ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!
Welcome to the 1-year anniversary of the Why I Love Comics
column as well as my 1-year anniversary with the site. Truth be told, with how
much I write sometimes, I didn't even realize how fast this was coming up. I can
remember pitching my first column to Chuck and talking about how I thought I'd
do great with the site.
I can run through the list of creators and cool things I've done for the site,
from interviewing Brian Michael Bendis in New York to covering the
Re-Animator controversy, I've had a blast so far. I really honestly have to
thank all the friends I've made from the site's very own Bill Gladman (who I
have a project coming out with very soon that will be hitting the site), to Ron
Fortier, who is an absolutely brilliant storyteller. If you ever have the
pleasure to sit down and talk with him you'll definitely have a blast. John
Wilson, Liam Bradley, Brant Fowler, Cary Kelley, and the list just keeps going.
Then thinking back on all these creator commentaries I realize that I think of
most of the guys I get to talk to monthly as friends, and I love supporting the
smaller books that I know deliver the content every single month. From Tony
Bedard's R.E.B.E.L.S. to Alex Grecian and Proof, I know that it
adds another level to the comic that you'd never get without the internet.
Going on I really wouldn't change anything in how things have gone. I have a few
major projects in the works, which people will be seeing really soon, as well as
being able to report on one of my favorite music genres ever. Chuck really has a
great site and we are all lucky to write for it.
So for this very special edition of the column I figured I'd let you readers in
on my collection and show you a bit of a behind the scenes look of where I store
my comics, my taste in video games and movies and probably my favorite things of
all time. So here we go!
The door to my room in the house where a painting of Nny, Jhonen Vasquez's character resides. My friend Brittany Castonguay (http://www.flickr.com/photos/19735591@N02/)-- I hope to get her at least on a cover for me one of these days because she's amazingly talented. She actually did a Hal Jordan back when we were still in high school for fun.
Seriously she's been wanting to do a webcomic for ages and I hope she gets to do it. She actually did the painting for my graduation/birthday party my senior year of high school and I've had it ever since.
The back wall of my room... I love my pirate flag because it's awesome. Seriously how can you hate on the skull and crossbones with an eye patch... just screams awesome! Not to mention the awesome Dummy's Guide to Danger banner that appeared on television that good friend Joe Eisma sent me. Everyone probably saw it in a previous picture that Chuck put as my profile one. I highly recommend people pick up both volumes of the book as it's a fun detective story with a dummy that might or might not be a figment of the lead character's imagination; whether or not he's alive I mean.
I get to the comic shop one day and Dave gives me that Runaways poster out of nowhere, I've had the Fight Club one for a while as it's always going to be one of my favorite movies. But it was a cool little treat to get that Runaways poster as not only is it one of my favorite series, but Adrian and BKV (Brian K. Vaughan) were truly one of the best creative teams to come along in a long time. I don't want to rant too much on that as Runaways will get a column dedicated to it very soon.
Character designs for The Doombug and Xen done years ago by the awesome artist Jon Salwen of www.bludblood.com whom I wish I talked to more often. I still consider Jude and Jon good friends, and they gave me my first big column. I'm not sure exactly what the future versions of the characters will look like but that's what Jon thought they would look like. I really love that skull cap though. We'll see what happens with the designs by a different artist in the future.
A little blurry yes but that would be a statue of Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight and I wanted it since I first saw it at New York Comic-Con two years ago. It's a spot on re-creation and stares at me all creepily as I type all my columns up. Seriously, that damn thing could give you nightmares. He truly deserved that Oscar, though, as he brought the Joker everyone knows to life. Sadly, it stayed at the shop far too long and I will always feel bad about that.
This is where I store all my comics, a huge old medical filing cabinet, and let me tell you, this thing stores a lot in it. 5 shelves in all.
The first shelf is all Marvel and is comprised of all the Avengers books, all the events from the last few years, the Hulk books, Runaways and Incredible Hercules. The second shelf has all the X-Men books, exiles, fantastic four, thor, thunderbolts punisher and a few other books. 3rd shelf is all dC: trinity, 52, infinity and final crisis, JSA, JLA and random series. 4th shelf has indie books like Invincible and Wolf-Man as well as the Batman books, secret six, wonder woman and a few other DC books including my huge green lantern collection. The 5th and final shelf has hack/slash, the boys, the Spider-Man books, a whole slew of indie books and my Deadpool collection. There are a few things that didn't fit of course which are actually on top of the cabinet in 2 long boxes.
My video game collection. Every game on that list there I have beat, except for call of duty 4....yeah I know but the damn thing is hard! From Bioshock to Mass Effect I call myself a well-rounded gamer. I enjoy anything with fun gameplay and a good story. Which, by the way, Bioshock blows everything else out of the story with. Though Mass Effect I am replaying so I can save the council... because I felt bad about letting them die in the first play through. Oh, and see towards the bottom there? Yeah The Darkness game? highly underrated... the multiplayer is horrible but the solo story was wrote by Paul Jenkins and is the reason I got pulled into The Darkness in the first place.
