bluerosekiller

I know what you mean ROBOT MAN. Reading this thread & seeing all the great finds that folks display here makes me want to run out there, right now. Unfortunately, after nine at night, so I'll have to wait. .

Don't think I've seen a worse looking signed book. Ever. UGH! What were they thinking?!!! If an individual absolutely MUST have a book signed ( especially a key ), they then they should do so in a way that enhances the cover/artwork if at all possible. This? How could the owner think that the signatures enhance it in ANY way, unless their legally blind. Even then, someone that cares about them should have stepped in & said "don't do it"!

Don't think I've seen a worse looking signed book. Ever. UGH! What were they thinking?!!! If an individual absolutely MUST have a book signed ( especially a key ), they then they should do so in a way that enhances the cover/artwork if at all possible. This? How could the owner think that the signatures enhance it in ANY way, unless their legally blind. Even then, someone that cares about them should have stepped in & said "don't do it"!

I've been going out of my way to try & become invested in this show, but I've not been completely successful thus far. I enjoy the characters for the most part, but honestly, the storylines have on average been about as dull as dishwater. No, not every single one of them, but FAR too many for a program that's not even halfway through it's first season. Now, I realize that the idea behind the show wasn't for it to be a "superhero of the week" show, but IMO they haven't really done enough so far in tying it into the Marvel movie universe. At least not for the casual fans that make up the vast majority of it's audience. Sure, they've referenced some of the Avengers & Nick Fury popped up at the tail end of an episode, but I think they need a lot more of that. And, a lot less of the "international intrigue" stuff. Back when the show was announced, they said that Coulson's team would be investigating a lot of unexplained phenomena & mysterious occurrences, cases more or less out of THE X-FILES. Which is what I was expecting, cases that would bring them into contact with people, places & things that might require assistance from those with extraordinary powers & abilities occasionally. And those individuals wouldn't even need to be members of the Avengers. The creative team behind the show has a TON of Marvel characters that they could introduce & use. And, judging by the way the ratings are slipping, they may want to seriously think about doing it REAL soon. Just my 2 cents.

Mike, I've REALLY got to quit paying attention to your threads/posts because whenever I do, I get inspired & wind up spending way too much money! Seriously, a couple of months ago you wound up re-igniting my passion for old boxing magazines & now, I'm getting quite tempted to get back to adding some new additions to my too long neglected FM collection. Sad to say, but it's actually been over two years since I last added to it. So, I'm long overdue. Peace, Jim

What I sold off back in 1980 when I was 18 was the product of a decade of serious collecting. 3500 comics that included complete or near complete runs of FANTASTIC FOUR, THE AVENGERS, THE X-MEN, DAREDEVIL, HULK, IRON MAN, GREEN LANTERN, SWAMP THING, LUKE CAGE & so many others it boggles my mind now thinking back to what I'd owned. But, back then throughout the '70s, there were plenty of great deals available for books that are near priceless now & my parents we fully supportive of my hobby. Hell, believe it or not, back in the early to mid '70s I ( as well as a whole lot of other collectors ) routinely turned my nose up at a copy of 'TEC #27 that they had at a local shop because although it was in really nice shape, it happened to have half of it's cover clipped off. So, $75 was just too much for it! Anyhow, back to my collection, when I felt that I'd "outgrown" comics & decided to sell my collection off before going to college, I didn't take my time with it. I just made the decision, called up a couple of dealers & took the best offer. And yeah, I realized what a mistake I'd made pretty damned quickly. The part of my collection that I missed the most though? The title that a just couple of days later I distinctly remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling like I'd just been punched in the stomach over? My AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run. It wasn't complete, but it was my absolute favorite. I had from #6 to #203. And, after taking 30 years to finally get over the loss of my collection, I just woke up one day & decided to start from scratch & begin collecting comics again in 2010. And, ASM soon became my chief focus just like in the good ol' days. Only at the moment, I'm just working my way back toward a run of #200 to present/this month's forthcoming #700.

Ouch. All my regrets are monetary, not because I miss the comic. Now see, we'd be great pals 'cause I'm the exact opposite. Although I sure could use the $$$ value of my original comic collection, honestly, I'd MUCH rather have the books back in my possession.

