Hello again y'all. It's Chris the Webmaster again. Nope, no plans to wax poetic or otherwise on the new Star Wars flick. Read the reviews, read the spoilers, yadda yadda...figured I'd throw that GiF in to keep theme with the Blog title. Heck, if I was a series of Jason Movies, I'd be doing pretty good being in my sixth installment. Then again, there's more money to be made on the lecture circuit. "I was a teenage slasher..."

   Drew's tied up and asked me to step in. I said what the heck, even though I had no clue what I'd blog about.

   ...and then it occurred to me....I could talk about.....comics. *cue scary music here*

   Amazing how that works eh? My sixth gig and NOW I talk about comics.

   I've led a deprived comics life, comparatively speaking. I never bonded with a superhero in childhood (at least not through comics...cartoons however, are another matter.) I never rushed down to the local comics stand breathlessly anticpating the arrival of the latest issue of whatever, never collected, never traded.

   At least until the past few years, and then it's been for the wife. (She's a huge Green Lantern fan, her favorite being Kyle Rayner (sp?) ). So now I plunder the comic book stores looking to finish off her set.

   But after awhile...it eventually rubs off on you. Standing there at the rack, your eyes wander around, you pick up a random book here, another there, flip through some pages, say "Oh, that's kinda cool." and then put them back. The first comic that I had was a trade paperback I got for my birthday (or some other holiday) from a buddy of mine. I don't even remember who gave to me. (It was that long ago and my memory is that bad) Whoa, what a comic it was though. The Sandman: Seasons of Mists.

   If you haven't run across The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, you have to go get one. Right now. I mean, step away from the computer, go down to Emerald City (camp out in the parking lot because they're closed this late at night), and first thing tomorrow morning, get one.

  I didn't get any others for years. I guess part of me was worried that the writing wasn't as good all the way through the series as it was in that arc. They were expensive and at the time I didn't have the disposable income I do now. (Not that I'm swimming in cash now, but at least $19.99 doesn't have a sticker shock value that it did back when I was working a crap job for crap wages.)

  So a few weeks ago I went to Emerald City. My wife's graduation was coming up and I was going to get her a ton of comics as one of her graduation gifts. It just so happened that I wandered in during "Free Comic Day." I had clue it was going on at the time, but the guy behind the counter was very helpful and gave me the rundown of what was going on. (btw isn't that one woman who works there, the goth one, just hot as hell? Or is that hawt? Wow!...anyway...I digress) So I pick up a couple free issues of Green Arrow for the wife (she'd mentioned being interested in that series as well) and then I find out that selected trade paperbacks are half off. Guess which one was one of those selected trade paperbacks? Yup, The Sandman, book 1.

   That went into my purchase pile so fast it was like it had wheels. Now, I am totally hooked. I've got books 1-6 now and I'm just waiting for the bills to clear and payday to arrive so I can bolt down there and get #7 (I've contrained myself to one a week or so...to make sure that the bills keep clearing :)   ) Sometimes the comics bug bites you late....but at least it still gets new people, no matter what time in their life. The medium is very rich and diverse, and even with technology where it is today, I believe they'll be around decades from now.

   Comparatively speaking I'm still a comic rookie, having just read The Sandman, the Identity Crisis story arc (btw....WOW!!!) and the Wanted! story arc (another wow!). I've got a buddy at work who's into comics pretty heavily, so I get updates from time to time. I still haven't bonded with a superhero yet, so there isn't anything I'm a "fan" of. (I hope that changes, I kinda feel like I'm missing out on something being in limbo like this)

   Who knows......someday, right?

   Keep the faith y'all and keep the patronage up....comics are only going to stay around as long as people like us (new and old) keep them around.

   Peace.