I Have Issues

I had reason to look into bringing out my comic collection. It was a simple matter of finding some bits and pieces and closing up the boxes and yet...well, things are never that simple are they?

So I'm three boxes in, most of its eighties and very early nineties stuff and limited runs on lots of titles. They were loved and by loved I mean scragged around, read in the bedrooms, over breakfast, fought over, kept in boxes, moved eight times, never put in protective plastic and read by probably over thirty different people in their life times. They are not in mint condition.

I looked through just these first three boxes and I wondered what they would be 'worth' if they were in bags, read once, never mistreated or left unloved on a coffee table for months.Well, they would be worth something, not 'a lot' but certainly something. But then how do I judge what something is worth? Is it on how much money its worth?! Never.

Each one of these issues took a hammering. Each one of these issues had all of its secrets ripped from it, the words pawed over hungrily, the images devoured. The story lines became folk tales, the characters friends. When Jean Grey died on the moon a grown man was reduced to tears and he felt so deeply about these stories that he shared them with me and my brothers when we lived in London. I watched over a decade later as the Marauders attacked and massacred the Morlocks in the tunnels under New York City and was gripped in horror when these same villains crucified the X-Man Angel against a wall. I saw the fall of the Avengers Mansion when the Masters Of Evil gutted it and that team. I watched as the mutants fell and Thor became a brittle boned weakling, cursed by Hela.

I saw, I read, I loved and I spend every damn penny I earned on those comics. They are my Bible.

Now they sit downstairs and I am doing something else with them. My kids are reading them. I'm not being precious. They are not being careful, but between us that love for the story is still playing out.I put some aside. Ones that I believe really are worth something due to their good condition and rarity. I will have to sell them. That's cool. I'm cool with that. But for the most part its business as usual, with a twist.

I have some addresses. I have some people that I know can make good use of these awesome stories. They are going to be sent some and I hope they love them, because these issues of mine? The ones that I hoarded and boxed? They were NEVER meant to be hidden! These issues were meant to be read and re-read!

If you have comics then get them out., READ them! They were never meant to fill boxes, they were meant to fill your heart.