How thePike came to be...
Moderators: Daniel Jackson, greg
How thePike came to be...
Actually, I've never really read this part of the forum. But I'm bored, and apparently so are most of you, so here's my tale of comic-dom...
I read my first comics in 1991 (I was in 5th grade at the time) and one of the guys in class had some comics that he'd loan out at recess so I tried some and liked the stories (as I recall the issues were the later New Mutants issues 90+). From there I started collecting my own books and was on full steam for the boom thats was the early-mid 90's (back when I was beggin mom for my weekly trip to the comic store to get more books).
I remember the first Valiant I ever noticed on the shelf - Solar #10. Back then, I read Marvel only, probably because of the availability in every gas station & grocery store. When I started actually going to comic-shops I saw this book with it's pure black cover on the shelf and thought "this is pretty cool" so I snatched it up and gave it a read...
Unfotunately, I was unimpressed by what I had and think I traded it for a couple of Sleepwalker comics at school >insert b!tchslapping smile here<. The issue, as a standalone not having read any other comics in the series, just didn't hit me much and I didn't pick up another Valiant title for a little while after that. I remember that I had seen a lot of the activity about Valiant back issues in Wizard and the speculator in me thought I ought to give it another try, if everyone is buying it, then there has to be something to it, right?
As I recall I saw advertisements for the "New Direction" in Magnus #21 (and I do specifically remembering talking to my friends on how any one could get into a comic about a man in a red dress?) so I made sure I got that issue when it came out. That was the first Valiant story that I really liked and continued to read until after the Malev War ended. As that story line progressed I started picking up more and more Valiant titles at the LCS and getting into it more and more. At the time, the early Pre-Unity stuff was going for a premium so I never managed to get those stories except for the X-O and Harby TPB which I thought both were super impressive.
Unfortunately, Chaos Effect happened and I started loosing interest in comics (they just weren't as entertaining anymore). I went on to graduate High School and joined the US Navy in 1998.
Skip a few years for basic and advanced training in the Chicago area - never bought a single comic book.
It wasn't until I returned from my first deployment in late 2000 (a Western Pacific Deployment including Hawaii, Austrailia, Thailand, Singapore, Perisan Gulf, and others) and had a lot of downtime with a lot of boredom that I discovered e-bay. I was looking for something to read and noticed that a lot of the comic books from childhood were selling at uber-low prices, so I snatched up the whole Unity Saga, & some full runs to give me some reading material. Being a little older and a tad more mature I realised that the early stories were absolutely incredible, and had a greater love for Valiant stories. Unfortunately though, more deployments for the Navy caused me send all my books home to sit in a closet and collecting was forgotten about for the most part. I would occasionally purchase an X-Men book at a bookstore in the states if I were so inclined, but nothing regular or intentional.
1 deployments, 1 Sept 11th Tragedy, and then 2 more deployments later I was finally at the end of my Tenure as a sailor and headed home from Seattle to Tennessee a free man (funny how that contrasts to man being released from Prison after a long stay). Got home, and started college at Tennessee Technological University just to be jerked back after one semester to be deployed to Mainland Iraq with the US Navy Seabees. A year later, I'm back at home starting school again for the second time. Well, I took on a roommate for about a year and when he moved out I reclaimed the room he was taking up as my 'lounge' a broke all of my old comics out of the closet thinking "I forgot I even had these". Started flipping through them and got hooked all over again...
I was looking on e-bay for some more old Valiant stuff one day when I noticed one of the auctions mentioned that "Valiant is making a comeback". I did the standard google search trying to get more info which lead me to here. I lurked for a couple weeks to get the feel of if this place was legit or just a bunch of guys that lived with their parents reliving the glory days and like what I saw. The announcement that Valiant was returning gave me that feeling that I got way back in the 90's when I'd walk into a comic shop and I'm loving ever second of it.
As for this community, I'm loving it. I like being able to get good deals on books I want, as well as am very glad that the average member here is somewhat more mature (okay, maybe mature isn't the greatest word to use - lets say "older") and reading the posts is much easier on the mind than most of the useless dribble found on boards like Marvel.com, newsarama.com, or just about every other one I've seen. I absolutely love the charity drives as well, as comics are good, but helping others is even better.
So here I sit. I'm a 27 year old, 7 year Naval Veteran with 5 overseas deployments and 1 Iraq Tour. I'm currently a college student at Tennessee Technological Univeristy majoring in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminal Justice (closest my University comes to a true CJ degree). I'm a reserve Sheriffs Deputy for my County and I'm currently working on getting a Job with either the local Game Wardens or Campus Police (whichever works out first) and hope to go to either the State or Federal level of Law Enforcement in a little over a year when I graduate.
