When Alex and I started recording this podcast I knew that September and October were going to be a challenge. Those are some of the main months of "marching band". Alex works with a few different marching bands as a percussion teacher (as well as taking a full load of classes at the University of Arkansas) and I drop in to help a few too (as well as playing in 3 different musical ensembles and writing music full time). Marching band's main scheduling difficulty is that it eats up most afternoons during the week in some way, so those are off the board for recording. Very soon, competitions will take over all the weekends as well. So unless we are able to meet on a week day during the middle of the day, recording new episodes is proving to be quite difficult.
I thought I would take this stretch of weeks when we might or might not be able to release episodes each week to talk about my love for superheroes in print form.
I remember reading comics as a kid (late elementary, early middle school) but I don't necessarily remember why I read them. Maybe it was the art. Maybe it was the action. Maybe it was the stories. Maybe it was the good guys beating the bad guys. I just remember wanting to go straight to the spinner rack at the grocery store every time I went to the store with my mom. Sometimes I could con her into letting me get a book, sometimes I couldn't.
In those days I didn't try to keep up with ongoing stories (at least not at first), I just picked whichever one looked the most interesting that day. Some of the titles I remember picking up back then were straightforward superhero titles.
Superman
Supergirl
Superboy (do you see a trend?)
Spider-Man
Batman
X-Men
Green Lantern
Sometimes they weren't the standard heroes.
Biker Mice From Mars (I bought the first 3 issues because I knew they were going to be huge!)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Archie
Betty and Veronica
And I'm sure there were others that I didn't take care of and lost over the years.
While I was picking out these titles, my brother gravitated towards a different type of comics. He would regularly leave the store with:
Spawn
Venom
The Simpsons (and Radioactive Man)
Ghost Rider
I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged my brother and I to take care of our comics. My dad bought us a set of bags and boards so we could keep the books in as good of condition as possible. (He was a baseball card collector at the time, so he understood the importance of proper storage methods for collectibles) Without those bags and boards, most of my comics would be in terrible shape, or lost.
On a recent visit home I came across some comics that my brother and I had in our closets. There were a handful in bags that were in great shape, and there were also several that I apparently didn't care as much about that were just crammed in the bottom of boxes. I put those in bags once I retrieved them, but I wish I had taken better care of them.
I think that as much as the stories and art, the act of collecting was a huge part of what got me started in comic books. I remember going to the local comic shop and digging through the long boxes looking for the issues I was missing from the "Death of Superman" story line, or other books to fill in the gaps that I missed in my spinner rack days. It felt good to look at my collection of books and know that I was going to take care of them and be able to look back at them decades later.
Once I started teaching and had some disposable income, I would occasionally subscribe to Action Comics, Superman, and Justice League, just to check in on what was happening in the DC Universe. That would last a year or so and I would realize I wasn't reading them when they came in, so I would cancel my subscription. This happened a few times from the year 2000 to the present.
In between those subscription periods, every once in a while I would drop by a comic shop and just pick up a few of the most recent Superman titles just to check in. I would read them, be completely lost, and forget about them for another year or so. But I still had a few more titles to add to my collection, so at least there was that.
About a year ago I allowed myself to forgo only reading comics in print form when Alex convinced me to invest in a Marvel Unlimited subscription, and my life changed. I finally understood what the comic companies were trying to do with all of their stories and continuity and crossovers! That quickly led to me picking up DC Universe when it was released as well. Part of me is sad that I don't have all the print books that I've read, but it is a very small part of me. (The part that is happy to not have tons more boxes to worry about when we move)
After over a year of reading entire arcs in digital form without having to wonder what happened in the issues I couldn't get my hands on, I wondered if I would ever pick up comics in print form again. Then I heard about Jonathan Hickman's new X-Men books. Now I'm back in a comic shop, more regularly than I had ever been before. And for better or worse, (when you look at my wallet) I typically end up leaving with a few extra comics each week.
So I guess I've come full circle. I started as a little kid picking out the most interesting looking comic each week at the grocery store, and now I'm a grown man who goes in to buy his X-Men comics and then lets his eyes wander to the new Space Bandits, Thor, Batman/Superman, or whatever looks like it's worth picking up, to add to my collection.
Since we don't have a new episode for you today, If you want to hear a little more of what got Alex and I into comics in the beginning, I invite you to travel back to the first two episodes of our podcast where we took some time at the end of the episodes for a little Q & A over our background in comic books.
