16     

WHAT TIME IS IT?

...it's bloggerin' time

"This is the longest I've ever gone between posts" is the line I started my last post with, but I've outdone myself once again, but much to the relief of my fans, my blog is still going strong(unlike my lungs)!  Still, everyone has been telling me it's been a while since I made a blog entry! My mailbox is overflowing and my mailman is starting to get annoyed. Gmail is threatening to put a cap on my storage. I need to do some bloggin' to satisfy the masses. I know there are at least 10 people who are willing to read this blog and I can't keep them waiting. The title of this entry is a throwback to something only a true nerd could remember, the old Fantastic Four cartoon. It was on when I was a kid, but I have no idea when it originally aired. Here's the Thing in the episode where he becomes a one hit wonder by singing his catch phrase and it all goes to his head:

And if that left you longing for more, here's some more orange rock man punching a seemingly endless hoard of moloids, or aliens, or... something:

Whatever they are, the Thing's been known to clobber first, and ask questions later, as demonstrated in Daredevil #2. The Fantastic Four needed a lawyer, and the Thing made an appearance at Matt Murdock(aka Daredevil)'s law office by blasting through the door.

I've Been busy

this section diverts from comics briefly

I'm on a decreasing steroid regimen right now, which will eventually leave me feeling a lot stronger, but while I'm adjusting to the changes it's making me really exhausted and weak. Also, with every passing day, I become less and less likely to have a pneumothorax (that's the technical term for a collapsed lung), so I'm happy about that. At this point I'm in the middle of an experimental treatment that may slowly stop whatever is wrong with my lungs, but a lung transplant is a very real possibility if this treatment fails. Right now, though, all I can do is continue to stick to my med regimen and maintain a positive attitude. Way back when this whole cancer battle started I was told that my positive attitude would be my greatest asset. Years later I find that one of the most challenging things I have to do every day is stay positive in the face of everything. Now brace yourself because this is gonna sound really corny, but it's the truth, and it also segues into the next thing I want to write about, so stay wth me. Because I've become such a big comic book fan, I've found that super heroes are a great reminder of the strength, both physical and mental, that I need to overcome this disease and recover. When a super hero puts his costume on, he needs to be stronger than a normal person and willing to endure things that may seem impossible. I find that just looking at a Superman keychain or seeing my Daredevil shirt in the mirror reminds me to get into the proper state of mind, so I try to make sure I have at least one super hero item with me at all times. That's why two nights ago when I discovered that NikeID now offered the 1972 Nike Cortez in nylon, I couldn't resist modeling a sneaker after one of my favorite superheroes. I call this beautiful creation the Nike Grayson, but if you prefer you can call them Air Graysons, or simply Invincibles.  Here's the Grayson next to it's namesake, Mark Grayson a.k.a. Invincible.

Ultimate spider-man!

Another one down

My older brother was in town for my sister-in-law Lindsay's baby shower (I also got to feel MY godson kicking in there. He's pretty strong.) He suggested we return to the comic book store where he found the Strange Adventures #88 that now hangs on my wall. This time around, he was ready to make a purchase. I suggested my favorite shop in Mass, “Comically Speaking." So we three men (my dad was with us, too) left the women to their baby shower and engaged in the pastime of comic bin picking. This time not only did Tom search for titles, but he actually bought himself four. He generally looks for Gold and Silver age curiosity books. Here are a few of the books he picked up while I sifted through the USM rack looking for the seven remaining issues I need.

I'm really glad to have made a comic book collector out of him, even if he only wants them so he can display the highly entertaining covers. I think there's something for everyone in comics, and Tom's approach would work for anyone who needs conversation pieces to fill in blank walls in a new apartment or house.And of course, here's what I picked up. An immaculate copy of Ultimate Spider-Man #22.

