Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinWhere legends live since 1969

“Suddenly, eleven years later….”

§ December 5th, 2014 § Filed under suddenly... § 9 Comments

So apparently the traditional eleventh anniversary gift is steel:

Is there a greater gift one could receive? I submit there is not.

It really is hard to believe that I’ve been doing this website for eleven years. It’s been long enough that I’ve had to contact my webhoster about giving me more database space because I’d filled up the amount I was originally allotted. It was bit of a panic that evening when I discovered I couldn’t save any posts or changes to the site or anything until I figured out what happened!

But I’m still here, I’m still doin’ it, even if not as frequently as I had at the start, but I’m not going anywhere yet! Even with the Big Change this year, quitting my previous job as Head Chimp at Seth’s Games and Anime/Ralph’s Comic Corner to go open my own shop, Sterling Silver Comics (for which today is the one month anniversary!), I’m still poking away on this here website, sharing my knowledge, my dumb jokes, the occasional photo, some Sluggo and Swamp Thing talk, and all that. And, of course, occasionally warning you about the forthcoming End of Civilization, which I’ve sort of slacked off doing lately since I’ve been busy, but I’m gettin’ back to it!

As always, thanks to my pals, online and off, for their continued support…to my girlfriend Nora, who continues to put up with me for inexplicable reasons, my parents, pal Dorian, all my customers (new and old), all of you, and, of course, Neilalien, Comics Blogger #1, in whose path we all follow.

I didn’t do a whole lot with my other online projects this year, but I can still be found goofing around on the Twitters so please feel free to follow me there if you’d like. Why, you might see such vital Twitter entries such as my usual complaining about certain types of comics not getting published:

Or you might see the worst Watchmen joke yet:

Or you could see me deliberately trolling people (or am I?):

Or you could see that which I would like to unsee:

Or you can get a small glimpse how your pal Mike runs a comic shop:

Or maybe you might get an off-color joke that your pal Mike is inordinately proud of:

And then there’s this site you’re reading right now: as I like to do every year, here are a list of what I will call “highlights” (for the lack of a better term) from the last twelve months, along with some brief commentary, explanations, or even more bad jokes. Please, enjoy:

DECEMBER 2013:

This is way too much about X-Force and Deadpool, I ended up selling my personal copy of Batman Adventures #12 (the first comics appearance of Harley Quinn) for $250, the Superman “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style book which brought us this entry at You Chose Wrong, almost got a contact high from this many undergrounds in one place, for only the best-dressed Sluggo fan, the Swamp Thing adventure you didn’t know you wanted…’til now.

JANUARY 2014:

I go over your predictions for 2013 (1 2 3 4 and (whew) 5), “SWAMP JACKET / you make my heart…uh, ratchet,” so I joked in December about one of you folks out there buying this for me for a gift and good gravy you delivered (and say, on a totally unrelated subject, I sure could use a new car), how I marketed Miracleman to our customers since nobody else bothered, basically I have to order everything as if it were a mini-series, I review that weird Justice League direct-to-DVD cartoon (“weird” = “actually appropriate for children”), one man’s box of junk toys is another man’s blog post.

FEBRUARY 2014:

Surely this X-Files comic will be a valuable collectors item forever, this Star Trek comic had so many scare quotes I thought Kirby wrote it, I was hoping this would lead to huge sales on this particular Spider-Man annual, one of the few TV shows I made sure to keep up with during the set-up of my shop, bet you didn’t know I had this much to say about Conan the Barbarian comic book sales, they’re finally beginning to reprint more stuff from this series, I (ahem) may have sold my personal copy of Preacher #1 for a lot of money too.

MARCH 2014:

I could probably just order a copy of the new edition of this for the store (wink wink), Bill Mumy’s greatest creative endeavor, I think that actually was the real Bill Griffith who commented on this post about the pretty Sluggo doll, I’d had this post, planned out in my head since I was about 42, I love Steve Lafler comics, sometime I come across Swamp Thing parodies without even trying, all the boys think he’s a spy / he’s got Alec Holland eyes, I may have put this comic for sale in the shop at a ridiculous price.

APRIL 2014:

These two pages look like they were drawn in about ten minutes (ten seconds of which was researching what a guitar looked like, apparently), of course now it would be “Fifty-Two Who Made DC Great,” all that work pinning down the first appearance of Spidey’s black costume and people are still getting it wrong on eBay, oh good gravy I’m going to have to order FCBD books for my store next month, True Life Adventures from Mike’s College Days Comics, still haven’t read all those E-Man comics, yes my Easter was quite smashing thank you, “oh no our window paintings were attracting attention and customers what a terrible thing,” my house is just totally filled with random nonsense like this, the next plague will arise from the germs on this Batman whistle.

