Without Fear

Found this comic in my stack I use at school recently and promptly brought it home for a few reasons.

One of the main reasons is that sweet Mike Zeck cover. Look at it. His work completely owns my childhood, I could buy an Artist’s Edition of his G.I. Joe covers alone. His figures and his layout always look so dynamic and iconic. Just so boldly superb, confident.
The second, more mild, reason was because it’s starting to fall apart. I can tell when a comic is about to lose its cover. I usually let most of the school comics meet a happy demise in the sweaty hand of some little educational urchin but this I took because of the cover, and I wanted to read it.
But it got me thinking, I have no problem accepting this comic back into the personal/home fold. It’s not Near Mint but it’s mine, and it’s still fun, and I don’t care if comics get damaged.
I’ve stopped bagging and boarding because in the end, I’m only buying stuff I want to read, so I keep around only the comics that I’ll want to flip through, and so the comics stay out and then get loosely sorted together – I think, truth be told, I haven’t sorted my comic pile in at least 9-15 months.
But all this got me thinking about how pristine we keep our comics and why. Are people really thinking they can resell these later and turn a mad profit? Pay for their kids schooling? C’mon, no way. So then we B+B just to look after our things, cool, I get that, but I couldn’t be bothered, truly.
I like a good comic hanging out the back pocket. I like a comic that’s been in bags and passed around, and well worn and loved. I want you to fold your comic and slot it into your back pocket, especially if it’s a book you’d put at like maybe 3.5 stars on the review-o-tron, or below. If it’s just some Marvel character then read it and share it, take it with you, send it with someone else.
I have some comics in the middles of runs where my son, as a baby, decimated the issues with water across them, or just grabbed them and squeezed them like diamonds might result from the pressure. I got plenty of comics with problems but really all I’ve got is stories I’ve dug on.