Comic Collection

I've been collecting comics for 26 years now. I've got about 7,000 of them. All in boxes, sorted chronologically. They start in 1961 and continue to the present day. They fill what used to be a closet but with the doors removed is now known as the comic fortress as my wife calls it.

I've been spending spare time re-reading them; deciding which incomplete series I'd like to fill the holes in and what comics I could trade in and not miss. There is definitely more of the former than the latter which is why the collection continues to grow.

They're sorted by date so everything from July 1985 is together and next would be all the August 1985 comics and so on. So as I'm re-reading them, I'm reading a month of comics together just like when I bought them. As I fill holes in the collection they slot into the right month. Organizing them this way makes it easier when you reach company-wide crossovers, too!

Right now I'm up to the comics cover-dated October 1986. It's interesting to read them like this because you forget what all was happening at the same time. You forget that at the same time Dark Knight Returns was coming out (a great comic) so was Dakota North (awful comic). While DC was putting out really fun comics ('Mazing Man) there was the really serious as well (Watchmen). The period I'm reading now was a great time to be a comics reader. The original Crisis had finished, Dark Knight had just come out, Watchmen was going, Frank Miller had just finished his run on Daredevil, and DC was restarting a lot of their characters so things were exciting.

I'll spend some time typing in my thoughts about what I'm reading as I go. With 7,000 comics there's always something to say.

Global Trivia Challenge

I've joined this website, funtrivia.com. It is completely free and it is full of trivia quizes. What is really great about the site is the Global Trivia Challenge.

It runs every six hours. They have 15 categories to choose from, you pick 5, and answer 15 questions in each category. You are graded based on how many questions you got correct and how fast you did the quiz. As you get points you are moved up the ladder of the first level. Once you reach 100%, you move on to the next level. There are 10 levels. It has been running since December, I think, and the furthest anyone has gotten so far is level 8. It should take a few months more until this challenge is over and a new one starts. As you move up levels, the questions get tougher and it takes more points to advance in your level.

There are currently over 29,000 people participating in this challenge. The movement up the levels is determined partly by how well you do at the trivia but also by how often you play. The more you play the faster you'll move up the levels. That's a slight drawback since I can only play twice a day (I have to work and sleep) while I'm sure there are others playing 4 times a day. To help adjust for this they have created a second ranking which compares you to everyone else based on how well you did and not by how often you play.

There is also a hardcore version for the real trivia players. The site randomly chooses the five categories for you, you only have 90 seconds, and you have to get at least 9 right. Otherwise you don't get any points. I was doing this in the previous challenge but switched to normal mode for this one. It was getting a little too frustrating never scoring any points.

The site is great fun if you're a fan of trivia. They track all kinds of stats so you can measure your progress. There is also daily trivia games and quizes on all sorts of topics. The site keeps track of all your quiz playing as well if you want to compare yourself to others.

Daredevil # 81

This is the last issue for Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. They've been working on the title for five years and it has been a great run. You hear some complaints about the work of Bendis but I think you have to admire his commitment to titles he works on. He's been on Ultimate Spider-Man since its start, this title for five years, and he plans on staying on New Avengers for a long time.

I've read on message boards that some readers were disappointed with the way this series ended. They were hoping for more of a final ending. I think the story ended the way it should have ended. Here was someone, a lawyer, who, after being accused of being Daredevil, lied to everyone by denying it. He had someone impersonate Daredevil in court and put them on the stand knowing they weren't the real deal. He has certainly committed his share of crimes. I think it follows that eventually he is going to get caught and he's going to go to jail. He could only run for so long.

I look forward to Ed Brubacker and Michael Lark's work on the series. I was a big fan of Gotham Central, their collaboration at DC. Matt's experiences in jail should make for some entertaining reading. I don't know how Brubacker is going to get Daredevil out of jail know that's he there. I will certainly be continuing to buy the series to find out.

Reading Room

My sister-in-law loaned me a book recently. It's a book that normally I wouldn't give a second look in the bookstore; it's a romance and I've never been interested in romance books. This one has an interesting twist, though.

It's called 'The Time Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. The male character in the book, Henry, periodically and uncontrollably, gets transported through time. He is in his 30's when on one of these trips to the past, he first meets his future wife (when she is just a child). He sees her many more times while she is growing up. He is always a different age when he sees her.

One of the early twists in the book is that she meets him in normal time when they are both in their 20's. The twist is, that while she has known him her whole life, at that time in his life he had yet to meet her. His first meeting with her wouldn't happen for him for a few more years.

It is things like that which make the book interesting. He has to decide how much to reveal to her about their future and always be guarded as to what he says. He is conflicted between wanting to steer things in a certain direction and wanting events to take their natural course. For a devoted fantasy fan like myself, who has read many other books involving time travel, this one takes a different approach. It really concentrates on the effect it has on individuals. I'm only about 100 pages in to the book so far but it has captured my interest. I'll definitely be passing it on to the wife, another fantasy fan.

Happy Birthday!

Tomorrow is my Dad's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!