Back in the early part of 2008 when my midlife crisis just began to kick into effect a bit, is when I began to seriously consider putting forth an effort to reacquire some of those many beloved lost things that I sold back before I began college in 1980 when I was 18 & sold off my comic book collection & the majority of my monster magazine collection ( keeping only my FANGORIA & CINEFANTASTIQUE collections as I continued on with the latter until it's demise & enjoy my complete run of Fango right up to it's current issue ). At that point in time, when the idea of ever beginning to collect comics again still seemed absurd to me, I decided to purchase a couple/few issues of Calvin Beck's CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. With the idea that if I enjoyed it as much as I thought I might, I'd try to put together a full run of all 25 issues plus it's lone annual issue. And, I did enjoy it. VERY much so. So, I set out to put together said complete run, figuring it would take me about a year or so to do so. But, a funny thing happened on my way to that full Beck run... While spending time searching for issues of CoF on ebay, I began REALLY attracted to all those old issues of FM that I used to own as well. As well as to those that had escaped my clutches in my youth. So, I began to purchase some of those as well. Then, by about the midway point of 2010 is when my midlife crisis REALLY hit me full force. So, there I was at 48, sitting there on my laptop when I spotted a story about Dark Horse's release of a new version of another old Warren fav of mine in CREEPY. And, I just dropped everything & headed to the nearest comic shop, one just a mile or so down the road from my place to seek out a copy of CREEPY #1. And my intentions were to do JUST that. But, once I got inside said LCS I wound up buying a stack of comics. And have been doing so every week since then as well as making online back issue purchases. All this while continuing with my CoF collection ( which I completed in 2010 ) & still getting the occasional issue of FM too as well. Jim

Man, I'll tell you what, I used to LOVE this magazine! Much more so than it's regular color comic counterpart in MASTER OF KUNG FU. In fact, I had a letter published in one of the subsequent issues to this initial DEADLY HANDS. In the end, I wound up with a complete collection of the title. Between this B & W , the magazine FIGHTING STARS & all the "chop socky" films that were running in theaters, at drive ins & on television, I was just about CRAZED with "Kung Fu Fever" back then in the early to mid '70s when I was 12, 13, 14 years old. So much so that they inspired me to begin instruction at a local Karate studio. An old school Okinawan school that I stayed with for several months before switching to another style of Karate, then Tae Kwon Do & finally Judo. And while I collected a nice little collection of colored belts during those couple/three years, I never truly connected with anything until I began boxing at 17 in '78. Which led to an amateur career of 27 fights & then, later, a brief pro career. All via the initial inspiration of THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU. I even returned to `the more traditional martial arts when I segued during the last couple years of my boxing career into cross training in kickboxing. Which eventually led me to earning a long coveted black belt in Hawaiian Kempo. Jim

I finally got some cash together in order to fill in some holes in my ASM collection. Nothing outstanding, but some definite keys like #252 are among the 20 - 25 issues I got. So, I'm happy.

Since my wife & I separated in July & I've moved into my own apartment, I've got PLENTY of time to read now without any of the distractions that used to slow my reading rate down to a crawl. And, I've been putting it to good use. I love John Connolly's Charlie Parker series of thrillers, but although I'd kept current on buying the novels, I was actually about three books behind on my reading. So, I spent the first couple of weeks catching up on those. Then, I read a horror novel called BLOODMAN from a debuting author & it was alright. Nothing spectacular, but not a waste of time either. Now, I'm closing in on the end of THE BREACH. It's the first book in a series a novels by Patrick Lee that I suppose you'd call "techno-thrillers". A genre which previously, I'd never had any interest in whatsoever ( I'm a horror & hard boiled fiction reader predominantly ), the when I'd picked this one up at a used bookstore a while back it's premise on the back cover just reached out & grabbed me, so I got it & it's follow up. And now, since I've blazed through this first one pretty much non-stop ( until getting online that is ), I know that I've got to get that third book in the series ASAP. 'Cause, it's gripping, FAST paced stuff.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. Big kudos to you for assembling the complete runs of Cinefantastique. I'd love to put together one myself, but man, I've got so many different collections going between my comics, my magazines, my books, my Blu Rays... All, on a budget that'd be lucky to support one decent collection, much less several. But, I get by JUST enough to satisfy my needs ( or, at least enough to keep that insatiably hungry maw known as my Desire For More Stuff fed enough to keep me sane... ). In doing so, I have to make compromises that I can live with. Now, a couple of years ago, I COULDN'T live without assembling a complete collection of all the issues of Calvin Beck's original run of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. It was a magazine that I'd loved as a kid, but due to it's wacky schedule & spotty at best distribution,, I only ever got my hands on a grand total of ONE issue back then. So, when my midlife crisis hit me a couple of years back & I made the decision to forgo all the usual boring stuff like having an affair with a younger woman & buying a sports car, I figured I'd REALLY go nuts instead by beginning to collect some of the stuff that I'd enjoyed so much in my youth. Like, monster magazines & comic books. With my quest for said run of CoF starting things off. At first, I'd hoped to complete it in a year or so, but it wound up taking me closer to three because I was picky about what I paid for each issue & I got sidetracked by some really nice deals on several issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS & then, comics. But, no matter, I accomplished what I set out to do. Which was cool. As for Cinefantastique, I have the issues that I collected years ago of course, but there are still several issues that I'd like to ad to my collection. Like THE EXORCIST issue & a few others. But, especially that one. It was one that I'd always meant to order from the back issue archives, but never got 'round to. OK, I suppose I've gone on & on quite enough for now. Peace. - Jim

Hey, let's hear it for the Aspergers folks in the house! Seriously. I went undiagnosed for fourty some odd years & then when my youngest daughter Autumn Myst was diagnosed, I was tested & suddenly EVERYTHING made sense. My frequent stoicism, my OCD, my ADD, my legion of eccentricities ... You name it. Luckily, her & I are very high functioning Aspergers. And... I just rambled on about it to probably discover that you were only joking about yourself, right? If so, no worries. Neither my daughter nor myself are the least bit sensitive about it & ( contrary to the "humorless" stereotype that Aspergers folks often get labeled with ) are the always first ones to be self deprecating about it.