I realized I made an error on my checklist at some point, so last week I was wrong when I said I had six left, but now, I really only have six left. Stay tuned. Just be warned that posts will continue to be less frequent because I'm not gonna write unless I've got new USMs or new USM info.

Thanks for reading this one. Hope you enjoyed it!

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:

14A2: The sequel to 14A

This isn't the post I promised you, where I talk about a couple comic trips that came close to ending my hunt.  You'll have to wait patiently for that one.  It'll be called post #15 and it will mark the return of editor Scott Allison.  I promise to try my hardest to make it interesting but I can only say it might be interesting if you've found any of my previous posts interesting.  It's okay if you don't, because I know you're all reading.  I've passed 1000 views, so that's tantamount to about 56 per post and that's good enough for me.  You should be proud to be riding first class on what's been referred to as "an internet phenomenon" (by me).

First thing I wanta discuss is what I should have mentioned in my last post.  I claimed that I was filling you in on what was going on in my real life, and while I did give some info, I left out a lot.  I sometimes forget that I'm living a very irregular life right now and some people might find this interesting.  I'm gonna put little labels to make it easier for you to skim through my life to the things you like to read about.

Read about my family gathering on Easter and my awesome aunts, uncles, and cousins!

First off, what do they call the relation between myself and the child of one of my cousins?  Is there a word?  Someone said second couin, but that doesn't make sense to me.  What about that cousin's husband, or the husband's kids from a previous mother?  What do I call them?  Does that have a title?!  But enough of that and onto my Easter Sunday.  I went to a family gathering.  I haven't been to a family gathering in years because there are so many small children, and unfortunately I'm loaded with immunosuppressants(to prevent my body from rejecting the stem cells).  This year I was no less immunosuppressed, but I've been living this way for too long.  I wanted to see my family before they forgot who I was.  I didn't ask my doctor for permission to go.  I just took extra precautions(gloves, mask, constant purelling, no xoxo, and no holding babies.  It was worth it.  The bet thing that happened is my Aunt let me in on a secret that basically changed my life.  When wearing oxygen tubes, the backs of your ears, where they hang from, get a lot of friction and the skin gets raw, swollen, and painful.  She noticed my red ears and told me about some little gr  y foam things that the oxygen company can send for free if you ask them.  Yes, you have to ask for these things.  You wouldn't know, because no one tells you, but luckily I have my Aunt Susan.  Everything else went well too.  I didn't get sick(er), I saw the young cousins who I've been sending comic books to and I got to see their reactions to getting a new stack of comics.  From that I got exactly what I had hoped for.  It's so cool to see these books that cost me almost nothing brighten up their day so much.  I hope they don't grow out of it any time soon, but if my friends and I are any indication, it comes back when you're about 27.

Left: Legend of the Spider-Clan..this series is really popular with the little dude.  What kid doesn't love Spider-Man?  I had ordered it just to check out the Skottie Young art, I had no idea I'd be giving it away, but I really expected this one just to be a filler.  Now he's got me hunting for the missing issues of the series.

Right: Perhapanauts: My cousin is a really unique little girl, and so far, she seems to love the Perhapanauts the most.  She also told me she really likes Takio, which makes me feel really bad because I got her the book and the first three issues and I'm starting to wonder if Brian Michael Bendis has abandoned it.  At least they're still making Perhapanauts.

Read about the new addition to my family, coming soon!  But if they do grow out of it, I'll be fine because I'm gonna be an Uncle soon.  My brother Tom and his Wife Lindsay are having a baby and I've already started blowing money on him.  

Of course when the plushes came in the mail, I found a tag that said ages 5+.  It's disappointing, but I guess it's because of the plastic eyes.  The baby should be able to play with them if he stays supervised.

 I wish they would be living a little closer so I could easily see Tom the 6th(or is it 7th?  I should know that) grow up,  But maybe I'll end up moving to Philly.  It all depends on when I can get out of this hole I'm stuck in.  

