It’s National Comic Book Day!

My buddy Marlo Anderson's website NationalDayCalendar.com tells us that today September 25th is National Comic Book Day!

A bittersweet day for a comic fanatic like myself.

Bittersweet, because ever since I was but a wee lad, I have loved superhero comics. Not as collectibles, but as stories you read over and over, Between the ages of 5 and 13, I had hundreds of comics pass through my hands. My best buddy Lowell was the DC guy and I was the Marvel guy. In a nutshell, DC is Superman, Batman, and the Justice League etc; Marvel is Spiderman, Fantastic Four, the Avengers etc.

We would trade comics with a bunch of other kids or hit up rummage sales to find that cheap box of ripped up dog-eared comics. There were no plastic sleeves to cover our comics to keep them in pristine condition. We were just there for the stories and the action! When I got my newspaper money (that's what you called it if you delivered the paper), I'd ride my bike to the Oak Park News Arcade anxious to see what was new on the "spinner rack".

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Which comic would grab your attention enough to get your quarters? I can say the Giant Size Captain Marvel pictured above sure did. I had it at one time and that a Giant Size issue so it was 50 cents!

The bittersweet part?

Well, as a young man grows, he wants to be seen as a man. Back then an Avengers t-shirt or Spiderman folder wasn't going to impress the girls in junior high. So I took my big trash bag filled with trashed comics and threw them in the trash.

My dad told me I'd regret it....and he was right.

Not because I'd like to sell them, but I'd sure like to give them another read.

Excelsior!!