15     

Fantastic couple weeks

...unless you're asking about my health

This is the longest I've ever gone between posts, but don't worry, I'm not gonna drag this out.  Don't feel bad if you want to skip certain sections.  I'm writing this with a lot of very different people in mind so some of the information might not be intended for you.  Either way, I've tried to make it all as interesting as possible while keeping it non-fiction. I'm getting really close to completing the collection, so what becomes of this blog after that is still up in the air. For now, however, my posts will be less frequent because I'll only be posting if I find an issue or if there is some development pertaining to the hunt. I have no idea how long it will take (weeks, years, decades?) to find those last six issues, so I'll pop in and post about other stuff once in a while so as not to disappoint my legions of fans.

First let me explain the line up there about my health.  I had to be hospitalized again from May 6th to May 10th.  If you're squeamish, skip ahead to the bold text.   I'm really only posting it because it sounds like something out of a movie.  I was at my house just sitting there building my Lego apartment, nothing strenuous, and suddenly started to feel a little out of breath.  This has happened plenty of times before, so I just did what I did every other time: I put on my oxygen and sat still.  After about thirty seconds my breathing started to get worse even though I wasn't moving. That hadn't happened before, so at that point I called my Dad up to my room.  A few minutes later I was gasping for air and getting extremely small breaths. My pulsox started dropping rapidly.  My Dad called 911.  By the time the police and ambulance got there, which was amazingly fast, I was basically sucking in tiny little pockets of air by flexing my throat muscles.  The police officer who arrived about a minute before the ambulance put a re-breather mask on me.  That helped a bit, I assume, because it made sure that what little air I was getting was pure oxygen, but it was still getting worse when the EMTs arrived.  They quickly got me out, which was no small task because it involved carrying me in a chair down a flight of stairs.  At the time I was thinking about how long it would take to get to the hospital.  I didn't think I was going to make it.  I had no idea what was wrong with me, and I definitely had no idea how they were going to fix it. Thankfully, one of the men in the ambulance was a paramedic, and he knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it.  My left lung had collapsed.  He then performed an amazing procedure called "thoracic decompression."  Basically, he jabbed a needle into my chest, letting the air escape from my outer lung area so that the lung itself could inflate.  Suddenly I was breathing.  It was the greatest feeling of relief I've ever felt and I owe that guy my life.

I spent  the next week in the hospital.  I'm sorry to those I didn't get in touch with about coming to visit, but the truth is I was tired and uncomfortable (they wouldn't let me shower because of the holes in my chest) and I just wasn't in the state of mind for visitors on most days.  It was a difficult hospital stay and most of the news I was getting was pretty frustrating and disappointing.  Fortunately, I had the emotional high that comes from having yet another close call and living to tell about it.  To celebrate, I did a little online shopping, and obviously if I'm buying myself gifts, there's going to be at least one comic in there. Here it is (if the pictures aren't there it's because I'm using a different site for image hosting and I'm not 100% sure that it works):

This is my copy of Daredevil #3.  This hit the racks in August of 1964.  It's in great condition for a comic of it's age, and although I won't tell you how much I spent on it, I believe it's worth almost double what I paid.  I know that seems ridiculous, but here's my theory on the pricing. If you're not interested in how comic grading works, skip to the next bold text. Comics are graded on a scale 0.5 (or "poor") to 10 (or "gem mint').  I got the comic through a huge online comic retailer called midtowncomics.com.  The first thing about Midtown I should mention is that, in the past, I've always noticed that their condition estimates are a little low.  They're just a comic retailer; they don't have any official graders, so the grade they give is an estimate.  For my comic, the estimate by Midtown was "Very Good" which translates to "4.0." My opinion is that the grade is actually closer to "7.0- Fine" or even "7.5- Very Fine." They do tons of online sales and at the same time they allow returns. If the problem is their fault, they pay for return shipping on top of the refund.  It makes sense that they would want to avoid having lots of comics returned because the buyer felt they had received a lower grade comic than what they paid for.  For the majority of the comics they sell, the difference between "Very Good" and "Very Fine" is only $2.31 because the "Very Fine" comic is only $4.85.  At those prices, low balling by a point or two doesn't cost the company much money.  Obviously the difference is a lot larger with a much more valuable comic. 

