I still feel pretty cruddy, but not so cruddy that I can't write a little.

So, let me babble about my history of comics collecting.

Like many people, I'm started and stopped collecting comics more than once. From childhood to, dunno, 12 or 13, something like that, I kept myself a comics collection; then I discovered girls and decided comics were just for kiddies, and got rid of them all.

I started collecting again a year or two later (about 15, I guess), trying to rebuy all of the comics that I had gotten rid of. Smart, eh? I also, at that stage, since I now had some kind of an allowance, started buying stuff that long pre-dated me (we'll get to that in a minute)

Somewhere around 19 I decided I needed cash (probably for weed, is my guess), so I sold a bunch of my back issues, then somewhere around 20 I bought a bunch of them back YET AGAIN (what can I say, I was stupid)

Finally, when I was 21 I opened the store, which means I took pretty much ALL of my back issues and used them as my starting stock.

What this means is there are some comics that I bought 2 or 3 times, at various points in my life, sheesh!

Where this is leading is that I have learned to completely and totally adore the super cheap huge-ass black and white collections of classic comics like the Marvel Essentials, or the DC Showcase volumes.

One of my favorite runs of all is the original LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. At one point, I had something approaching 95% of them (just missing the first half-dozen appearances in ADVENTURE, I guess), so today's recommendation is SHOWCASE PRESENTS: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES v1 -- I would have totally saved HUNDREDS of dollars in buying those issues again and again (and that in 80s dollars!)

What I love about the Legion is the wide-eyed optimistic vision of the future that it presents -- it is all uptopia, baby, with teenagers from dozens of worlds, with dozens of mad and fantastic powers, all coming together to protect their shiny, fin-covered future.

And there's something over 30 different stories in this book, for like $17 -- what a damn deal!

I love this stuff, and you should too!

-b