Read about my lung problems!
Here's the news on that.  I just finished the first part of a drug trial with a drug that has helped others' lung problems that resulted from graft vs. host disease.  The problem is we know I have GVHD, we know I have lung problems, but we don't know if the lung problems are related to the GVHD.  I do know that my lungs have gotten slightly better, so hopefully that will continue, and if this temporary break from the drug hurts my breathing, I'll know that it was probably the drug that helped me.  If this trial fails, they have another drug planned, and if that doesn't work there's a last resort: lung transplant.  The lung transplant scares the hell out of me, but I've been told it will completely fix the issue, so at least I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  For now, my therapist has advised me to start figuring out how I'm gonna get this last class out of the way so I finally get my bachelor's degree.

Read about my Academic Future!

I've been unable to take the class for the same reasons I can't go to work.. my immune systems crap, I an't drive because of the pain meds, and Rhode Island College is amazingly disorganized.  Furthermore, I'm having trouble with the type of course this is.  It's an internship.  I can't really do an internship unless I find one that I can do at home.. so it looks like I'm going to talk to someone important at RIC and keep going up the totem pole until I find a solution.  My therapist and I discussed my plans to finish school and then go back for a masters, and my plans to get myself on some kind of ADHD drug.  But when my therapist and I aren't talking about school and getting ahold of drugs, we talk about our common interest, comic books.  Strangely enough, I told him about my new Lego hobby today, and he had plenty to say about Lego collecting.

Read about my therapist and I talking comic books and Legos

Today, impressively, when I brought up comic books, the good doctor produced from his desk a card that listed the dates of upcoming small-time comic cons.  These comic cons are different than the big ones full of celebrities, costplayers, high profile creators, and sich.  These are the legendary ones that comic collectors drool over because of the apparent improved odds of finding treasures in the boxes.  Searcing comic bins at big name cons or comic book stores will generally bring you s few good books, but these are just big white boxes filled with random old comics.  I've been dying to go to one ever since I saw them described on "comic book men".  Okay so like I said, I also recently got into(or back into, every kid loved these things) Legos.  I saw a couple Marvel super hero minifigures.  I knew Lego made quite a few things from different fictional worlds I loved.. Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and I had recently been impressed by smart business they had done by creating their own TV series, Lego Ninjago, and then merchandising from that.  When I was a kid, Lego was already the best thing when it came to versatility.  It promotes creativity.  The more sets and new minifigures they produce, the more tools a kid can have to mess around with and create what's in his head.  I took a trip to the Lego store, with my Dad, of course, and I discovered the blind lego minifig bag.  I'm no stranger to blind boxes from different designer toy companies I've collected in the past, so I was really appy to find out Lego was doing this with their lines of minifigures, which are Lego men and women that represent tons of different people from history, pop culture, industry, public service, outer space, etc.  I'm in love with these things, and right now I'm working on finding more efficient ways of getting my hands on them.  The gentlemen at the lego store was very helpful.. he had developed the ability to feel the bag and identify what figure was inide in about 3 seconds.  He accurately found the man in a chicken suit that I was asking for.  Here's a few of my favorite guys:

So at this point I've managed to get off to a nice start.  I bought a few minifigs to start.. the first one being "Iron Fist".  Then when I visited the Lego store I couldn't help but try one of the new "architecture" sets.  I started building this thing, and it all came back to me.  The sound of the pieces as you rustle through them, the satisfying snaps, the glorious moment when two seperately built massive parts need to be put together.  It's awesome, but I quickly realized that the set I had chosen was not enough.  It only took a night to finish.  I wanted more.  This time I decided to take the opportunity of having both my brothers and several friends coming over during the course of the next week while my parents are on a cruise, and I ordered a ridiculously large architecture set.  It's the Tower Bridge which crosses the River Thames in London.  I wish I could have been patriotic and bought the white house, but it's a shamefully small set, by comparison at least.  The White House has 561 Lego pieces.  The Imperial Hotel has 1,188 pieces.  The Robie House has 2,276.  But this week, starting on Friday, I'll be working with 4,295 pieces.  Here's what it looks like so far:

Comic Books

If you're a weekly comic book reader, you're already doing everything right.  Every wednesday you get to go down to the shop and pick up your pull list.  If you aren't reading comics, you gotta ask yourself why not.  Feel free to ask me for some recommendations.  If you like art, some of the greatest modern artists are in the comic industry.  If you like great literature, it's there.  Yeah, there are plently of nonsense comics that live up to every bit of the negative stereotyping.. and I love that stuff too, but it's not for everybody.  What I want to get across here is that there is in fact at least one comic for everybody.  I've seen a few people convert because of "Saga", so that might be worth checking out., otherwise, keep looking.  There's great stuff out there.

Today a lot of great stuff came out but the big book on my list was "Li'l Gotham".  It was originally digital only, but now it's coming out in comic form, which I'm really happy about because I have no iea how permanent the ownership rights to a digital comic.  I want every issue of this series because the art is so cool.  I'm glad that DC puts so much into their all ages comics, but art like this belongs in one of their big selling titles  Here's a sample:

And let me finish by posting this awesome ad I found for a product I will most definitely be buying.
.

14A: My life outside of comic books

To be honest, I enjoy comics so much, I could easily allow myself to do nothing buy buy, sell, and read comics all day long and I woud still be a very happy guy, but I wouldn't be very social and I'd probably grow old alone, gradually losing all of my friends except for Jeff at the Time Capsule. This week, however, I didn't really see anyone. I staed in touch with a few people by texting.. or with Scott, by facetiming. It's because of facetime, along with the new watch I got, that I'm realizing I've suddenly taken two giant steps toward the future I've been waiting for since I was a llittle kid. I figured I'd share it because I'm sure a lot of other people looked forward to this too.

Now obiously we were all told there would be flying cars. It didn't occur to us back then that the fling cars would be ridiculously dangerous, impractical because they would chug fuel like a frat boy doing Jager Bombs. The other dream did nothing but become more and more likely every day until now where we stand right on the brink of having our own personal wrist communicators that show an image and pla the voice of the person we're talking about, while giving us a location if they should allow it. This watch would also prvide all kinds of other ridiculous services like unlocking doors to scret hideouts, starting your car, paying for things via a credit card scanner, providing identification to police, heart rate monitoring, lie detecting, projecting movies or holograms, and maybe even date and time.
Most of those features are already available either on watches or martphones, and if there isn't an app for most of them, there will be soon. I'm simply looking forward to the day that the one device I need on my person is my wrist watch. Here's what makes me say we're almost there. At the beginning of the summer, I bought a new gadget from Nike called the Nike+ fuelband.

It improved my recovery process exponentially b giving me motivation by showing me concrete evidence and records of how hard I had worked. Here's my review of it that 534 of 559 people found helpful!

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2I5RGMPW72JV/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B007FSEMPY&nodeID=3375251&store=sporting-goods#wasThisHelpful

I really do wish I could give one of these to anyone in recovery. If you're thinking of buying someone a gift who needs to recover from something terrible, get it.

Okay, so there's that, and then there's this. I'm now wearing the “Pebble”. It's a watch that connects to my phone via bluetooth.