Another important factor in determining the value of a comic is the content.  A comic with an important event in it (death of a popular character, first appearance of a character, a wedding, etc.) is obviously worth much more than a boring comic of the same grade and age.  But whether or not a comic contains an important event can depend on the person assigning a value to it.  For example, the comic above, Daredevil #3, is the first appearance of "The Owl," a somewhat popular super villain depending on which comics you read.  It's very possible that a person assigning a value to the issue doesn't consider his first appearance to be a very big deal, while anyone who would be interested in this comic would most certainly consider The Owl important.

The whole comic is in really nice condition.  Every page is flat with sharp corners, and the binding is almost perfect, but the most important part is what's on the pages and they look awesome, as far as old comics on newsprint go.  I highly recommend getting your hands on a really old comic and reading it in that form.  I've read lots of old comics that were reprinted in modern volumes, but nothing compares to the experience of getting your hands on the original book in all its rough and faded glory.  I keep all my comics in plastic bags, but don't let that make you think I don't read them.  I want to protect them as much as possible, but I consider any slight damage done to the book is fine as long as it happened while I was enjoying the book.

Aside from being an important part of Daredevil's story, and being in great condition, this comic was a great read, and as with all comics written by Stan Lee, it also included some really silly dialog.  For example:

FREE COMICS AND ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN

As I pointed out above, I'm getting close to the end of my USM adventure.  I've picked a lot of stores' Ultimate Spider-Man collections clean, so finding them now is difficult.  I do know that there are a few shops that I only left because I had already spent too much money.  It's possible that I might find more issues in those shops.  After that, I'll need to come up with another method.  I could easily go online and order them, but for the most part, for USM issues, I would pay inflated prices without knowing what that kind of condition they were in.  The exception is midtowncomics.com.  If any of those issues are available from Midtown on a day that I'm making an order large enough for free shipping, I'll get them that way.

The first of the two issues I found was #127 a.k.a. "War of the Symbiotes Part 5." It was Free Comic Book Day and I was feeling sick for the first half of the day.  I wasn't about to pass up free stuff or fail to celebrate a comic book holiday, so I asked my Dad to stop by the Time Capsule and grab me a copy of "Chakra the Invincible".  Chakra was created by Stan Lee and apparently the comic is one of a number of comics being planned for Indian audiences or something.  I don't understand the why or know the what, but I did know that Liquid Comics was releasing a Chakra story for Free Comic Book Day, so I had to make sure I got a copy.  My Dad called me from the Time Capsule to let me know they were all out of it.  I was pretty bummed.  My Dad offered to go check another place for it, but I didn't want to send him on what could be a wild good chase.  A few hours later I was feeling better and it occurred to me that the stores were still opened.  I called a few comic shops and got a lot of no's.  Finally I figured I'd try the Toy Vault at Warwick Mall. They had it.  My Dad had no problem taking me down there, pushing my wheel chair in, and sharing the glory of victory in a successful comic hunt.  This next part is strange.  In the past, the Toy Vault had disappointed me with its weak comic collection.  They had no indie comics, no back issues, and a very limited new issue rack.  This time I didn't bother to check their comics, but my Dad did, and somehow a huge back issue section had appeared out of thin air.  I was shocked.  I checked the Ultimate Spider-Man issues, and I managed to find #127.

Having my two brothers living in different states is a real bummer for the most part, but sometimes it means I can get a little help from out of town.  My older brother Tom was walking past "Fat Jack's Comic Crypt," a comic shop in Philly that I had liked a lot when I visited, and he decided to call me and ask if I needed anything.  I said yes and I read him my list, and he was able to locate #130, or part 2 of "Ultimatum." 

So I'm six issues away from victory.  At some point I'm going to re-check the issues I have just to make sure I didn't check any off by accident.  I'm also goanna make sure there aren't any major flaws on any of the books that I missed before.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!! 

I told you last time I posted that I'm gonna be an Uncle, but now I get to tell you I'm gonna be a Godfather too.  I'm really proud to have been asked and I won't disappoint my brother and his wife.  I plan on being there for them and the baby (Thomas M. Allison VI) whenever necessary, and when I'm back in good health, I plan on spending time with the little guy and spoiling him a little bit.

Celebrating Tom's Graduation

This weekend Tom came home to celebrate his 2nd college graduation, which we were planning to attend last weekend, but my lung had already decided that that week would be a good time to collapse.  Here's a photo of Tom enjoying one of his graduation gifts.

That's five pounds of gummi bear

Thanks for reading.  I'll post again as soon as I get another issue.  Here's some legos: