My Geeky Past

A long time ago in a land 689 miles away...

In middle school I started an addiction that only lasted about six years, and I would come back to that addiction every once in a while. No, it wasn't heroin (I wish) or drinking. I had an addiction to collecting comic books. It was weird. My buddy Nick got me started and I just couldn't stop. I just had to have them. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, X-Men. There was no end. I was even buying titles that nobody would buy. The bad part was that I was spending my lunch money on these little magazines.

Every Tuesday I'd go down to Comic Book Country, a little comic shop on Paramount Blvd. in Downey, California. There was this guy who worked there named Lou. Lou kind of resembled the comic book guy on The Simpsons, but he was a lot nicer.

As I was saying, I'd go into the shop and we'd talk about what cool comics were coming out and I'd end up not buying the new comics. I'd find something else. Back issues. Back issues were older comics. I kind of felt that even though I was paying a buck for a certain comic, it would look cooler in my collection. Then, I realized that I actually had a "collection". So, I started "collecting" comics.

My grandpa was very supportive in me collecting comic books. He felt that it was more of an investment than me throwing my money away each week. He would even take me to antique stores (which is kind of an untapped resource), and would actually buy me the comics I wanted. He even had a few from the garage that were about 30 years old and gave them to me. "Years from now, these are going to be worth a lot of money" he would say.

Somewhere down the line, I kind of grew up. I felt that these comic books weren't going to be worth anything (and yet I still saved them, thinking that they were pretty cool). I put them in a couple of boxes and took them out to the shed in the backyard. I didn't really touch them again until years later.

In the early 2000s, we had a pretty bad storm. The rain got to one of my boxes of comics. My mom threw that box away. Fortunately, all of my cool comics were in the box with no damage. Later on, I was with my church group and we were talking about what our prized possessions were. I really couldn't think of anything. Then I started thinking about the comics and how at some point that's all I cared about. Right then I told the group that I guess that my prized possession was my collection of comics. As I began talking about them, I started feeling upset that my mom threw most of them away. Then I told the group what I was feeling.

A week later, I got a big surprise. Members of the church group (even my pastor) went out and bought me some old comics. I was very grateful. I just couldn't believe it. I was one of the coolest things anybody had ever done for me. At that point, I told myself that I wasn't going to take this passion that I had for granted. So, I kiiiiiiinda got back into collecting. Then, I decided that what I had was good enough. Instead of putting them in my shed and neglecting them, I put them in my closet and would take them out every once in a while.

Well, a few years had passed and I lost interest in them again. At this time, I met a guy named Mike. Mike was a friend of my roommate, Erick. Something happened between Mike and his wife and he ended up living with us for a while. Mike had his comic book collection with him. We started talking about our collections. The more we talked, the more an interest sparked inside of me.

Mike wanted to sell his comics. He didn't have any time to sit and price them all. Since I wasn't doing much at the time, he wanted me to price them all for him. I didn't know anything about pricing comic books, but I tried my hardest to do it anyway. In the end, he wanted to reward me for the hours of work I spent pricing his comic books. He couldn't afford to pay me, so he gave me a bunch of comics for my trouble. I wasn't looking for any money, but I was happy to take the books as payment.

I noticed that his books were worth a lot of money and that they weren't in that bad of shape. So, this started to inspire me to start collecting again. The problem with comics is that in this day and age, comic book stores were dying out. I didn't drive then, and the nearest shop was a couple of towns over. I went online and started buying comic books (I also bought a bunch of pogs. Remember pogs? That's a whole other blog entery).

At this time, there was a storyline in the Marvel Comics Universe known as, "Civil War". It was pitting super heroes against other super heroes, and somehow they ended up killing off one of my favorite heroes, Captain America. I wanted to learn more about it and I ended up going to a comic book convention. The funny thing about going to that convention was I didn't learn anything or ask any questions at all. Instead, I literally ran into one of my heroes from when I was a kid, Lou Ferrigno (TV's The Incredible Hulk). I was so much in awe, that I called him, "Mr. Hulk". I asked Mr. Hulk, I mean Ferrigno for an autograph, and he said it was going to cost me $40.00. I shook his hand for free instead.

In 2009, I moved from Downey, California to Park City, Utah. When I moved, I took a bunch of stuff over to my mom's house for her to save for me until the time was right for me to take my stuff back to Park City. One of the things she kept for me was my comic book collection. Now, all of that time I again didn't think about the books. I could have had them shipped to me. They were not a priority. I neglected them, yet again. Almost three years later, I finally came and packed those comics into my car and took them home.

When I got the books home, I realized that a lot of them weren't in protective coverings. So, I went to a comic shop and bought some coverings. I also looked around. I noticed that DC comics started re-vamping all of their classic heroes. I asked the guy at the counter, what happened. He was so tired of hearing that question.You could tell that he didn't want to answer it anymore. I started browsing the back issues and bought a few for nostalgia.

A few weeks ago, my grandpa was in town. We were watching a show called, "American Pickers". While we were watching it, he asked me if I had anything old that was worth anything. I told him that all I had was my old comics,and I really don't think they are worth much. Just then, one of the guys on the show found an old Dick Tracy comic that was worth a lot of money. My grandpa encouraged me to look up the comics to see how much they would be worth.

In the past week, I started pricing my collection. I found out that my collection is worth a lot more than I had originally thought. I thought if I was lucky, it would be worth $100.00 The reality is, it's worth over $600.00. If they were all in mint condition, it would be worth over $1,000.00. Wow! Now that I found out how much it's worth, I don't want to stop collecting, but with my history I'm probably going to stop anyway.

By the way, Out of 216 comics, I've probably only read about 15 of them. The most expensive comic that I own isn't Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man. It's not even a superhero comic book. It's H.R. Pufnstuf (based on an old children's show). It's valued at $60.00 It was originally 15 cents. The oldest one that I own  is, "The Amazing Spider-Man" #66. Originally, you could buy it for 12 cents. I found it in a garbage can on my way home from school one day. It's so torn up that It isn't really worth that much.

If any of you out there have some old comics and are curious to see how much they are worth, check out, comicbookrealm.com You might be surprised how much your comics are actually worth.

After not blogging for about a month (maybe more) it sure feels good to write again.

Live long and prosper.