Comicthon 2009

This isn't even the full collection

As I've mentioned a number of times on this blog, I am kind of addicted to comic books. I think the sequential art medium is an extremely underrated one and one that can realize creator's imaginations as well as any other medium out there, if not better. Having an addiction of that sort leads to absolutely disgusting collections of comics though, and as a person who is also a slave to organization (at least in terms of things of that sort), I have to reorganize my comics every single year.

Through the years, it's gotten easier and easier. If my memory serves me correctly, the first time I organized them all with help from my mom, it took an entire weekend. An entire weekend of hell, to be exact. Last year, with the assistance of my mom once again as well as my sister Bobbie, we drastically reduced that time down to just one day. Incredibly enough though, with all three of us now savvy veterans we managed to finish it all up in just around five hours this time around. That's exceptional work, and it definitely helped that I put in some time before turning my friends into indentured servants who helped bag and board before hand, but we truly thoroughly dominated this task.

Of course, there was still time for plenty of fun, most of which was derived from the misundertanding or complete fabrication of comic titles by my sister and mom. Examples: DC's title The Brave and the Bold somewhat unsurprisingly became "The Bold and the Beautiful", Sub-Mariner: The Depths was now Sub Mariner, but pronounced like a pitcher who solely pitches submarine style, and the concept of company wide events like Dark Reign completely dominated all other thoughts ("Why is this stack so high? Oh god...is this a stack of just Dark Reign comics?!"). The funny thing about dealing with comics with people who aren't very familiar with the industry is that you instantly realize how realize some of the things you read are ("Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers"...really).

That's okay though, I'm fine with being ridiculous. I sleep better for it. We also had the excitement of unearthing some forgotten gems (like some awesome relics from our time at the 1997 Orlando Mega Con) and there is always the bonus of looking through old comics and feeling fleeting rushes of nostalgia. When you've been collecting as long as I have and have a memory like mine that is so based around effortlessly pairing real life events with pop culture (waiting at my brother's hockey practice wasn't just that...it was Gloria Estefan and Larry Hama/Mark Texeira's run on Wolverine in the 90's), seeing an old comic cover is like looking through an old family photo album. File that one under weird but true.

No less, I'm glad we've managed to perfect this science. Not that I didn't have fun during those epic multi-day ventures into the world of comics, but condensing the organization of 29 long boxes (roughly 9,000 comics) into five hours is pretty damn astounding if you ask me. Can't wait for next year. I bet we can do it even faster!

This was surprisingly comfortable

My crown jewel - Avengers #1

Sketch by my former favorite artist Humberto Ramos of my once favorite character Impulse

The mess before it started coming together