Free Comic Book Day 2006
April 29, 2006 | 15 Comments
Free Comic Book Day is next Saturday (May 6, 2006). Even if you aren’t normally a comic book reader, you should plan to attend this because you may not know what you’re missing. This is your opportunity to find out.
The lineup of what is available this year is pretty impressive. The offering from Marvel is primarily an X-Men/Runaways crossover, but the issue also contains Ultimate Spider-Man, Franklin Richards, and a preview of upcoming title Marvel Adventures: Mighty Avengers.
For those of us in northern New Hampshire, Geeks and Gamers will be participating so you have no excuse not to check it out. For anyone else, the Free Comic Book Day site has a locator for participating stores in your area.
Tags: comic book, comic books, franklin richards, free, geeks and gamers, runaways, spider-man, spiderman, ultimate spiderman, x-men, XMen
Rekindled Spider-Man Interest
November 19, 2004 | 5 Comments
As a kid I was a big comic book fan. I read a whole pile of random stuff, but I eventually found myself most intrigued by Spider-Man. Something about his balance of troubled real life and super powered hero life kept my attention, like many others. Anyway, I went on to subscribe to “Amazing Spider-Man” for a bunch of years, and additionally sprinkled in a few years subscription of “Spectacular Spider-Man”, “Web of Spider-Man”, and “Spider-Man” Amazing has historically always been the core title for the series. The basic accepted mythology all stems from this title (currently all the way up to #513. I possess #330 consecutively through to #441. At that point the numbering started back at #1 through to #10 or so. At this point I had stopped reading, but hadn’t cancelled my subscription. So, I’m not certain where my numbers stop since I wasn’t paying real close attention at this point. Anyway, when they reached #58 this year, they should really go back to the old numbering with what should be #500. All confusing I realize, but you’ll just have to trust me or go look it up yourself.
A few years ago, just before the new movie came out, I began to start thinking about ol’ spidey again. I dusted off my old comics, read through a bunch, and decided to reup my subscription to Amazing. I read a few issues, but realized two things. First, I was a bit out of it, times had changed, the story had progressed and I was lost. Second, I wasn’t hugely fond of the artwork currently being presented. Ahh, but there was a glimmer of hope!
While trying to search down some back story info I discovered a fantastic website all about Spidey, and extremely thorough, SpiderFan.org. On their site they had an article about another comic, Spider-Girl. I bought an issue and was immediately hooked. Here was the great story telling and art I remembered from Marvel! I then found a paperback that compiled #1-5, unfortunately it isn’t the best quality and is a bit small. Oh well, my main desire is to read the stories, so I guess it’ll have to do.
At this point I was sucked back into the Marvel Universe and wanted to know what other new series were Spider-Man associated and good to read. I picked up a Spectacular and read an online version of Ultimate Spider-Man. Spectacular has an art style I really dislike, and the storyline didn’t seem to fit into any reality I was familiar with. I just couldn’t get accustomed, so I put it aside. The Ultimate series suffered similar confusion for me, but I could see that they had entirely rebuilt the storyline from the ground up here. It was in fact a retelling of the entire mythology, but with a more modern take. This seemed interesting, and the online reviews were very positive. I was able to pick up a great anthology starting from #1 through to #### in Barnes and Noble. I tore through this in 2 days! The writing, artwork, and remastering of this classic series was amazing. Highly suggested to anyone at all interested in Spider-Man. Now I need to try to get caught up to the current issue by buying as many of the trades as possible.
I then found “Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man, Volume 1″ which is a reprint of Amazing #1-10. It was a lot of fun to read these classics from the 60s. Of course I then had to buy Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4, each containing 10 more issues in succession. This has me convinced that I need to somehow compile the entire Amazing series from #1 all the way up to modern day. Currently the Marvel Masterworks series for Amazing only brings me up through #60. That leaves a gap of 270 issues between there and where my consecutive issues begin. Additionally, there are another 65 or so after my collection ends. The short of it is I have a lot of collecting to do before I can complete this set. My main driving force is to be able to read the story, unabridged, from beginning to end.
The following are some additional compilations I have found that should help me along my way:
Amazing
—————-
MM Vol 5 (41-50)
MM Vol 6 (51-60)
More ASM that might prove useful:
88-92
BO v3 [HC] (2:46-58 & 500)
v2:57-58 & 500-502
503-508
Spider-Girl
—————–
6-11
Ultimate
—————–
ULT HC V4 (40-45 & 47-53)
ULT HC V5 (46 & ULT6 1-7) + V10
=================================================================
Others… But of WAY lower interest/priority…
PPSSM
—————–
2:1-5
2:6-10
2:11-14
Other Others
—————–
Blue
Tags: comics, marvel, marvel comics, spider-girl, spider-man, spidergirl, spiderman, superhero, ultimate spiderman