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A few weeks ago, you may have heard me on Michael Bailey’s Views from the Longbox talking with him about Star Wars toys. But you also heard me answer the one question that Mike asks every one of his first-time guests: “What is your comic book origin story?” For the most part, my story begins in about 1990 when I began reading Batman comics and Tim Drake was on his way to becoming Robin. However, that’s the short version of my comic book origin story. For the longer version, you have to go back to 1986, and that means I have been collecting comics for 30 years.
Now, that in itself is too simple a statement. Yes, my true comic collecting career begins in 1990, but I spent the fall of 1986 until the spring of 1987 making regular trips to the comic book store and with the exception of an occasional trip or two would not head back after that for another two and a half years. The reason for my pause in collecting mostly had to do with my losing interest in comics because I was ten years old and my popular culture interests back then had a lifespan of about six to nine months. Furthermore, my comics corresponded with my taste in toys at the time–G.I. Joe and the Transformers–and by the end of 1987, my interest in those fell off as well.
But for that brief period, I took my first steps into a larger world and after talking to Mike, decided to take a look at what books were out during that period in 1986 and 1987 and see what I was reading. Then, because I can’t let a good idea go to waste or because I’m a glutton for punishment (okay, probably both), I decided to turn said exploration into a podcast miniseries that recaps my very first year of collecting comics. Origin Story will be a complete look at that year and I will review each of those comics on the day they came out, starting with G.I. Joe and the Transformers #1 on September 30, 2016 and ending with G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #69 on November 17, 2017.
Before I begin that, however, I will be writing a series of blog posts that recap and review those comics that I owned before 1986, the books taht I remember buying at random or receiving as gifts. You’ll be seeing Comics Prehistory over the next nine months as the lead-up to Origin Story.
The podcast will be part of the main Pop Culture Affidavit podcast feed, which you can find over at Two True Freaks, and I’ll post show notes and scans to the blog here. For now, whet your appetite with the Origin Story promo and check back in a week or two when I present my first comic for the Comics Prehistory: The Brave and the Bold #182.
Pop Culture Affidavit 