This thing has already made my life better, but because of it's developer friendly design, it's just gonna keep getting better. For now, it displays my text messages, so I don't need to take my phone out unless it's a message I feel like answering. It tells me where and incoming call is coming from, so again, I don't have to take out my phone, I can ignore it with a button on my watch, and silence the ring. This eliminates those awkward times in a quiet waiting room when your phone goes off and you're struggling to dig it out so you can silence it. I can control my music you have stored on your phone. This is cool if you're out biking with headphones on or in any situation where it's inconvenient to take out your phone rather than just skip with your watch. All notifications on the watch itself are vibration only.. so if you silence your phone, you'll still be alerted by your vibrating watch. The bluetooth range works at least from one end of my upstairs to the other end of my downstairs, so I'm really looking forward to using this when I go back to work. Phones aren't allowed at my watch, but if a friend texted me about an emergency, I'd know what's going on and I could judge whether I should run out to the car or not to call back. And finally, don't forget about the many different cool watch faces. It's just a cosmetic thing, but it's really cool. The display takes very little battery to keep running, because it's E-Paper like Amazon Kindle, and it's just kinda cool to look at your watch and see “quarter past four”.

I'm not trying to sell the product here. They're not even for sale. I got mine early because I donated to the project on kickstarter.com almost a year ago. What I'm pointing out is that we're only years away from having the awesome wrist communicators that must have been used on Ninja Turtles or G.I. Joes. I don't know where I saw it, but I wanted one, and now I'm pretty sure I will, because the way things are going, it seems like gadget makers had the same chilldhood dream.

I went to three comic stores since my last post, and I got a lot. I'll post about them in my next entry. but for now you can check out the new and improved checklist which shows the final 8 comics I need. This is where I need people to start keeping their eyes peeled. If you see any of those  8 missing issues, I'll pay you for them. $11 for #2,5, or 6,.. $5 for, 22, 33,, 127, 130, or 131.Thanks for reading!

	13: A teen who shoots webs and walks on walls, an intellectual gorilla who speaks English, and a little boy with antlers. It's been about a week and a half since my last post, and I have plenty to
	catch you up on. I went through a real rough patch with my lungs in
	the middle of this month, but over this past week things have started
	to improve somewhat; some days I've felt strong enough to get out of
	the house and get down to some comic shops. I had to use a walker or
	a wheelchair, but I did get out of the house and it was great to be
	back in the shops again scouring through the boxes to piece together
	my Ultimate Spider-Man collection. This is a diagram of my activity
	for this month recorded by my Nike+ Fuelband (a product everyone
	recovering from serious illness should have): As you can tell I have good and bad days.  I'll post another one of these next time so you can see if things have gotten better.
	Before I tell you about my latest adventures let me share something about
	overcoming an illness. Your family and friends become more important
	than you ever knew. I rely on them for essentially every aspect of
	my life, and one of the many things I rely on them for happens to be
	my comic books. This being my blog about a comic book hunt, I feel
	like I should give credit to everyone who has made comic book hunting
	a possibility for a guy who can barely walk, and can't drive. I
	haven't forgotten the many things that have been done for me. My
	brothers have both taken me on multiple trips to comic book stores in
	all different places, and living in different cities, they've both
	made trips to stores to pick up issues I needed. Any time I've been
	sick, my mom has picked up my pull list on her way home from work.
	My dad's done the same, and he's also taken me to a few stores. My
	Dad is incredibly patient when it comes to waiting for me while I
	browse through bins. My friend Kenny has done the same. Yeah, he
	picks up comics too, but that doesn't diminish the value of his deed.
	He also introduced me to New England Comics, the store where I found
	my Ultimate Spider-Man #1, Peter Panzerfaust #1, and Daredevil #7.
	My friend Mike was the guy who drove me to the store when he was
	tired so I could grab the Peter Panzerfaust I needed. Meg picked up
	a few Skottie Young covers that I was missing, and offered to pick
	others up on other occasions if I hadn't been able to get them.
	Kyle, Mike, and Kenny brought my Daredevil #10 to Boston Super Mega
	Fest to get it signed by Paolo Rivera, one of my favorite artists.
	You get the idea. Since my last post, I've taken three comic
	hunting trips, one with my older brother, one with my dad, and one
	with my little brother. I was successful in finding plenty of comics
	needed for my collection on each of these three trips, but I'm not
	going to bother posting them all. I'll adjust the checklist on the
	right accordingly though.  What I really want to post is the
	hilarious classic issue my brother Tom found. While I was busy
	digging for Ultimate Spider-Mans at the Cranston location of Time
	Capsule, Tom was browsing through whatever oddball bin he could find.
	Through some kind of beginner's luck (in the sport of bin diving) he
	came up with a 1958 issue of Strange Adventures. We bought the issue, but in any photo I take, the text doesn't show well because of my shaky hands..  I still want to show it to you, so here's a stock photo I found online.
	Make sure you take it all in! I know seeing this image will undoubtedly leave you wanting to read the issue,  if only to find out what led these men to subject the gorilla to a lie detector test, but don't worry.  The issue is safely in my hands and visitors to my house can read it any time they want.
	I have one more thing to talk about. It's a 40 issue epic called "Sweet
	Tooth" and it's written and pencilled by Jeff Lemire.
	I don't know why it took me so long to discover this series, but it's
	quickly become one of my favorites. I got the first trade from Amazon and
	finished it the next day. I had to go out and buy the next volume
	because Amazon wouldn't be quick enough. While I was reading that, I
	realized that the entire series isn't out in trade form yet, so I did
	what any over zealous comic book junky would do, I searched online
	until I found every single remaining issue.  Now I read at my own rate.
	Should I have done that? Probably not, but when it comes to comics, nothing
	beats reading them in their original single issue form.  The
	story is about a nine year old kid named Gus who has been raised by
	his father in a forest, in complete isolation, for his entire life.
	His father has told him never to leave the woods. The reasons for
	this are mysterious at first, but you can assume that it has
	something to do with the fact that he has a set of deer antlers on
	his head. Soon, his father passes away, and Gus is forced to choose
	between staying in the woods alone and fending for himself, or
	disobeying his dead father, and leaving with a man named Mr. Jepperd,
	who has offered to take him to a place called "the preserve."
	This is expert storytelling that carries the reader through a wide
	range of emotions. In addition to that, Lemire's art has an eerie
	power to it that leaves thoughts and images from this story lingering
	in your head. I highly recommend this book.(or comic, or graphic
	novel, or series of books, whatever) Edited: I just realized the checklist on the right malfunctioned, possibly a PEBKAC scenario.  I'm gonna do my best to make a new one that works properly soon.

