL! I had to really put some thought into dropping a whole quarter on a book I wasn't familiar with. (I still have it)

More Kubert. Was unaware of Tor.

Not me! Although I only bought the first two issues because even though I wasn’t much of a ‘collector’ at that point, being barely 13, I’d already taken a shine to (and was learning from) John Byrne’s art and I was already grabbing his stuff when I’d spot it on the spinner racks at my small-town variety store. Once I saw issue #3 was drawn by someone else, that was that. I don’t think those are in any of Byrne’s omnibus editions, so I still have them. I’m sure the whole series is probably bargain bin fodder these days.

I also have the two-issue adaptations of BLADE RUNNER (which I didn’t see until a few years later, and didn’t fully appreciate until much later!) and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (which I had seen). Didn’t really collect all the movie comics or anything and I’m not partial to the art; these were just on the racks at the time and I knew of the movies, one of which I was too young to see anyway. Again, bargain bin stuff, I’m sure.

I love Kubert. He's still my go-to Tarzan. I collect an Italian Western series called Tex, and he randomly did one book of it, which was great.

As far as collecting goes, I took several decades off from comics before discovering the magic of trade collections, then also tried getting back into floppies. I did that one multiple-miniseries crossover that was like Rann-Thanagar War and Villains United, and while I wouldn't say it "broke" me, it may have made me think that collecting floppies really wasn't worth it. So from there it was just collections, then digital collections.

I was aware of Tor but had forgotten how stunning the covers were. I also seem to remember reading on a blog or comic book news type site many years back the the Marvel Indiana Jones comic book run contained a lot of fun stories and is probably a bit under-rated even to this very day.

I remember seeing a black and white ad for the cover of this comic in the back of, I think it was an adaption of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and wanted to read this so badly. Looked absolutely batshit crazy! Never found it on the newsstands, though.




That's one thing about comic that sucked back in the day. Unless you had access to a comic book store (which I didn't), you were really at the mercy of your local newsstand. You couldn't find back issues, and sometimes they would skip over issues entirely and you had no way to get them. You're seven or eight or ten or twelve, and had no idea how distribution worked.

That's Byrne and Austin, btw. Byrne was on the Indiana Jones book for the first couple of issues, and wanted to stay on longer, but Lucasfilm put so many insane demands on the creators that he couldn't handle it and walked after only two issues.

Can't help but wonder how awesome it would have been to have had Byrne do an extended run on Indiana Jones in his early-80s prime.

I actually bought that issue off a spinner racket my local drugstore as a kid. They always got the best comics there and was were I bought the majority of my stuff back then.

But I totally feel your pain on the distribution thing. Luckily I usually didn't know what I was missing except when they did skip issues on regular titles which drove me crazy. That was when I typically volunteered to go to the grocery store, gas station, drug store, etc., anywhere with my parents that may have sold comics. Then I would spend the entire time thumbing through every issue there or looking through every single rack of spinners, magazines, etc. to make sure they didn't have the issue I was looking for.

I didn't actually ever visit a true comic book store until we visited Houston, TX as a young tween in the mid 80's. They didn't have any around me until around 1987. We had moved to a really small podunk town and one guy was trying to start a comic book store but it was combined with a junk and salvage store so he could try to make ends meet. I couldn't believe it when he would let me look at each month's order list and I could order almost anything I wanted. This was right when prices started increases dramatically but I now had access to all the multiple covers, crossovers, "collector's item #1s!" and tons of new long term and mini-series...which ironically led to me not collecting any more.

Sorry for the diversion. Anyway, back to that IJ Byrne comic. I always remember that story because it had solid gold people and one of their legs breaks and a bone slips out of the gold. It was so striking to me for some reason. (I just looked at my Dark Horse omnibuses of TFAOIJ and that image was actually in issue one.) That is a shame because I had read the entire series a couple of times and that first two issue story is one of the best in the series and some of the best art in my opinion. It very much feels like a continuation of Raiders (it kinda of copies it a little too much at times) but I would have loved to see more from that team.

And Austin should be the only person to ever ink Byrne. He inks Byrne better than Byrne inks himself.

And here is a cover so I don't just keep blabbering away.