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This photo reminds me a lot of my child hood and early teens where I would spend hours sometimes with my comic collection back then. As you can see this collection in the photograph has no shortage of
Rom back issues. You can see some
Micronauts in the top right corner as well as some
X-Men and
Dr. Strange. I never had
She-Hulk #1 but I did have about a half dozen She-Hulk issues at one point along with that
Avengers issue which I got in a trade with my buddies.
I don't know about the rest of you guys but that's something my friends and I used to do in the 80s was
swap issues. Of course my Rom issues were never open to negotiations but most of the other titles I had were depending on what the other guys had to offer in exchange. Getting to a comic shop in those days was a once in a while thing since I needed my parents to drive me there. So some of my comics were bought at local liquor stores, 7Elevens and then there were the ones I was able to get from swaps. There's an earlier posting of a better photo of this spinner rack just type "spinner racks" in this blog's word search to go to that posting. Man how I miss those days! Photo courtesy of a very cool Marvel 80s blog
http://www.themarvelproject.com/
Got any fond memories from your early comic book collecting days? If so I'd sure like to hear about them, excelsior : )
I love this blog. Almost as much as my comic book collection (more on that in a minute). My favorite recent post here was "The most subtle ROM reference in a Marvel title ever I think", because that title proved so true! I didn't know about that ROM billboard yet so that was soooo cool to find. A "sign of the times" indeed, as the search for each and every yet-unknown ROM 'Easter Egg' continues.
ReplyDeleteOf course the fan art is always super fun too; I'll put a comment on my mock 25th Anniversary cover post after this. But first, to break the ice on memories of early days. That picture really does pull them to the surface huh. My very first comic was an early ROM; can't remember it might even have been #11 or 12 shown there. Around the same time I also got my second comic, X-Men #133...I think that's it peeking out of the box, I recognize the logo colors! I spent my whole monthly allowance on Marvel stuff: Two-In-Ones, Team-Ups, Tales, Amazing Spider-Man, Micronauts, Fantastic Four, X-Men & all spinoffs, the occasional Avengers (comics were so cheap back then!!). Their mythology of chronology hooked me hard. Sometime before ROM's story ended, I had found the back issues to have a complete run, and it was my number one favorite comic series hands down. My next big series I collected the full run was New Mutants. Eventually I ended up mostly trying to buy every X-Men related book, until about 2002 or so. Yeah, that was an awesome 20+ year run of Marvel memories for me. I didn't follow comics at all then except for movies until last year, when the roof above my hoard sprung a leak and I had to re-box all my old books. It was then that my ROM obsession returned with a vengeance; I decided I would re-read the series but wanted to research the heck out of it first (still working on that!), which led me to buying some stuff I was missing and never knew about back in the day, and voila, I took on the moniker "A ROM Curator".
Y'know going down memory lane I only just now realized something neat. I remember first seeing comics on a spinner rack at the one grocery store in my small town, then bought them for years from there and at other such mom-n-pops like drug stores & newsstands, before my parents would drive me once a month to the closest comic shop about 45 minutes away. (You can tell looking at my collection when that sea change happened, as the issues go from tattered thrown-under-the-bed condition to read-once-straight-into-sleeve.) Now in my adulthood, I own the building that used to be that first grocery store! I ran my own newsstand (with comics) & thrift shop there for a while, and now lease it to other businesses.
Hey, one more thing kind of related to all this. Anyone else catch this week's television debuts of "Toy Hunter" on Travel Channel and "Collection Intervention" on Syfy? I can really relate to the many fans shown on these programs (almost too close to home in some instances), so if you see something of yourself in what I wrote above, check out these tv shows, highly recommended. It will not surprise me if the ROM action figure makes an appearance on "Toy Hunter" eventually.
thanks for the words of praise i'm glad you're still enjoying the blog. and thanks also for sharing your early child hood comic collecting days. i'll have to look for those SyFy Channel shows you mentioned for years now the SyFy Channel has sucked ass big time. it was good in the early 90s with all those reruns of Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Wonder Woman, Sliders and so on.
DeleteYeah, I recorded the old live-action Spider-Man show on video tapes when Sci-Fi Channel aired it in the 90's, I think it was.
DeleteOne good thing about SyFy now is that you can stream their shows free on their website. The premiere of "Collection Intervention" is at: http://www.syfy.com/videos/Collection%20Intervention/vid:19028820
Travel Channel's got a long "Toy Hunter" episode that I just found at http://www.travelchannel.com/video/toy-hunters-special and maybe they'll eventually put up the premiere I caught on tv (it was different).
I love that cover to She Hulk #1 - the tattered look always makes Jen seem more wicked. Sigh those were the days. Photos like that are drool material.
ReplyDeleteAs a wee kid I had bunks so Id often lay my favourite covers out actoss the entire floor of my room, climb up, lay and look down and just go 'wow' for ages. good times good times.
yeah i've always liked that cover too but really most any cover art that has the She-Hulk is usually drool material.
DeleteHeck, I stared at them. And I'm a chick. No way I could ever turn myself green though. My parents tended to frown on irradiating myself. *sigh*
Deletewe'll have to expand on your comment here sometime later outside of this blog forum. especially if you have any similar thoughts for the posting that comes after this one.
DeleteCool blog you have here. I had my back issues of ROM custom bound so I wouldn't have to dig through long boxes anymore. They look super cool on my shelf too.
ReplyDeletehttp://sporklift.blogspot.com/
I will answer your questions here where more people will see them.
ReplyDeleteI had the books bound at
http://www.herringandrobinsonbookbinders.com/
It can take up to two months to get your finished books back. (though most come back in a month)
The cost is around $25 a book with the shipping back and forth. This price can go up depending on how fancy you go. The silver cover and custom lettering cost a few bucks more on these ROM books.
http://marvelmasterworksfansite.yuku.com/forums/2/t/Uncollected-Editions-The-Homegrown-Hardcovers-Binding-Forum.html#.UG41z66cZvA
is the ESSENTIAL resource for comic book binding. I have had about ten or so books done and every question I had was found in those forums somewhere.
Be careful... binding can be addicting
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mawesome/sets/72157629886051864/
i just took a peak, thanks for the links. i can see how that can be addictive.
Delete