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Hello. I am new to this site but not that new to Valiant Comics. I first learned of Valiant's existence because as a kid I was really into videogames (I still play my old gaming consoles extensively and continue to collect them - particularly the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, but I know hardly nothing about current games...the last time I bought a new console was 2005). But back when I was younger I was big into renting NES stuff, so my parents bought me some of those Valiant Nintendo comics, which I read until they basically fell apart (one reason I came to this site is I saw the buying/selling section, and when I get paid in two weeks I was planning on asking about some of those Valiant Nintendo comics to get better condition copies of them if possible).
I really enjoyed those comics, but what intrigued me most were some ads I saw in them of Solar, Man of the Atom and Magnus, Robot Fighter. I loved Solar's design and the robots depicted on the covers of Magnus. I read comics (or rather, learned to read by reading comics - my first comics were all from the '70s that my uncle gave me in the early '90s, my favorite ended up being Jim Starlin's Warlock stuff which amazed me growing up) but I was not a collector, in fact I was pretty young and just had a small allowance I got from my grandfather. I mostly just got what was on newsstands, usually GI Joe and Batman (I think it was 1992 when Batman TAS came out and I started following comics a lot closer after that). I never really saw early Valiant comics anywhere, and when my father would take me to comic stores and I did see them they were usually expensive (sometimes on display on the walls behind the counters). I always said I would buy them one day when I had money. My father realized how comics could be collectible (this was the early '90s after all haha) so he started to encourage me to keep my comics in good shape, took me to comic stores, and he let me buy comic book magazines like Wizard because they had price guides (I still have my issues of Wizard and it is interesting to use them to track the '90s rise and fall). I never cared as much for the collecting part as much as reading neat stories, but I still like the idea of having collections of my own favorite comics (for example, my all time favorite comic is Mark Gruenwald's Quasar and I proudly display it along with some of the more collectible stuff I have even if it is not as sought after). I mostly try to seek out comics with stories that interest me, and I enjoy stories from all genres and countries (translated into English so I can understand it of course), one of my favorite writer/artists is Osamu Tezuka and I currently have all his English translated works (including the rare bilingual stuff).
But the thing is, the rare times when I did get some Valiant stuff, the stories really excited me. A good example is Rai issue 0. This was one of the first non-Nintendo Valiant stories I got a copy of for cheap, and I read it over and over, it was very cool and captured my imagination. As the years went on, Valiant comics dropped in price and I was able to get a few, but still not as many as I would have liked because even with the price drops the comic stores in my area (when they still were in business) really did not drop the early stuff to an affordable amount for my childhood allowance (I remember when Wizard eventually just stopped listing some in their price guides...I was sad when one of my favorites, Rai, disappeared from the listings despite that the comic shops I visited were still selling them for quite a bit, I think it was 1995 or 1996). I continued to gather Valiant comics over the years, and the years started to pass a lot quicker for me because of school work and things like that. Eventually I got all the pre-Unity stuff (except Harbinger which I do not have, but want to get still) and those comics are great. I like pretty much all of it, but the Jim Shooter Solar (I really like Alpha and Omega, still amazes me) and Magnus, and then Rai are my personal favorites.
A few months ago I graduated college and now have a job, so my attention is once again focused back on stuff like collecting all those comics I wanted to as a kid (not just Valiant comics either, there are other ones I am searching for). So that is my Valiant story, I don't really have a good collection or anything (the only real good deal on Valiant I think I ever got was in 2003, the Dynamic Forces alternate cover with certificate and seal of Unity 2000 issue 1 for one dollar), but I really enjoy the comics I do have and hope to get some of the stuff I am missing.
Thanks for reading.
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