Back in the before-times, comics were a big deal. And accordingly I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing my local comic shops when I was younger.
The first comic I really got into was “Cerebus the Ardvark” back in the late 70’s as it was was both edgy and witty enough to catch my ten-year-old interest. Cerebus was so edgy and witty in fact that it had no choice but to be an independent (indie) comic, and that kinda started my appreciation of the non-Marvel / non-DC comics as well. So stuff like 2000 AD’s “Nemesis the Warlock” in the early 80’s was also a favorite.
Unfortunately my mom was slightly overprotective of me and tended to put the kibosh on anything she felt was too edgy and / or witty – and the comics I tended to like were on her burn-list. So, I had to purchase and read my comics on the sly.
Eventually I escaped and joined the Navy in 1986, and my duty station in Groton Connecticut was a fairly easy drive from Newbury Comics in Worcester Massachusetts. This, plus having a bit of discretionary income, meant I acquired all kinds of comics – but mostly the aforementioned edgy witty stuff. 🙂
It was 1988 when the comic shop got in some stuff from an indie publisher called “Thoughts and Images” and I stumbled over Vicky Wyman’s “Xanadu”.
This chance encounter kinda cemented my appreciation of anthropomorphic characters as a story device, and elements of “Xanadu” have been present in most of the roleplaying games I’ve run both private and public ever since.
In 1994 the second story set in the Xanadu Universe came out, and I – of course – had to have that too…
There is a third installment set in the same Universe, but unfortunately “Into Golden Skies” was never published outside of a fanzine before Vickie’s passing in 2018.
I was fortunate enough to run into Vickie at a couple of conventions, get a couple of commissions, and talk to her a bit about her art and her comics. She was an extremely nice person and an amazing artist and storyteller, and she is missed.
The last collectable comic I’ll show off today is much more recent, and you only get to see the first two, because they are duplicates and the signed six issue set is in storage.
These sell for hundreds of dollars now, but very few have a set dedicated to them by Peter Beagle himself. 😉
One could say I’m something of a fan of The Last Unicorn – have been since I first read the book back when I was seven (that would be 1976 by the way). And over the years I’ve managed to chat with Peter on several occasions at conventions and a couple of times back during the 2015 movie tour. He is another amazing storyteller and all-around great human being.
I have tons more collectable stuff squirreled away that I should post here someday. Unfortunately it’s only about half, as a lot of my personal collectable crap was lost in the great storage unit debacle of 2002… But such is life.
Listening to "Deepest Blue" by KRISTINE