jallan7982's Bio
Collected as a teen from 1975 till High School (studying/branching out of interests/dames) pushed the interest aside in 1981. Read comics my older sister had bought that were laying around amidst the coloring books in the early 70's, coverless and mangled (ones I know specifically were ASM #94, Sub-Mariner #54, FF #102, and one of the early 'blue' Beast solo issues of AA), but was really drawn into comics on my birthday in 1975. Being a horror movie nut, FM reader, etc., one of my buds gave me some present I don't recall now, but included were two 'wolfman' comics, as he described them - Werewolf By Night #30 and Creatures on the Loose (Man-wolf) #35. These caught my interest, and visited the local comic rack (you remember those ones that spun around in drug stores and such) and picked up a bunch (Thor #239, several Atlas/Seaboard like Iron Jaw and Demon Hunter, DD issue with Copperhead holding him over a grave on the cover, FF #162 and a few other Marvel. My two-year younger tag-along little brother, to be different, picked up a bunch of DC stuff) for our July trip back to Missouri (we lived in SoCal) to visit relatives. When we got to Missouri, lo and behold, there were 7-11 stores with Marvel Slurpee cups everywhere. Must have got about 20 of those (no idea what happened to 'em, unfortunately), but the collector bug hit. Lot of comics later (Spidey #22 and #129, lots of the early 'new' X-Men like #95-102, most of the other stuff from that era, loved Howard the Duck, etc. Stopped around 1981, then had a brief restart in 1984 in time for the Simonson Thor stuff, the 'black' Spidey saga, Secret Wars, and even dabbled in DC then. Off to the Navy after that, later all my collection (other than my royallly trashed original 1975 stuff and my Marvel Treasury Editions) was traded off for various other collectibles. Recently got re-bit by the bug, so sticking to the stuff that interests me (1975 and earlier). Lotsa great memories of before (meeting Jack Kirby and getting the then-new Machine Man #1 signed by him at Wonderworld Books in Long Beach, CA in 1979 was a highlight), and looking forward to more reliving that part of my life, with an eye to getting stuff that will also be something to be counted as an investment for my family. Looking forward to getting my 5-year old son's reading up to a higher level so I can lay some old Spidey Super Stories issues on him! Excelsior!.. and if you have and honest-to-gosh NM or better Howard the Duck #1 from '76, lemme know! I'll be damned if I can find anything better than VF anywhere, and that's the one 'grail' from my old collecting days I'd love to get (I remember having my LCS save me a copy of #2 till i could get there to pick it up - #1 was already selling for $75 in SoCal by that time - in 1976!)