Oh yeah, it was seriously in depth stuff for a genre movie magazine. I know a lot of folks from that era actually found CFTQ a bit "stuffy". And, I can definitely see why. It, as a whole, could be pretty pretentious in that they'd often devote an entire massive DOUBLE issue to a film, covering it's production in seemingly every possible detail, only to tear that very same film to shreds in a review in the very next issue. LMAO. I, however, loved to immerse myself in the minute details of the films that I enjoyed. And, no one came close to offering that. Not to mention that their retrospective were often awesome things to behold. So, after getting my hands on my first couple of issues, I made sure that I asked my Mom for a subscription to it. Something that she made sure to keep up for me in the form of birthday gifts right up through into my 20s. And, I kept up with it right up until it changed format into that damned generic, mass market appeal format that it took at the end of it's run. Once it adopted that, I was done with it. Anyhow, hey, thanks for the warm welcome here. - Jim

Wow. Talk about chagrined. I've been frequenting this site for over two years now ( ever since I got back into comic collecting after a "brief" 30 year hiatus following my brilliant decision to quit & then sell off my collection before college at 18 in 1980 ), but never thought to venture outside of the General Comics Discussion area until about an hour ago. And it's great. Especially this thread. Having been born in 1961, I guess I'm among the "second wave" of Monster Kids. From my very earliest memories I had a fascination for all things monsters & spooky. With THE MUNSTERS & THE ADDAMS FAMILY being right up there as my favorite TV shows, with only BATMAN & THE INVADERS rivaling them for my attention. And, the VERY first movie that I can actually recall watching in it's entirety was a late night showing of Bava's classic BLACK SUNDAY that i stayed up & watched with my parents when I was a lad of just five years. It was one of many, many more thrillers & chillers that I spent the next several years watching at 11:30 every Friday night on our local ( Buffalo, NY area ) channel 7's FRIGHT NIGHT THEATRE. Anyhow, being such a thorough Monster Kid, I, of course, made certain that my Mom bought me every issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS that I could find as well as a plethora of all sorts of comics & magazines like CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA, HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, MONSTERS ON THE PROWL, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE & so on & so forth. This all led me into expanding my interests to include superhero titles as well & becoming a serious comic book collector by the time I was ten. But, in doing so, my interest in monsters & horror never wavered. Fast forward to 1979 when FANGORIA #1 hit the newsstands & it was, of course, love at first sight. Actually, I'd been waiting months & months for it as it was announced as forthcoming in the pages of STARLOG. Only ( something that no one seems to recall & it isn't even mentioned in Fango's own official history, but I SWEAR it's true & that it can be verified in those old issues of STARLOG ) back then, it was announced under the title MONSTER INVASION. And then, the date of publication came & went with no such magazine ever arriving on the shelves & after a while ANOTHER ad appeared in STARLOG for FANTASTICA. Complete with a full mock up of that iconic image of Godzilla on the cover. And, then THAT date that was listed came & went, with no such magazine... Finally, one Saturday afternoon that summer when I went to pick up that week's comics at the shop, there it was. Only now, it was under some new, strange title that I wasn't even sure how to pronounce at first. So, about a year later when I'd decided to sell off my comic collection, I also made the decision to part with my entire monster magazine collection as well. All my old ones that is. Since I was so "cool & mature" now ( ), I decided that the only genre magazines that I needed to keep were my current favorites at that time CINEFANTASTIQUE & Fango. So, I sold off my FAMOUS MONSTERS, CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEINS, THE MONSTER TIMES etc.. Again, my interest & love for horror never wavered though & I continued buying/collecting FANGORIA from that summer of '79 right up until... well, now. I never stopped & my complete collection of Fango is one of my prized possessions. Oh, I won't lie. There were some periods of time when I came PRETTY close to stopping. In fact, the time when I came closest was only fairly recently, during a couple of year stretch from about 2006 - 2009 when I wasn't even bothering to read the issues when I purchased them. I'd just bag 'em, board 'em & put 'em away. I just didn't enjoy the magazine anymore & only kept up the collection 'cause #300 was approaching fast. I figured that would be my jumping off point. A funny thing happened on the way though. Chris Alexander took over as editor & I saw some interesting things on the cover & a new approach that piqued my interest enough to begin reading it again & I haven't stopped. I'm actually back to looking forward to each new issue again. HORRORHOUND had become my new favorite genre magazine & remained in that position for a couple/three years running. But, Fango has improved so much now that they're really running neck & neck these days with me not being able to choose between the two of them. They're BOTH #1 to me. Peace. - Jim