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Why am I here…In the Comics business?

Amazing Fantasy #15 introduces Spider-Man to the world in 1963

Spider-Man pushes aside the usual Monthly Monster and steals the show, and makes history. Scan of a copy I sold a year ago.

Because I was born at the right time to make me just the right age to start reading comics at the best time since they were invented. It was kismet! But I had to fight an uphill battle against social stigma, economic hardship, and the most formidable enemy of all…

My mom didn’t like comics. She had probably read the “news” stories before I was born connecting comics with juvenile delinquency. Both my parents were very simple, very frugal, and they were mildly disapproving of “worldly” influences of pop culture and such. She did not allow playing cards, you know, the kind with kings and queens on them. Neither of them drank. My mom’s worst vice was candy. She taught me to love circus peanuts, chocolate, those round pink mints with 4 x’s on them. It was against her wishes that I started to involve myself in training for my very future career. I was a pretty good student and went to a well-respected private college, took the pre-med program with a degree in Biology. Within a year of graduating, I was starting down the road to comic book “investing” and retailing. But, you may ask, how did it happen? Or why? Well, I’ll tell ya…..

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Lunch, a walk, an eclipse, and starting a blog

Sitting at the back door of the College, with the house.

 

Yesterday was my last day at NRG, the country-wide spinoff of our local power company, NSP. They were sort of an Enron wannabe, dealing in global futures and building power plants from New Jersey to South America. Accountemps placed me there in the summer of 2001 and in early September, they told me they were going to pay the buyout fee and hire me permanently. Then the Enron scandal hit, their bonds were down-graded, they instituted a hiring freeze, and they started the inexorable slide into bankruptcy. Yesterday, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I had to stay an extra hour (unpaid – timesheet already signed for 5pm) to leave my mess of now obsolete (like me) files a little more manageable for the next unfortunate minion to touch them. It was also the day they had the big nation-wide conference call with the employees about the bankruptcy hanging over our heads for about a year. Not my problem anymore. I hope my few remaining comrades survive and remain in good spirits.

A warning: If run-on sentences drive you crazy, don’t click that “READ MORE” or “CONTINUED” link!

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