(Disclaimer, Our audio setup was still a work in progress back then, so the levels aren't quite as consistent as they are now)
What got you into comics? We would love it if you reached out to us and let us know!
And as always, if there is a comic series or topic you would like to hear us cover on the podcast, reach out to us on Twitter @2mancomicbook, or Instagram @2mancomicbookclub.
I thought I would take this stretch of weeks when we might or might not be able to release episodes each week to talk about my love for superheroes in print form.
I remember reading comics as a kid (late elementary, early middle school) but I don't necessarily remember why I read them. Maybe it was the art. Maybe it was the action. Maybe it was the stories. Maybe it was the good guys beating the bad guys. I just remember wanting to go straight to the spinner rack at the grocery store every time I went to the store with my mom. Sometimes I could con her into letting me get a book, sometimes I couldn't.
In those days I didn't try to keep up with ongoing stories (at least not at first), I just picked whichever one looked the most interesting that day. Some of the titles I remember picking up back then were straightforward superhero titles.
Superman
Supergirl
Superboy (do you see a trend?)
Spider-Man
Batman
X-Men
Green Lantern
Sometimes they weren't the standard heroes.
Biker Mice From Mars (I bought the first 3 issues because I knew they were going to be huge!)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Archie
Betty and Veronica
And I'm sure there were others that I didn't take care of and lost over the years.
While I was picking out these titles, my brother gravitated towards a different type of comics. He would regularly leave the store with:
Spawn
Venom
The Simpsons (and Radioactive Man)
Ghost Rider
I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged my brother and I to take care of our comics. My dad bought us a set of bags and boards so we could keep the books in as good of condition as possible. (He was a baseball card collector at the time, so he understood the importance of proper storage methods for collectibles) Without those bags and boards, most of my comics would be in terrible shape, or lost.
On a recent visit home I came across some comics that my brother and I had in our closets. There were a handful in bags that were in great shape, and there were also several that I apparently didn't care as much about that were just crammed in the bottom of boxes. I put those in bags once I retrieved them, but I wish I had taken better care of them.
I think that as much as the stories and art, the act of collecting was a huge part of what got me started in comic books. I remember going to the local comic shop and digging through the long boxes looking for the issues I was missing from the "Death of Superman" story line, or other books to fill in the gaps that I missed in my spinner rack days. It felt good to look at my collection of books and know that I was going to take care of them and be able to look back at them decades later.
Once I started teaching and had some disposable income, I would occasionally subscribe to Action Comics, Superman, and Justice League, just to check in on what was happening in the DC Universe. That would last a year or so and I would realize I wasn't reading them when they came in, so I would cancel my subscription. This happened a few times from the year 2000 to the present.
In between those subscription periods, every once in a while I would drop by a comic shop and just pick up a few of the most recent Superman titles just to check in. I would read them, be completely lost, and forget about them for another year or so. But I still had a few more titles to add to my collection, so at least there was that.
About a year ago I allowed myself to forgo only reading comics in print form when Alex convinced me to invest in a Marvel Unlimited subscription, and my life changed. I finally understood what the comic companies were trying to do with all of their stories and continuity and crossovers! That quickly led to me picking up DC Universe when it was released as well. Part of me is sad that I don't have all the print books that I've read, but it is a very small part of me. (The part that is happy to not have tons more boxes to worry about when we move)
After over a year of reading entire arcs in digital form without having to wonder what happened in the issues I couldn't get my hands on, I wondered if I would ever pick up comics in print form again. Then I heard about Jonathan Hickman's new X-Men books. Now I'm back in a comic shop, more regularly than I had ever been before. And for better or worse, (when you look at my wallet) I typically end up leaving with a few extra comics each week.
So I guess I've come full circle. I started as a little kid picking out the most interesting looking comic each week at the grocery store, and now I'm a grown man who goes in to buy his X-Men comics and then lets his eyes wander to the new Space Bandits, Thor, Batman/Superman, or whatever looks like it's worth picking up, to add to my collection.
Since we don't have a new episode for you today, If you want to hear a little more of what got Alex and I into comics in the beginning, I invite you to travel back to the first two episodes of our podcast where we took some time at the end of the episodes for a little Q & A over our background in comic books.
(Disclaimer, Our audio setup was still a work in progress back then, so the levels aren't quite as consistent as they are now)
What got you into comics? We would love it if you reached out to us and let us know!
And as always, if there is a comic series or topic you would like to hear us cover on the podcast, reach out to us on Twitter @2mancomicbook, or Instagram @2mancomicbookclub.
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