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TREASURE FOUND AND ADVENTURE ON THE HORIZON
Some of this might be wrong.. i've been on pain meds this whole time.. but this is how I remember it:
In February I was back in the hospital with new complications after a life saving bone marrow transplant on April 1st(no joke), 2011. I was no stranger to hospitals at this point.. nor was I a stranger to pain, nausea, terrible food, and extreme boredom. The pain and the nausea was only occasional..they had meds for that. The food I learned to tolerate, and my parents and friends helped by bringing me takeout and lots of candy. The extreme boredom, however, was unbearable. Even though it's integral to my story, I feel bad complaining about it because there were people there who didn't seem to get any visitors at all.. and I had several friends coming every day.. but when they left.. the loneliness and boredom set in almost immediately. Playing guitar helped sometimes, but my fingers were weak, and sitting up was difficult. Unfortunately, no one ever taught me how to play the blues, and that's all I felt like playing. I needed something new to pass the time, and I chose one of my childhood hobbies.. Comic books. I hadn't read a comic since I was 11.. but I had always thought about trying it out again. I had the money, I just never had the boredom or the time to get caught up. I asked my dad to pick me up the newest Deadpool and Daredevil.. which were 'pool #50 and DD vol. 3 #9. Months later I had lost interest in Deadpool but added quite a few other books to my pull list. At that point my top 3 were Daredevil, Peter Panzerfaust, and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man(vol. 2). It started to bother me that I had started all of these series just on time to miss out on owning the first issues. I had read them digitally, but I didn't own them. I was only one month late on Peter Panzerfaust, so I had issue #1 in 2nd printing. DD and UCSM I was a little more late on. I saw that I could get the issues at inflated prices on ebay, but that didn't seem very fun, because I had already tracked down a few of my missing issues by visiting different comic shops. It was a challenge, because they were mostly all sold out but tracking them down myself meant I paid cover price as long as it was part of a shop's original stock of an issue. Some friends and I started making pilgrimages to far away comic shops and I even hit comic shops while I visited my brother in Philly. It wasn't long before I had completed DD and UCSM without ever paying more than .50 higher than cover price. I had a great feeling when I completed those two series.. but it was overpowered by a feeling of disappointment.. I had nothing to search for anymore. It was then that I came to the realization that I used as the title of this blog.
I decided to start collecting the previous volume of UCSM.. and I finished that.. and then I was at a real dead end. Here are the series I considered trying to track down and why I decided not to:
Ultimate Spider-Man(predecessor to UCSM): near mint first issues selling on eBay for over $400
Peter Panzerfaust: Only need one issue, First print of #1, but it's going from $80-130 on ebay
Invincible: another $400 1st issue
In February I was back in the hospital with new complications after a life saving bone marrow transplant on April 1st(no joke), 2011. I was no stranger to hospitals at this point.. nor was I a stranger to pain, nausea, terrible food, and extreme boredom. The pain and the nausea was only occasional..they had meds for that. The food I learned to tolerate, and my parents and friends helped by bringing me takeout and lots of candy. The extreme boredom, however, was unbearable. Even though it's integral to my story, I feel bad complaining about it because there were people there who didn't seem to get any visitors at all.. and I had several friends coming every day.. but when they left.. the loneliness and boredom set in almost immediately. Playing guitar helped sometimes, but my fingers were weak, and sitting up was difficult. Unfortunately, no one ever taught me how to play the blues, and that's all I felt like playing. I needed something new to pass the time, and I chose one of my childhood hobbies.. Comic books. I hadn't read a comic since I was 11.. but I had always thought about trying it out again. I had the money, I just never had the boredom or the time to get caught up. I asked my dad to pick me up the newest Deadpool and Daredevil.. which were 'pool #50 and DD vol. 3 #9. Months later I had lost interest in Deadpool but added quite a few other books to my pull list. At that point my top 3 were Daredevil, Peter Panzerfaust, and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man(vol. 2). It started to bother me that I had started all of these series just on time to miss out on owning the first issues. I had read them digitally, but I didn't own them. I was only one month late on Peter Panzerfaust, so I had issue #1 in 2nd printing. DD and UCSM I was a little more late on. I saw that I could get the issues at inflated prices on ebay, but that didn't seem very fun, because I had already tracked down a few of my missing issues by visiting different comic shops. It was a challenge, because they were mostly all sold out but tracking them down myself meant I paid cover price as long as it was part of a shop's original stock of an issue. Some friends and I started making pilgrimages to far away comic shops and I even hit comic shops while I visited my brother in Philly. It wasn't long before I had completed DD and UCSM without ever paying more than .50 higher than cover price. I had a great feeling when I completed those two series.. but it was overpowered by a feeling of disappointment.. I had nothing to search for anymore. It was then that I came to the realization that I used as the title of this blog.
I decided to start collecting the previous volume of UCSM.. and I finished that.. and then I was at a real dead end. Here are the series I considered trying to track down and why I decided not to:
Ultimate Spider-Man(predecessor to UCSM): near mint first issues selling on eBay for over $400
Peter Panzerfaust: Only need one issue, First print of #1, but it's going from $80-130 on ebay
Invincible: another $400 1st issue
Chew: $400 again
I was at a dead end.. doomed with nothing to hunt for. All my future comics would be brand new issues off the rack.. or so I thought, until Friday December 7th. I was at Kenny's so I asked him to take me to the local comic shop so I could replace a Daredevil issue that I think my mom put a dent in. While I was in there, I found two amazing things. The first was a Near Mint Ultimate Spider-Man #1 for $100. The second was a Near Mint Peter Panzerfaust #1 for $25. On ebay I would have had to pay at the very least $480 for these two issues.. and now I had found them for $125.. I bought one and put $30 down on the other so it's mine once I get my next paycheck. It was a great day. I got two amazing deals.. I completed a collection.. but what I'm really excited about now is that collecting Ultimate Spider-Man in it's entirety is no longer a pipe dream. There was a boulder in the road preventing me from even thinking about starting, and now it's gone.
I'll be using this blog to document my search. I'm still gonna pick up back issues of Invincible, Chew, and maybe a few others..and I'll post about them, but above all, this is the story of me tracking down and collecting every single issue of Ultimate Spider-Man.
I was at a dead end.. doomed with nothing to hunt for. All my future comics would be brand new issues off the rack.. or so I thought, until Friday December 7th. I was at Kenny's so I asked him to take me to the local comic shop so I could replace a Daredevil issue that I think my mom put a dent in. While I was in there, I found two amazing things. The first was a Near Mint Ultimate Spider-Man #1 for $100. The second was a Near Mint Peter Panzerfaust #1 for $25. On ebay I would have had to pay at the very least $480 for these two issues.. and now I had found them for $125.. I bought one and put $30 down on the other so it's mine once I get my next paycheck. It was a great day. I got two amazing deals.. I completed a collection.. but what I'm really excited about now is that collecting Ultimate Spider-Man in it's entirety is no longer a pipe dream. There was a boulder in the road preventing me from even thinking about starting, and now it's gone.
I'll be using this blog to document my search. I'm still gonna pick up back issues of Invincible, Chew, and maybe a few others..and I'll post about them, but above all, this is the story of me tracking down and collecting every single issue of Ultimate Spider-Man.
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