Other games to really talk about being Fallout 3 where I really am probably the best good guy you could possibly be. Sometimes I slip like accidently killing an old lady but what can you do? GTA 4 probably had the best story of a grand theft auto game ever. It really pulled me in and was the first time I ever actually beat a GTA game. Oh and Left 4 Dead; I love playing as the infected, not to mention the game is actually practically impossible to beat on insane [level]. Seriously, try it by yourself. You can't.
I honestly don't collect a lot of figures, only the ones of my favorite characters. Though, as you can see, I have a tiny collection of the Minimates. I totally can't resist those little guys as I think they are fun little art toys. I do have the cool collectors edition "Mr. Bubbles" from Bioshock as well as the aqua teen hunger force set and the special Jason Todd figure from Hush. Not really noticeable in the picture to the side is my new Sandman figure, which is really, really cool. Not to mention little Hawkeye and Captain America, and the young avengers, plus Ghoul from, well, if you know what Ghoul is from your an old school comic fan. Very early '90s, Ultraforce. I remember growing up on the cartoon and used to have a figure, so I bought a new one as I was really excited when I found it. I even bought the full comic collection, which honestly was a bit weaker then the animated series.
First shot of some of my tpb collection. I have the huge hardcover Alex Ross Mythology book that gives you insight into all his DC work. I got that to help me with my fine arts project on him my junior year. It's a really beautiful collection. Mostly Marvel stuff there from Spider-Man to the marvel vs. dC trade which spawned Amalgam. The Hulk Legends and Wolverine Legends books I'd recommend highly. The Hulk one has beautiful skott kollins artwork and the Wolverine one has Alex Summers and Logan going on a road trip and craziness ensues. Of course also visible there are 2 of the League of Extraordinary Gentleman volumes, which I still say is Alan Moore's best work. Oh, and it took me until my freshman year of high school to read Watchmen....which is just a horrible fact. I reread it my senior year and had much more appreciation of it. Earth X is just plain awesome too and to me knowledge started the Jim Kreuger/Alex Ross team up. Oh and there's a tiny little HERO trade there as for whatever reason, only one trade was put out. Definitely worth reading as it's really underrated.
It's crazy the amount of indie stuff I now own. From Dead@17 to Hack/Slash and Scott Pilgrim. Oh, and the Middleman. I give a lot of books chances and it pays off in the long run as they become my favorite things. In the middle there is BKV's awesome Escapists mini as well as Identity Crisis (signed by Rags Morales) and Looking for Group volume 1. You can really see just how well-rounded a reader I've become.
A better shot of the other side of the trades. Plus my favorite Mike Allred work of all time being none other then Red Rocket 7! JSA: stealing thunder was what pulled me back into the DCU and is probably flat out one of my favorite DC stories of all times. Thanks to Rags Morales and Geoff Johns I was pulled back into DC comics and now I'd say they are in a constant battle with Marvel on my pull list.
My DVD collection, which really is almost as diverse as my comic collection. If you look really closely you can see that I own the special edition to Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's awesome horror trilogy evil dead. I own the very rare Bruce Campbell vs the Army of Darkness version of Army of Darkness, which has a bit more content and is definitely worth hunting down. For those in the know, it's also my favorite movie of all time. I have the full Aqua Teen Hunger Force collection including the movie, as well as Venture Brothers, Flight of the Conchords, Titus, Mystery Men, All 3 Spider-Mans, the fantastic four movies (which get a lot more hate then they really should - they have a certain charm to them and the tone that a Fantastic Four movie should have). Honestly though, my favorite stuff there happens to be Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Army of Darkness, Waxwork 2: Lost In Time, Phantasm, Donnie Darko, Big trouble in little china and really the cult stuff.
The Invincible ultimate library collection is made of so much awesomeness that it's not even funny. Robert Kirkman packed it with extra content an it will take you like a full day to get through everything in it. Same with the Madman Gargantuan, which sadly doesn't have bonus content but is worth the price of the collection. [Mike Allred's] X-Force run is how I found out about Madman, and I'm loving the hell out of those Starman Omnibuses. Plus look at how pretty that Strange Embrace hardcover is.
The beautiful collection of the first volume of Runaways, which has a fun
letter from joss whedon from
issue 18. Not to mention Grant Morrison's full
new x-men epic, which I
can remember reading excitedly as it came out, which is why I had to own it. Not
to mention Powers, which is a great crime super hero book, and the
Hawkeye hardcover, which has some of his and Bobbi's first appearances. Also
on that shelf is Kevin Smith's green
arrow run with friend Phil hester and Neil Gaiman's 1602.
So that's a lot of my collection really. Everything that I can really show you
guys. I hope you enjoyed this tour of some of my collection and it's been a
great first year here with
comicrelated.com. We are trying very hard to get the Why I Love
column weekly again as well as some other stuff coming out of the woodwork. So
it's been fun and here's to another year with the site!
Eric Ratcliffe is a young writer/pop culture journalist/interviewer currently working on pitching a project named The Hunter Chronicles. When not reading his weekly stack Eric can be found watching DVDs, playing on his X-Box 360 (gamertag: Zack Hunter) or just surfing online trying to find a scoop or two. Part of the Comic Related family, Eric is a fun voice. Eric shops at TJ's Collectibles. Visit them on the web at www.tjcollect.com!
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