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I went on a bit of a buying spree the last couple of days because I want to make two displays in my room. The first will be a small, Teen Titans shrine. In that display will be "Teen Titans" (first series) #1, New Teen Titans #1 (and will be signed by George Perez), NTT #2 (first Deathstroke, also signed), Tales of the Teen Titans #44 (first Nightwing, also signed), along with two signed action figures - First Appearance Nightwing, and a Deathstroke figure. I own the full Wolfman and Perez run of Titans, but those are the important issues to me. Still trying to figure out exactly how to set the display up.
The second display will be a big bigger comic wise, it will be my Supergirl wall. On it will be Action Comics #252 (first appearance of Supergirl), Action Comics #285 (the issue where Superman reveals her existence to the world), Supergirl (first series) #1, Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #1, Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #13 (first appearance of the 1980s era costume, with the headband, and my personal favorite), and Crisis On Infinite Earths #7 (death, signed by George Perez).
Those are most of the gems of my collection, tell me a little about yours!
I tend to not bother with the main Marvel and DC properties, I only buy specific storylines that I want. Those that I do pick up tend to be a pretty eclectic mix. That said, I did buy all of the Runaways collections.
Normally though I read stuff from Vertigo, Image, Top Cow, Avatar, Dynamite, and occasionally Boom. I'm also really starting to love some of the stuff available from Red 5 comics.
Mostly what I collect are the trade paperback collections of limited run series and a few ongoing series that have caught my attention. The bulk of my collection is made up of Preacher, The Sandman (in the Absolute editions), The Boys, The Invisibles, Atomic Robo (I'm including Real Science Adventures with this), The Darkness, Transmetropolitan and Chew. Some of the stuff I don't have so much of at the moment (either due to there not being a lot released yet, or not having the cash to buy it all yet) includes Saga, Think Tank, The Chronicles of Wormwood, Harvest (which I hope gets a follow up), Happy, Joe the Barbarian, Neozoic, Incorruptible and Irredeemable. I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff, but they're my favourites.
I've also got almost all of The Crow comics in their collected forms, except for Waking Nightmares I think. I've got two copies of the original series, one is from the first print run, the other is the anniversary edition.
I started with a 3-pack of GI Joe #3, Conan #169, and Fantastic Four #244. Its weird that I can remember that 3 pack from 1982 with such clarity. Those 3 set me off on a fun ride that lasted off and on until 2002. Fantastic Four was MY comic forever. I loved that dynamic, and yeah, I realized later what REAL cosmic adventures Lee and Kirby made earlier in the run, but for the young nomad, those books just were the best literature on the planet.
I remember reading "Bring on the Bad Guys" and "Drawing the Marvel Way" from the local library before those 3 comics, but it wasnt until I found those books that I started really trying to make money to get more books.
It started with dudes punchin dudes, that was all I wanted. Explosions and cool vehicles and weaponry. Then I found the Savage Sword of Conan mags in the back of the store (and Dragon mag too). Swords and monsters (and boobage) were mixed into my desire to own MORE books. I learned Bill Willingham came through our little town and signed copies of Elementals and I think that title and Justice Machine and Grim Jack were my first non Big-Two indies buys. I had some Cerberus and Nexus ones too, but mostly it was Spidey (especially McFarlanes), Xmen (and all those spin offs!), Bats (especially Year One and Death in the Family), Giffens JLA and JLI (and Ambush Bug) and Avengers (first big back-issue buys were the Roy Thomas/Barry Winsor Smith run)(CANT WAIT FOR MOVIE ULTRON!) and Moore/Veitch/Bissette Saga of the Swamp Thing. Later, I got swept into the Vertigo, took sides WITH the upstarts in Image, loved Comico and Caliber (Grendel and The Crow), and Hsu's Adventurers and Warlock 5 and Burdens Carrot, and Stevens Rocketeer and Chadwicks Concrete, I even have the comic version of Debbie Does Dallas! Later it was Evil Ernie and Lady Death, Albedo Anthropomorphics, Poison Elves, the Valiant line (especially Solar and Archer/Armstrong).
