Roger Ash

by Roger Ash

I miss the thrill of the hunt. No, I’m not talking about going after squirrels, rabbits, or ducks. I have tried that in the past but discovered it just wasn’t for me. I’m talking about comic book hunting like I used to do back in the late-70s and early-80s. This is the kind of hunting where I hopped onto my bike and rode around to the stores where I usually bought comics looking for some treasure. Here’s an example of a typical hunt.

New Teen Titans #1

I’ve mentioned in the past that I bought New Teen Titans #1 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez off a spinner rack at a grocery store while my mom was shopping. After reading it and absolutely loving it, I learned (possibly from my friend Craig) that this was actually their second appearance. The New Teen Titans actually debuted in DC Comics Presents #26. I had to have that comic.

DC Comics Presents #26

The first chance I had I headed out on my bike to the Stop-N-Go on Milwaukee Street. No luck. The same was true of the bookstores at the mall, the Rexall drug store, and Copps department store in Creston Park. I was getting frustrated and decided to try a drug store (whose name I can’t recall) I usually didn’t go to. The reason for this is because they only had a couple racks of comics crammed under the magazines so their selection was pretty limited. But it turned out to be the right place to stop as I found DC Comic Presents #26 stuffed in the middle of the rack. Cool!

After paying for my find, I rode home as fast as possible to read it. It was fantastic! Not only did I get the Titans preview story, but the lead story was plotted and drawn by Jim Starlin with script by Marv Wolfman. It was a great comic.

X-Men #122

That’s a typical comic book hunt, though not all of them ended in success. But the hunt itself was always fun no matter what the result. There were variations to this theme such as when I bought X-Men #122 at the same drug store where I found DC Comics Presents. This was my first issue of X-Men and when I looked for more, I discovered that it was actually a few months old so I had to mount a hunt for the issues between it and the current issue.

DC Comics Presents #36

A fun side effect of the hunt would be discovering comics I had never seen before. Even if I didn’t find what I was looking for, I almost never went home empty handed. Some cover would catch my eye, I’d flip through the pages, and if it looked cool I’d buy it. As much as I enjoy shopping online, this random browsing, just picking up a comic and flipping through it, is something electronic media has yet to replicate. Buying that DC Comics Presents led to me purchasing issue #36 when I saw it on the racks. It was a Starlin tour de force that I think is a forgotten classic as Superman and Starman face off against Mongul.

Once I became a Westfield customer, I loved that I wouldn’t have to worry about missing comics anymore, but I’d still check out the spinner racks every now and then to see if something new caught my eye. But I missed the hunt. So my hunt became for back issues of comics that I liked. While not the same, it features many of the same positives.

Today, even the back issue hunt is pretty much gone as you can find almost any issue you want to buy on the web. I’m not complaining. I like that comics are easy to find either in their original form or in collections. However, that doesn’t stop me from missing the thrill of the hunt. That’s why when I go to a comic convention I’ll always bring along a list of comics I’d like to find. Then it’s hunting season.

If you happen to be at the Baltimore Comic-Con the weekend of August 20 & 21 and see someone who looks like me wearing a staff shirt, it probably is me. Come by and say “Hi!” You’ll probably find me working around the panel rooms.

*****

Classic comic covers fro the Grand Comics Database.

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