Remembrance of Comics Past: Amazing Spider-Man 102

One of the great struggles I’ve always had to deal with throughout my lifetime of collecting was separating myself from the popular stereotype of a comic book collector. Whenever I mention to someone who’s a non-collector that I’m a hardcore fan of Amazing Spider-Man, I can tell their thoughts immediately go to the “Comic Book Guy” character from The Simpsons, or to the countless number of people who dress up in character costumes at major conventions and industry events. Obviously I’m not one to judge and if you’re reading this blog and you’ve acted like any of the aforementioned people, more power to you. As for me, maybe it’s because I earned enough abuse and name-calling growing up because I was good in school and wore glasses, but I’ve always resisted bringing additional attention to my comic book enthusiasm. As a result, there are some tenets of comic book culture that I’ve refused to embrace and have oftentimes made me feel like an outsider myself.

That brings to Amazing Spider-Man #102, which was purchased during my initial buying crazy in junior high school. At that point, I was trying to get my hands on any ASM back issues I could afford just to see how many I would end up having in my collection before I officially ran dry of allowances and holiday money. ASM 102 is a neat issue for fans of the occult as it’s the second full appearance of the Morbius the Living Vampire character, a fascinating creation because he always seemed tapdance on the line between good and evil (for the sake of argument, let’s call him a tragic hero). ASM 102 also wraps a bizarre yet famous story-arc that began in issue #100 where Peter Parker grows four additional arms and becomes a living spider.  So there are obviously many reasons why I’d be drawn to this issue as at the time.

But buying ASM #102 introduced me to an entirely new world. As I became more deeply involved with my Spider-Man quest as a teenager, I began seeking out any and all places that solid comic books within a manageable distance from my house. I convinced my mother to take me to this one specific shop that someone I went to school with had just told me about, and it ended up being the first time I ever was nose-to-nose with those elements of comic book “culture” that I referred to earlier.

On first blush, the place looked like any other comic book shop from the era – rows and rows of boxes, tightly packed together, alphabetized by title, filled with back issues. But what surprised me was that my access to these boxes of back issues was blocked by throngs of teenagers enthusiastically playing some kind of card game on a makeshift tabletop. So many things confused me. What was this card game? And why couldn’t these stupid kids get out of my way so I could get to the Amazing Spider-Man box? And why did the store owner just sit there near the register encouraging these kids?

Remembrance of Comics Past: Amazing Spider-Man 297

In my hometown of East Rockaway, NY, at the corner of Atlantic and Centre avenues, was a candy/cigarette/general store we called "Jack's." I don't know where that name came from. There was never a sign with that name anywhere -- maybe it wasn't even Jack's. Maybe it was Jax. Or Jaks. If someone knows any better, please call me out on this, because more than 20 years later, I still have no idea. The more I think about it, maybe it was just a reference between my family and I.

Point being, Jack's is no more. It closed down when I was in junior high school, and the store went unoccupied for more than a decade, despite being on the corner of a busy intersection -- for small-town standards -- and within spitting distance of two schools, a church and a train station along the Long Island Rail Road. But Jack's is definitely in the dead but not forgotten category for me, because that was where I would spend my time after school examining the metal carousel racks carrying the first comic books I would come to own.

Initially I would journey to Jack's on Monday's after school. I attended a religious education class at 3:30 at the church near the store, so when I was really young, my brother and I would take the walk together and either hit Jack's before or after our religion classes. As I got older, I'd make the walk myself. My mother, who taught at our elementary school would spot me a dollar for the weekly Jack's visit and while I think that money was initially distributed for the cause of getting an after-school snack -- some chips or some cookies -- there was one afternoon where I saw my brother pick up a copy of Amazing Spider-Man. I recognized Spider-Man from the cartoon series my father had picked up for me on VHS and from some of the rubberized-plasticy action figures I owned which turned out to be the Marvel Secret Wars line. I saw the price near the top left corner of the book was 75 cents, so I picked up the same comic as my brother -- it was issue #296.

Here's the thing with my brother and I: we're five-years apart, which when we were younger seemed like an eternity. By the time I was in first-grade, he was already in junior high, and when I finally made it to high school, he was starting college. Despite being very close, there was also a good chunk of emotional and mental distance there. And I could be a precocious -- nay -- annoying little kid. And I think it bugged my brother that I wanted to same comic that he was picking up. In fact, I think it annoyed him I was buying comics in general. Wasn't I supposed to be getting a package of Wise chips or a pack of gum with my $1? He had an allowance that was probably five-to-ten times larger than my weekly after-school money. And he was also the neater, more attentive Ginocchio boy in our household. As he likes to remind me to this day, I was the kid who lost his first wallet inside a coloring book. That day in Jack's he bought that comic to read and then preserve, like he did with the thousands of baseball cards he had in his bedroom. I was just going to read the thing, color in it and lose it. And he was probably right.