MAY 2014:

My postmortem for what’s turned out to be my last Free Comic Book Day at Seth’s/Ralph’s, a quick overview of some entertainment I absorbed while I was ill – which I ordinarily wouldn’t link to in one of these overviews but I gotta pad out May a bit, oh my God they cut Constantine‘s season short because I haven’t been watching it didn’t they, please enjoy this Swamp Thing animated GIF, CRANIUS, too much about me ordering DC’s latest 3D covers, if more Woody Woodpecker stories were like this maybe I’d actually like the character.

JUNE 2014:

They can’t possibly have 52 DC Universe titles on the stands right now do they, one thing about being at a new shop is I don’t have to worry about these “match-to-previous-order” variants for the time being, I wish Swamp Thing could be the new Robin, George Perez Superman is always fun, occasionally Groo was more than just cheese dip jokes, please make Robert Downey Jr. say this in a movie, “kids love shower-assault jokes” said whoever approved this sticker, surely this Lickitung postcard will deliver itself to you in your unquiet dreams, sometimes you just gotta combine discussion of Calvin and Lex Luthor into the same post, that postage stamp joke is super dirty no matter what decade you’re from.

JULY 2014:

I apologize to my Kindle-using readers for not being able to make my site readable for most of you, The Adventures of Off-Model Flintstones, the dude with the feather is obviously having some kind of fit, someone pointed out that the reverse of these cut-outs also show the characters’ backs and that creeps me out like a lot, that Cracked Magazine Swamp Thing drawing is just a little upsetting, still not 100% sure who this is or who drew it, the lead singer of the Dead Milkmen favorited this picture when I posted it on Twitter, that’s two Swamp Thing parodies-via-Powerpuff Girls I own now.

AUGUST 2014:

There is a greater-than-zero chance that if I talk about Star Wars I eventually get to a Lobot joke, I needed my dad to come with me to buy the comic but the book that comic used for photo reference was readily available to me at the library I worked at, I’m still trying to work out how to deal with the naughtier books at my new store, this scene from a Robin Williams movie really does make me crumble like a cookie every single time, Jughead – a monster in any decade, I actually remember to keep my promise to look at the market prices for last year’s 3D comics from DC, where are my promo Frisb…er, “flying discs” from current comic companies, just imagine me droning post after post at you instead of you being able to skim through all these walls of text I put up.

SEPTEMBER 2014:

Not quite a Swamp Thing wax cylinder but close, for some reason I’m picturing monks transcribing and illuminating copies of Man-Thing tomes, I did…mostly okay on my orders of those 3D comics though I notice the old shop still has quite a few of some issues — oops, I can still sell lots of the initial Death of Wolverine series but not so much of the follow-ups, oh hey did you hear I was opening my own store, and speaking of which I have the good problem of business building faster than I can adjust my comic orders.

OCTOBER 2014:

My store has a floor and a door and maybe a little more, Swamp Thing and Sluggo crossover art did not exist until I willed it into being, so I quit my job at Seth’s/Ralph’s, I’ve since received two more packages of drawings from Sluggo Jr. that I promise I’ll feature on this site soon, here’s my sign – what’s yours?

NOVEMBER 2014:

A report on my first day of business at the new shop (plus photos!), a great Peanuts reference for my shop, ah the simple pleasures of a Don Rosa fanzine cover, I’ve bought worse Swamp Thing comics, and I answer your questions (1 2 3 4).

DECEMBER 2014:

I’ve been buying a lot of Harvey comics at the new shop of late.

• • •

I say this every year, and every year it’s just as true: I am extremely grateful and amazed that I have any readership at all, given my intended and expected audience was just a few friends. That I have as many kind, wonderful and funny readers as I do, as I’ve seen from my comments sections, from emails and from actual physical mail, is quite the pleasure. Even the folks who’ve never said or written one word to me, who come read what I have to say and leave the connection to me at that…thank you for spending at least a little bit of your day here. I hope I can always make the visit worthwhile, for all of you.

And for reading all that, here’s a blurry photo of me “working” in my store a few weeks before opening:

Once again, thanks for visiting my site, and I’ll be back soon with more stuff.