Neverending Games

I'll be frank here, (or Joe, doesn't matter to me) I've always read comics. My mom would bring them to me when I was sick and sometimes she would stop at the Circle K on her way home from work and pick me up the latest Detective or what have you. But I didn't really start collecting until the older guy across the street introduced me to The New Teen Titans. By older, I mean he was in the sixth grade, I was in the fifth. He was practically a grown up... That book just sang to me and that guy showed me all the bad habits I'd have for the rest of my life, bags and backboards, comic shops, dealers, used book stores... It was horrible! Bear in mind that back then, there weren't really any comic shops as we know them now. Mostly you got your comics from drug stores, grocery stores, convenience stores, used book stores and friends who went to all those same places.

I knew of the Teen Titans, I'd read some of the original series here and there and I thought they were pretty cool. Of course, Robin was in it and that's all I really needed to know, but there were some other characters that I really took a shine to as well. Hawk & Dove, the Golden Age Batgirl, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl all became favorites of mine over time, but I just thought they were neat then.

But there was something magic about that NTT issue that Steve showed me. It was issue number 10, not the most fan favorite by any means and nothing that really stands out on it. But it introduced me to Deathstroke, Starfire, Cyborg and the other new Titans. It also put a sizable headlock on an emerging artistic mind by introducing me to George Perez who would influence me for years to come. I actually started buying the series with issue 16 which also introduced me to another book that is still one of my all time favorites, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, but that's another story.

It was then that I started trying to get the back issues I'd missed and discovered that there was actually a term for those back issues. I found out there was a man who lived down the street whose daughter went to school with me. He was a collector and would sell me a copy of the first issue for $25. That was amazing to me. Not so much for my parents who would have to uncork the bills. I was in the fifth grade, I didn't have cash, what are you thinking? But they paid the ransom anyway and I would just stare at that plastic covered marvel and cherish it.

Then the dog jumped on it.

I thought my head would explode.

It may have... I'm still not sure.

Anyway, I followed the series through all of its success and when the powers that be decided to spawn a deluxe format, direct sales only second series, I went into full geek panic because, like I said, there were no comic shops like what we have now. It was a whole new market that was just starting to blossom and we'd had a shop but it had closed down due to nefarious in store pillaging and I didn't know what I was going to do. Then a miracle happened.

Elves Hollow opened. And it was run by one of the employees from the old, closed down place. I was saved. I could have just bought a subscription, but that would have made some kind of logical sense.

At this point I was pretty well full fledged fanboy, I was at the shop once a week to pick up my pulls and just hard core comic book guy. I was learning who these creators were and developing an aesthetic sense for the art form. Unfortunately, around this time, Mr. Perez decided to leave the book to do the, at that time, unheard of mega event maxi series Crisis on Infinite Earths with the promise that he would return once he was done. I stuck with the book throughout and months turned to years and his return was becoming less and less likely and the book just wasn't the same book anymore, for me. But I still hold it near and dear to my heart and anytime someone talks about revisiting those stomping grounds I feel a little burst of happiness followed by heavy disappointment because, for some reason, no one gets those characters like Wolfman and Perez did. There's no magic.



There was talk of that team coming together again to do a graphic novel featuring those characters and then the talk became truth, the book was to be called "Games" and would be published when Mr. Perez could finish the pencils. And once again, months became years and nothing came of it. It's been like a teenager learning how to drive a standard stick shift, stop, start, stop, start, stop and finally start again. The book is fast tracked now after nearly twenty years and I've got that feeling in my gut, that feeling like it might be magic again. But that fear of disappointment is hovering, stage left, waiting for its cue. Either way it'll be nice to see the masters at work again on one of their defining moments. The biggest difference will be that I can now preorder the book from Amazon and I won't have to stress too much about it.

Wait...

There's a convention in Austin right around the same time the book is supposed to release. I wonder if George or Marv will be there? Autographs? Ooooh... Maybe I do have something to anticipate after all.