The joke's on him though (not really). Despite being a kid who lost his wallet in a coloring book. Despite being the kid who used to have to head back to his school after hours to beg a custodian to let him inside because he left his notebook in his desk, I would eventually learn to properly collect and take care of my comics. Though that transformation did not begin in time for me to pick up this particular issue, ASM #297. Just look at it. The bottom right corner is permanently bent upwards, the cover is well-worn and wrinkled and some of the inking near the title on the left has been wiped off. This is not a particularly valuable and note-worthy comic as it is. In its current condition, the condition of a comic that was wall read and abused by a six-year-old, it's probably worthless. But I don't care. I keep it bagged and boarded all the same, like it's as valuable as my issue #14 (the first Green Goblin, my most expensive comic). Because it's a time capsule that dates to the foundation of my collection.

Plus there are still mysteries about this book that I would never want to stop thinking about. Like what's with the writing -- 12.2 -- near the top left corner of the comic? I know lots of older comic books sold at newsstands carried similar-writing. If I'm not misinformed, the numbers signify some kind of inventory-system used by the merchant. But why 12.2? Is it December 2nd? Can't be, this issue was released in February 1988. Maybe it's not actually 12.2. Maybe it's 122? Maybe this was the 122nd copy of this comic that Jack's sold? Or maybe Jack was the name of the owner and that's why people started referring to his store as Jack's. Mysteries, all. Fortunately, I still have ASM #297 to remind me.

Remembrance of Comics Past: Amazing Spider-Man 252

It was probably a year or so before the first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst was released when my then-girlfriend, now wife and I were at my parents' house on a Saturday night for dinner. Typically, my mom always puts some coffee and dessert out after dinner and my father would stay at the dining rom table for a few minutes before retiring to the bedroom and zonking out. After he would leave, my mom would always open up a bit more around this other woman who was now commanding so much of my attention.

The conversation focused on my mother's co-worker whose Queens, NY, house was used as part of the set for the film. She met the cast and crew, and even had a piece of cake in honor of Dunst's birthday. I was obviously fascinated by this story, but as my excitement continued to mount, I realized I never really told my girlfriend about my collection. At that point, I hadn't purchased a comic in years -- this was one of the longer collecting gaps in my life. But it's also the set-up for a major renaissance for my old hobby.

I knew my girlfriend wasn't going to be too put off by the fact that I collected Spider-Man comics. She was never the type to put down anyone for something like that, but this was still a big leap for me all the same. It was unlocking a piece of my childhood -- and a past that I wasn't necessarily done with. While I knew as a 13-year-old collecting every single Amazing Spider-Man was an impossible goal, I did more-or-less give-up, and without a particularly good reason (unless you count lack of funds as a reason).

I went to my old bedroom, which at that point only got used during summer and winter breaks, and pulled out of my closet a couple of binders containing all of my "collected" comics. I ran through the list like a kindergartner during show-and-tell: "this is the first Rhyno. This is an early appearance of the Green Goblin. Here's Amazing Spider-Man 300 …"

There was one specific issue missing from that pile -- one that really bugged me. Granted, at that point, there were hundreds of issues that had gone uncollected, but Amazing Spider-Man #252 was a key issue that came out in my lifetime -- 1984. Yes, it was before I was buying comics with my weekly allowance, but when I was in my initial buying craze in junior high, it's an issue that I should have picked up. It wasn't a terribly expensive comic, and the storyline kicked off a years-long arc that culminated with the origins of my favorite villain of all-time, Venom.

ASM #252 was the first Spider-Man ASM appearance in his brand new black suit. Of course, in retrospect, a move like a new-suit totally smacked of a marketing ploy centered around rebranding a stale character, but at least in storyline terms it all went somewhere. The actual, actual first appearance of the black suit came in a Marvel mini-series "Secret Wars." I was obsessed with "Secret Wars" as a little kid. The series was essentially a Marvel character battle royal, good versus evil with every single character of significance in the fight. In issue #8, Spider-Man is beaten down and his traditional red and blue costume is tattered. A strange black goo crawls up his hands and becomes his suit. Spider-Man feels great with the foreign substance -- how could a strange black goo that takes over your entire body possibly be evil? --  and a new suit is born.

