What makes me tick as a comic book reader/collector - Part 1

Hello readers. In all this time I've been doing this blog, I don't think I've gone into a little about myself as a comic book reader. Well, today is the day! I think the reading habits of someone can give you an insight into their personality. Lemme tell you about some of my quirks or maybe you'll find them endearing traits. I dunno, YOU be the judge.

Alright, really, how many comics DO you have?

Let's say it's north of 15,000. Keep in mind, this is an accumulation of about 30 plus years of comic book collecting. I took a pause between 1998-2003 because I was in college and I thought I was over this comic book thing. I was wrong. Once I got a real job with disposable income, I hit comic book stores, conventions and eBay HARD. Then I became a reader that would buy every Wednesday and here we are. 

Why don't you buy digital comics?

This is one of the places where I'm more analog. I like the feel of a comic book, holding it and finding a nice place to read it. As a collector, based on the aforementioned answer, I can't continue to be a hoarder with digital books. Come on! 

On a more serious note, I feel like it is my part to support my local comic book shop. The margins for running a comic book shop is so thin. I was worried about my comic book store during the pandemic and once or twice, I paid double what I owered for my weekly pickups, to help offset what I perceived that they would be losing. Now while owning my own comic book store would be a dream job of mine, I know I don't have the business acumen or the patience to turn a profit.

Speaking of comic book stores, what's your LCS (Local comic book shop) of choice?

I'm nothing, if not loyal. So I've been going to Capitol Comics for the past 21 years now. They used to have two stores, one on Hillsborough Street and one off Glenwood. Only the Glenwood one remains. So that is always my first choice. My second choice by a mile is Ultimate Comics. They are more kid friendly and have gobbled up the local market here by having like 5 different locations. I used them as a back up choice just for back issues or indy comics my shop didn't have. They just have more volume. My main beef with them has always been how expensive their back issues are. There's a comic book store in Fuquay-Varina, Yellow Bird Comics that just opened up a few months ago. I've only been once, but it was new then, so I will give it another chance soon.

When you buy your comics, do you have a particular order that you read them in?

Here's the thing about my reading order. I sort my comics by most excited to read to least excited. This way I get to the stuff I really want to read first and leave the sucky comics for the bottom. As time goes on, if I have a book that is constantly at the bottom and never moves up, I drop it. I can't be wasting money on stuff that I hate read. 

What are your current favorites right now?

You'll have to read my best of the year lists. Ha! I'm saying nothing here because my tastes change.

Have you ever had a comic that you strongly disliked?

Believe it or not, yes. They can't all be winners. But what sticks out in my mind is a particular episode of either Action Comics or Superman back in the mid-90s. All I remember is that there was a white villain that was going out of his way to murder black people. Just because they were black. I had never been more enraged reading a comic in my life. In a rare instance, I actually tore it to shreds and threw it away. I vowed that it would NOT exist in my collection. I almost went as far as writing a letter to DC about it, but I knew in my heart, it wouldn't have changed a thing.

Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994)

After watching the X-Men: Animated series, I figured, "What the hell, I'll watch that Spider-Man: Animated Series from the same era." This decision was also supported by a blink and you'll miss it cameo of Spider-Man from X-Men '97. I read speculation that seeing Peter and Mary Jane meant that Peter had found "the real MJ." I read that and was like, "What are people talking about? I don't remember that at all." I think it was because by the time the late 90's came around, I had jumped off the bandwagon for that show.

I can say now that I have watched all five seasons in it's entirety, I made the right call. For as much shit as I gave X-Men, that pales in comparison to this show. This show is remarkably bad. I'll get into my reasons for thinking that of course, but I didn't want to waste too much time before I got into my feelings on it. I will inevitably pull in comparisons to the X-Men show to prove my point. 

One thing I distinctly remember as a teenager when both this and X-Men were on is that X-Men had a Y7 rating and Spider-Man had a Y. I didn't fact check that, but my point is that the X-Men was the mature show and Spider-Man was for younger audiences. That is stark in the action that is presented. There's less hand to hand stuff and more laser guns misfiring like it was a GI Joe cartoon. X-Men sometimes stumbled into some cool action sequences, whereas all of Spider-Man's action sequences feel very boring. Spidey leaps out of the way of stuff, that's expected, but he plays so much defense, we don't see a lot of good offense. 

I was annoyed at the amount of stuff he literally threw. Either tossing bad guys or tossing stuff at the bad guys. Never any hand to hand combat, my bread and butter. To make things worse, throughout it's five seasons, this show repeatedly uses the same couple of clips of explosions, generic web swinging or Spidey shooting his web. They could be in the forest, something explodes and it's a shot of a city building having an explosion pop out. Maybe all the money in their animation went into the 3D backgrounds they tried to deploy. Even in 1994, those 3D backgrounds looked astonishingly bad.

While I'm railing on this show, let's talk about the animation a little more. This was some of the most safe and boring animation style that I've seen. It's colorful, but it doesn't feel colorful. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, so what I'm trying to say is the coloring wasn't dynamic. This lead to some weird character design choices like Venom, who had a blue and red hue to him at all times. I get that if he is all black, it's hard to shape him and his movement, but it just looked so weird. When they bring in other characters such as the X-Men, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Doom, etc. they all just look bland and simple. X-Men at least used shadowing at times. I don't think this show ever heard of shadows.

There were also wild character choices made for this show. I feel like Spider-Man has a wide enough gallery of characters that he didn't have to stray too far out of his comfort zone, but they tried to anyway. They brought in the Punisher, Morbius, Blade and even the X-Men from the superior show as guest stars. Each appearance was watered down versions of these characters.  Again, I know it's a kid's show, but maybe you don't shoe horn in more violent characters into this show and sanitize them to the point where they don't feel like a threat. Also, Black Cat's origin is truly bizzare as it is fueled by Super Soldier serum and the ability to just...change at wll.

One thing I can't harp on enough. Spider-Man/Peter Parker is a real asshole through the majority of this show. He constantly whines about the state of his life, is rude to fellow heroes, blows off friends in weird ways and does this while constatnly chirping to himself and to anyone that listens. Spidey's whole thing is how much he jokes, but a lot of it is very annoying here. Marvel has put Peter Parker through the ringer, but I don't remember him whining about it as much as he did in this show. 

This show is caught between being a kid's show, but trying to have adult themes. I think it failed at both. His relationships with Felicia Hardy and Mary Jane felt weird and forced and I don't see what they want with the guy. There's cringeworthy plots with Hydro-Man, MJ's ex showing up and being super possessive and jealous. 

A final note. The stories this show tells. Boring. There's a watered down Secret Wars, there's some stuff with Golden Age heroes, Carnage shows up and a lot of Kingpin and Alastair Smythe stuff. Oh! Hobgoblin shows up before Green Goblin and Green Gobline is only Spider-Man's greatest archvillain. But no, let's shove Venom in here. The only thing I will respect about the show is each season had an arc that they stuck to. I can admire that kind of commitment to an idea, even if it's a bad one.

All in all, this show was an absolute chore to watch. I did it because I'm a masochist. Do I recommend anyone else watch this? Hell no. But if you're like me, you're going to do it anyway.