12.1

12.1     

Brief visit to Midtown Grand Central

glad I got this one out of the way

I've been to midtown in Times Square, and now i've been to midtown grand central. The idea i left with is that most of the great Reputation this store has comes from Times Square. Don't get me wrong. This is still an above average comic shop.. But it doesn't come close to it's Times Square big brother, and so I can't see a reason to go back. Even though the store wasn't quite what I was hoping, I only had about 20 minutes to shop, so it felt just about right. I quickly checked through the trades to see if they had a few trades I've been hunting for, the most elusive of which is The Goon Vol. 2. I was unsuccessful with trades so I checked the boxes for a few series that I'd be able to sort through quickly. Ianaged to get 6 issues of "Wolverine and the X-Men" that I didn't have(Kenny put me onto this title and it's weird, but pretty good, especially considering it's an x-men book. Not normally my cup-o-soup). Then I went over to my friendly neighborhood Ultimate Spider-Man bin where I can usually find enough well cared for issues to drop about $40.00 on. The selection here was a little lacking, and I found one issue that met my standards, and I paid the inflated NYC price of $3.50 for Ultimate Spider-Man # 112.

UPDATE 3/10: Went to quite a few NYC comic shops, but was largely unsuccessful because of the chair.  Lots of stairs, very little space, not easy to breathe, and really crowded.  I hope to try NYC again when I'm walking, but I feel pretty bad for anyone who's stuck in a wheelchair for life.  If I ever open my own shop, the aisles are gonna be big enough for anyone.. even if the shop is tiny.  I'd rather have just one aisle than have to give the handicapped another raw deal.