He retired recently and he and my Mom have moved back to where they grew up. They are around family and old friends and seem to be enjoying the experience after being away from home for so long. They live further away now so I won't be seeing them as often as I used to but with phones and email we keep in touch. We've even started using MSN Messenger after prodding from my sister.

Dad and Mom both have given everything they could to their kids and provided us with a good foundation to grow up in. I consider myself very fortunate with the life I have now and that has a lot to do with them. The ability to be self-sufficient, make good decisions, and have a successful marriage can largely be attributed to them. And I still call them to get advice and just to share news and get their reaction.

Dad is only partly retired since he got a part-time job shortly after moving. I hope he's not working too hard and takes time to enjoy his birthday.

PS. I tried to work in the term 'auspicious occasion' but wasn't sure how to make it fit (inside joke for the family).

Lost

We bought the first season of Lost on DVD on Boxing Day. We had never seen the show but had heard a lot about it (I think we were afraid to jump in mid-season since the show was building up each episode). It sounded like a show that would appeal to the wife and me.

We're about 12 episodes in now and the show is incredible. I know we're coming to this revelation awfully late since the show is already into its second season but better late than never.

Watching it on DVD is great! No commercials, we can watch a new episode every couple of nights, and the commentaries really add to the show. The only disadvantage is we have to plug our ears and make loud noises whenever we start to head anything about a current episode.

We have spent time discussing theories and ideas about what is happening on that island. Watching it has been a great experience!

So, I'm 35 but I swear I'm turning in to an old man. Everytime I go into a store or see a new product on TV I'm left thinking "How do they do that?"

This weekend we bought a water cooler. It's got three temperature settings. You can have room temperature, cold, or hot water. And it's instantaneous. No waiting. Whenever I want a hot drink, there's no need to boil the kettle. The water is there and it's ready. I find this amazing! It used to be, on a commercial break, we'd run upstairs to plug in the kettle and then return on the next commercial break to make the tea. Now, I can run up, pour the water and be back before one commercial is done. For someone who likes his TV, this is pretty good!

On Boxing Day we bought new phones. They're two handsets that only require one phone jack. I have no idea how they work but they do. One sits upstairs plugged into the phone jack. One sits down in the basement, no phone jack, but it rings. I know it's getting a signal from the upstairs phone (just like a cordless can be away from the cradle) but, still, it's amazing.

Any day now I expect to start using the phrase 'new fangled' to describe everything I don't understand.

All-Star Superman # 2

This has got to be, without a doubt, the best Superman story since Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". I read this with real enjoyment. This is a reason for creating the All-Star line. Like they described it - creating iconic stories using great creators.

I just do not get the same feeling from reading All-Star Batman; and Batman was the one I was looking forward to more. But while A-S Batman, to me, has been a disappointment, A-S Superman has been a great surprise. Superman being portrayed as someone so relaxed and confident seems so natural and so right. He's invulnerable, he should be confident.

Some of the moments I particularly enjoyed:
- the new key to the Fortress
- Lois not believing he was Clark
- his pet Suneater

The Silver Age feel to this comic is really noticeable with Superman's gadgets and trophies that don't get an explanation; they're just there. Comics today seem to be plotted much tighter than older comics. Everything is more deliberate. Everything that is in them is there for a reason. And while I like that because it creates suspense and makes me pay more attention when I'm reading a comic, it's refreshing to see a comic that takes a different approach. I remember reading letter columns where someone would write in and ask 'where did this come from' or 'what's the history on this' and the answer from the editor would just be 'maybe there's a story in there someday'. I got the same feeling from reading this issue. The suneater is there, we don't know where it came from, probably won't find out. Here's a future Superman. What's his story, don't know. While I wouldn't want this for every comic, it's a nice change of pace.

Eagerly waiting for the next issue! Hope the creators can keep this going for a long time!

Spoilt!

There is a site called Spoilt! that performs what I think is a very useful service for comic readers. They accept and post contributions of plot summaries for Marvel and DC comics. Considering the price of comics today and the number of titles being published it is impossible to buy everything. Their site allows you to keep informed about what is happening.

I've had one posting on the site and have sent in another. I thought it was interesting to try and summarize the issue for someone else. Let's me employ English skills I've forgotten since high school. Also, I have a lousy memory for remembering plots from one month to the next. Jotting them down seems to help that.

For those that think the site might make people buy fewer comics because they can read the summaries for free, I think it would have the opposite effect. Someone might read a summary and be intrigued enough to pick up a copy of the title themselves. I certainly haven't bought fewer comics since finding the site.

I think they would be glad to have more contributors if someone had the time and interest.

The Second first post

I collect comics; have for 25 years. I read websites devoted to comics and blogs where people talk about comics. I always find it interesting to see what other people thought about something I just read. Sometimes I still find it interesting that people are actually reading the same things I read.

When I started reading comics, other than the comics letter page, there was no way to see what people thought. I didn't no anyone else that read comics. Now it's so different. So I wondered, do I have anything new to add to everything that is out there?

The answer was probably not! But I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see if I had anything to say. And the wife was going out with a friend today so I had time alone to try setting up a blog and thinking of things to say.

First post

First post to try this out. Will have more to say later.