Remembrance of Comics Past: Amazing Spider-Man 63

Something I'd like to do with some regularity around here is to highlight specific issues of Amazing Spider-Man which I own and give you some background and insight about when and how I obtained them. While these posts may contain some general talking points about the issue itself, its plot, its art, its significance in the Spider-Man lexicon, let me be clear that these are not reviews. Think of these posts instead as my collection's biography (and if any of these stories happen to provide you with some biographical information about myself, so be it).

The best way to start an ongoing series of posts about issues from my past woud be with Amazing Spider-Man 63. First published in August 1968, ASM 63 is an utterly unremarkable issue in the series' history -- unless you're a big-time fan of the villain, the Vulture (hey, this issue had TWO Vultures). But for me the acquisition of #63 marked my transition from childhood fandom and adoration of Spider-Man comics to full-on "collector." Without it, I probably never would have decided to go on this crazy journey. That's pretty significant for an otherwise innocuous comic.

I purchased #63 during the days following Christmas, 1994, when I was still in junior high. I picked it up, not because I liked the Vulture or was in-love with the cover, but because it was "old" and it was Spider-Man. What other explanation did you expect from a 13-year-old?

At the time, my comic book "collection" resided in an old empty wine box in my parent's basement (where all nerdy things reside, include bloggers, I would learn from the Internet). They were not protected by bags, boards, or any other kind of preservative material: just a box of comics which I would read, trace, cut pictures out of and generally destroy. The box was filled predominantly with late 1980s/early 1990s copies of Spider-Man, but I was also prone to pick up issues of X-Men, Captain America (another early childhood favorite), Hulk, Iron Man, Superman (yes I'd even buy from the competing DC brand though I'm still a Marvel boy to the end) and who knows what else. As I've said on Chasing Amazing previously, most of my comics were purchased with my weekly $1 allowance, either following church on Saturday evenings or after school when I could convince my brother to walk to the corner store with me.

Around that time, I was an avid baseball card collector and even had a designated shoebox for cards my brother and I would refer to as "valuables" -- cards that were generally worth a few dollars and thereby needed to be preserved in a hard plastic cases so one day I could open my own baseball card shop and sell them. One of my earliest memories of that collection is my brother giving me a Daryl Strawberry 1984 Topps rookie card for my 6th or 7th birthday -- the ultimate gift for a New York Mets fan still in elementary school. I treasured that box of cards, keeping the valuables securely in their cases. The idea that comic books could potentially contain that same level of value was foreign to me.

But by the winter of 1994, comics were becoming a "thing" in my school primarily because of the explosion of artist Todd McFarlane, the comic book artist and toymaker who was all the rage because of his latest comic/pop culture creation, Spawn. To this day, I'll be damned to tell you the backstory of Spawn. He's dead or something and his superpowers are ... yeah, I got nothing.

So while everyone in school was talking about Spawn, I was going, "what about Spider-Man?" and as little kids tend to do with each other, I was answered with a "dummy, Amazing Spider-Man #300."

Amazing Spider-Man #300 ... didn't I already have that? Sorta, but I'll save you the nitty-gritty details on that for another post. However, the relevant point here was McFarlane was responsible for illustrating a run of Amazing Spider-Man, including #300, which as my classmates would reminded me, cost "like a hundred bucks." One hundred bucks for a comic book that came out just a few years ago? That was nuts. For baseball card nerds, that was the equivalent of the 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie.

That was a bit of an "A Ha" moment for me regarding the actually collectability of comics, so I immediately went out and bought a comic price guide to appraise my collection and some protective bags and boards. I found out I didn't have much of value, but in the process, I was completely floored by how much the older ASM issues were going for and realized that there was possibly more financial potential in comics than baseball cards. Little did I know that at that precise moment, the comic book industry was in the midst of an unsustainable growth pattern that led to an over-emphasis on collectability. Publishers were killing off major characters (Superman) or launching titles with multiple covers (X-Men), leading to an overproduction of comics because dealers wanted to meet surging customer demand. And as basic economics go, oversupply leads to an eventual decline in value. So, I, like the rest of the world, got into collecting comics as a way to "get rich," but the vast bulk of current issues I purchased during this period are now practically worthless because there are like two million of them out there.