But I do love my Comics! Especially my Valiant Comics! (all 1600 of them approximately)
Sorry that I haven't put this up until now, just never browsed this part of the forum much...
I read my first comics in 1991 (I was in 5th grade at the time) and one of the guys in class had some comics that he'd loan out at recess so I tried some and liked the stories (as I recall the issues were the later New Mutants issues 90+). From there I started collecting my own books and was on full steam for the boom thats was the early-mid 90's (back when I was beggin mom for my weekly trip to the comic store to get more books).
I remember the first Valiant I ever noticed on the shelf - Solar #10. Back then, I read Marvel only, probably because of the availability in every gas station & grocery store. When I started actually going to comic-shops I saw this book with it's pure black cover on the shelf and thought "this is pretty cool" so I snatched it up and gave it a read...
Unfotunately, I was unimpressed by what I had and think I traded it for a couple of Sleepwalker comics at school >insert b!tchslapping smile here<. The issue, as a standalone not having read any other comics in the series, just didn't hit me much and I didn't pick up another Valiant title for a little while after that. I remember that I had seen a lot of the activity about Valiant back issues in Wizard and the speculator in me thought I ought to give it another try, if everyone is buying it, then there has to be something to it, right?
As I recall I saw advertisements for the "New Direction" in Magnus #21 (and I do specifically remembering talking to my friends on how any one could get into a comic about a man in a red dress?) so I made sure I got that issue when it came out. That was the first Valiant story that I really liked and continued to read until after the Malev War ended. As that story line progressed I started picking up more and more Valiant titles at the LCS and getting into it more and more. At the time, the early Pre-Unity stuff was going for a premium so I never managed to get those stories except for the X-O and Harby TPB which I thought both were super impressive.
Unfortunately, Chaos Effect happened and I started loosing interest in comics (they just weren't as entertaining anymore). I went on to graduate High School and joined the US Navy in 1998.
Skip a few years for basic and advanced training in the Chicago area - never bought a single comic book.
It wasn't until I returned from my first deployment in late 2000 (a Western Pacific Deployment including Hawaii, Austrailia, Thailand, Singapore, Perisan Gulf, and others) and had a lot of downtime with a lot of boredom that I discovered e-bay. I was looking for something to read and noticed that a lot of the comic books from childhood were selling at uber-low prices, so I snatched up the whole Unity Saga, & some full runs to give me some reading material. Being a little older and a tad more mature I realised that the early stories were absolutely incredible, and had a greater love for Valiant stories. Unfortunately though, more deployments for the Navy caused me send all my books home to sit in a closet and collecting was forgotten about for the most part. I would occasionally purchase an X-Men book at a bookstore in the states if I were so inclined, but nothing regular or intentional.
1 deployments, 1 Sept 11th Tragedy, and then 2 more deployments later I was finally at the end of my Tenure as a sailor and headed home from Seattle to Tennessee a free man (funny how that contrasts to man being released from Prison after a long stay). Got home, and started college at Tennessee Technological University just to be jerked back after one semester to be deployed to Mainland Iraq with the US Navy Seabees. A year later, I'm back at home starting school again for the second time. Well, I took on a roommate for about a year and when he moved out I reclaimed the room he was taking up as my 'lounge' a broke all of my old comics out of the closet thinking "I forgot I even had these". Started flipping through them and got hooked all over again...
I was looking on e-bay for some more old Valiant stuff one day when I noticed one of the auctions mentioned that "Valiant is making a comeback". I did the standard google search trying to get more info which lead me to here. I lurked for a couple weeks to get the feel of if this place was legit or just a bunch of guys that lived with their parents reliving the glory days and like what I saw. The announcement that Valiant was returning gave me that feeling that I got way back in the 90's when I'd walk into a comic shop and I'm loving ever second of it.
As for this community, I'm loving it. I like being able to get good deals on books I want, as well as am very glad that the average member here is somewhat more mature (okay, maybe mature isn't the greatest word to use - lets say "older") and reading the posts is much easier on the mind than most of the useless dribble found on boards like Marvel.com, newsarama.com, or just about every other one I've seen. I absolutely love the charity drives as well, as comics are good, but helping others is even better.
So here I sit. I'm a 27 year old, 7 year Naval Veteran with 5 overseas deployments and 1 Iraq Tour. I'm currently a college student at Tennessee Technological Univeristy majoring in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminal Justice (closest my University comes to a true CJ degree). I'm a reserve Sheriffs Deputy for my County and I'm currently working on getting a Job with either the local Game Wardens or Campus Police (whichever works out first) and hope to go to either the State or Federal level of Law Enforcement in a little over a year when I graduate.
But I do love my Comics! Especially my Valiant Comics! (all 1600 of them approximately)
Sorry that I haven't put this up until now, just never browsed this part of the forum much...
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