I started by following the characters. Nightcrawler appears in the book-I bought it. Eventually I started going to places that sold earlier books and started following creators. I found Millers Daredevil (especially the second time around with Mazzucchelli where Karen sells Murdocks true ID to Kingpin). Then followed Miller to Ronin and Hard Boiled and Sin City. Or find Ploog art on something and then seek out all of his amazing stuff from the 70s in the DC horror titles. Or Wally Wood and Bill Ward and John Severin or Jim Starlin,,,or on the writing, Roy Thomas, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison or Mike Straczynski...or whoever
This is all before the internet so I had to research through Overstreet and whatever that little monthly booklet/price guide was called. God I spent so much time and money on collecting. It was SO MUCH FUN! At one time I could tell you the issue that Thor battled the Midgard Serpent on only splash pages and which version of Gobbledygook was more valuable because it had the real first app of TMNT and where Hellboy first appeared or why Marvel Star Wars #107 was important to Image Comics (Actually I can still tell you all of those, but I used to know so many more of those things). Luckily theres the internet so I dont have to keep that info in the rolodex in my head anymore.
I have about 12000 books, some signed. Swamp Thing #1 and House of Secrets #92 signed by Wein and Wrightson are probably my prizes in my collection. (I was in a NYC gallery and was 2 feet from the original artwork of HOS #92 cover and nearly wept). I did once buy a Knights of the Dinner Table #1 for a quarter and then sold it on Ebay for 120$ and bought a whole run of Marvel Spotlight from the 1970s for a buck apiece. The Golden Age miniseries and The Starman run (Shade spinoff too) and the beauty of all 75 Sandmans (Death miniseries too)
I was stopping right as the Ultimate universe was gaining ground (Ultimate Green Goblin was BIG!) and the Legion Lost storyline was becoming AMAZING! Walking Dead had just put out the first few books too.
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Well I added several more books to each of the displays I'm making.
Thanks to eBay I'm adding Flash 110 (first Wally West), Brave and the Bold 54 (First Titans), DC Comics Presents 26 (First Starfire and Raven, First New Teen Titans), Teen Titans 4 (Speedy joins the team), Teen Titans 23 (first red Wonder Girl costume), Batman 436 and 442 (first Tim Drake and first Tim as Robin respectively) to the Titans display.
To the Supergirl display I'm adding a few classic covers I love from various Action and Adventure comics issues, the first appearance of the hotpants costume and her first solo appearance in Adventure Comics.
I've been getting a lot of DC for the last few years. Haven't really touched marvel since the whole Spidey makes a deal with the devil stuff (Not because of the whole devil thing but because I felt it completely undermined Peter's character in, well ... just about every way imaginable).
Mostly I've been liking DC's fringe books. Animal Man, Swamp Thing, All Star Western, etc.. and Earth 2 has been a really good one. The DC main titles have just felt kind of messy and all over the place.
Still have a lot of older stuff hidden away in boxes though, Mostly DC some X-Men from the Outback days. I doubt I have anything that's worth much, just kind of keeping it pack rat style.
Somewhere, in tatters, doesn't even have it's cover left, I have the first comic I ever bought. Teen Titans. Don't remember the number but it was when Deathstroke killed Beast Boy.
It's what got me hooked. I thought this Green Kid was awesome taking on the bad guy all by himself and then he gets killed.
and then in the issues that followed his friends go on this epic quest to bring him back to life and have to fight Gods and everything.
Been a Teen Titans fan for life
Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere
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I have many comic books, most are hardcover collections which are easy to get in Finland- Marvel and DC titles are numerous in my shelf. I have few collection items that I'm trying to get my hands on. I now have 2 issues of finnish Flash series called "Salama-lehti". There where only 7 issues until it was cancelled, so they are very rare. Now I also have a 2# issue in series of Avengers magazine called "Pirate-Avengers" since they were published back in the seventies without any consent or rights from Marvel, they were photocopied and badly translated. It is very rare curiosity object in finnish Marvel history. There were 5 issues until they got caught and magazine was cancelled.
I have one longbox full of Batman/DC comics published in finland, and one huge box full of miscellanious Marvel titles.
I started reading comics back in the 90's (and therefore, they are all worthless). I stopped around the end of the 90's chiefly because I had about 10 boxes and no where to put them. I'm more of a reader than a collector. Though recently I got rid of most of my comics, I hung on to some of them.
I read Marvel and DC as well as Dark Horse. I don't know who owns Wild Storm. I love Quasar and Planetary. I collected Captain America as well as Xmen. I loved Legion and Legionairres. I also got JLA. Another big favorite was Gen-13. I also collected The Authority. I liked how The Midnighter seemed to be a lot like Batman.
I also tried to collect comics that I thought would be worth something someday but later learned they were not. Death: The High Cost of Living, was one of them. I learned later that there were a whole bunch of covers. I had told the store that got my comics that I wanted all the comics but they only gave me the flimsy stuff.
Oh, one last one that I really like came from Dark Horse called Ghost.
I tried to go Digital, but it seems the world isn't ready for that.