Codename RED

I began collecting comics in 1992. Out of curiosity, I walked in to my LCS in Clear Lake, Texas and began checking out the books. A cover caught my attention...Spawn #1. The art was incredible and the colors on the cover were striking. A fellow browser noticed my interest and commented that the book was hot and mentioned a few things about the artist and his work on Spiderman. I had no idea what he was talking about but ended up purchasing a copy of the book regardless. That was Chapter 1 of my road to becoming a fanboy.

Like many other fanboys, the gimmicks, huge print runs and speculators of the late Chromium Age drove me to quit comics in the late 90's. College beckoned and other hobbies took a front seat...until Hellboy hit the theaters.

"Is he real? Oh yeah -- Absolutely."

Once those words were spoken in the first Hellboy movie I was hooked. I had heard of Hellboy and the hype surrounding John Byrne's Next Men #21, but didn't get it. It took the silver screen and Guillermo del Toro's genius for me to finally understand the awesome universe that Mike Mignola had created in the early 90's. Shortly after seeing the movie I got sucked back in to collecting funny books and in 2005 I bought my first copy of Next Men #21.

My new LCS at the time was Bedrock City Comics, likely the best comic book store on the planet. Richard Evans, Bedrock City Comics owner, turned me on to CGC so I decided to check the sites out. I participated in the site discussions for a few years before finally joining the CGC Collectors Society. After a couple of years of collecting CGC books I finally started participating in the registry sets and the Hellboy (1993-1994) set was one of the first sets I began participating in.

The set, containing the first appearances of Hellboy, Abe Sapien and may other Hellboy universe characters, is one of the best registry sets of the Chromium Age and it has been a blast to track down the books. The ultimate goal for the set is a full run of CGC 9.8 copies signed by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.

Hope you enjoy the set as much as I do!