“Suddenly, thirteen years later….”

§ December 5th, 2016 § Filed under suddenly... § 14 Comments

It’s the lucky 13th anniversary for this ridiculous website of mine, where I’m still blogging about comics after all this time, long past the point of everyone running out of patience for people who blog about comics. But here I am anyway, still doing it and not planning to stop anytime soon, at least until the meteor finally strikes or the medication kicks in, whichever comes first.

Seriously, though, thanks to all of you out there who are still finding enough value on my site to come back day after day and see what I’ve managed to type up this time. I really do appreciate your readership. And thanks of course to the usual suspects, like my family who supported my comic book habit (and later my comic-selling career), my girlfriend Nora, pal Dorian, my fellow comics bloggers both still standing and emeritus, and as always, thanks to Comics Blogger Supreme Neilalien for leading the way. I also wanted to give special notice to a couple of swell cats: Tim O’Neil, who’s a good pal and has been undergoing some significant life changes this year; and Bully the Little Bull Stuffed with Wonderment and his pal John, both of whom we are very fortunate to have around.

This past year has been going along mostly smoothly, despite losing my grandmother in January, which was very sad, but she did have 96 full years of life and was active and out and about up until nearly the very end. As I mentioned in that linked post, she was thrilled to pieces that I finally had a store of my own and loved telling me how happy she was she got to visit it.

Speaking of the store, Sterling Silver Comics had its second anniversary last month, with hopefully many more anniversaries to come in the future. The business is doing well, I’m paying myself and my bills and building stock and clientele, so I seem to be doing okay. I do tend to complain about the vagaries of the comics industry both here and on the Twitterers, but that’s just venting…I’m happy to be where I’m at, and only wish I’d made the move sooner.

Another big change this year is that I set up a Patreon account for this site, so if any of you happen to have a spare dollar or two a month that you’d care to contribute in support of the work I do here, I’d be most appreciative and it would help out a lot.

I also had to get a new vehicle this year as the old truck finally gave up the ghost, so have I mentioned my Patreon account, ha ha, you know, just asking for no reason.

Speaking of Twitter, as I was just prior to the above begging, I’ve been active there as I have every year since first joining back in 2007. Free free to follow me there if you’d like, but here are a few highlights (or lowlights, depending on your particular opinion of my “humor”) from the past few months:

Usually I’ll post about the comics retail life, such as when this realization set in:

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Or when a most fortuitous event occurs:

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Once in a while I have to remind myself to have some perspective:

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But sometimes it’s hard when faced with a public that can hate and fear the very idea of funnybook sellin’:

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Sometimes my perspective veers off in the opposite direction:

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But there are still plenty of moments at the store that make it all worth it:

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Then I’m pulled back down again:

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And it wasn’t all just retail talk on the Twitters…sometimes I gave insightful film commentary:

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And then I made everyone sad with this observation (though the way things are going, maybe we’ll get this as a comic book):

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Once in a while I’ll talk about actual comics:

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…And the people who make them:

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…And once in a while, I’ll ruminate upon the very idea of comics blogging:

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As evidence for that last tweet, here are some of the notable posts (i.e. about 95% of them) on Ye Olde Progressive Ruine from the past twelve months:

DECEMBER 2015

The return of “Another Moment with Cap and the Falcon,” my interview re: the Star Wars Early Bird Kit, remember back when we weren’t sick of too many Star Wars movies, how quickly the pre-Crisis DC Universe started returning post-Crisis, comics for Christmas.

JANUARY 2016

I think I must have bumped my head before writing this New Year’s Day entry, the other RadioTiki guys read this entry on their show, “You Can’t Pin A Medal on a Gorilla” by request, my grandmother, we look back at your predictions for 2015 (1 2 3 4 5 6) (and oh Lordy that means it’s almost time for me to do it again).

FEBRUARY 2016

As I write this the last issue of this series has been cancelled and not yet resolicited, just couldn’t make it through the original Supergirl movie, hey did you know people don’t like high comic prices, I’m about 99% sure this Superboy scene was homaged on the Supergirl TV show a few weeks back, I wonder how much longer we’re going to have the “Rebirth” banners on the covers, this is what I would do if I ran an EEEE-VIL comic book store.

MARCH 2016

The new Swamp Thing mini-series was okay I guess, that Deadpool card in X-Force #1 will never be worth anything, remember when Honey Bunny Mania raged across the country, I was a little disappointed I didn’t get 47 responses on my 47th birthday post, have some Captain America Logo you stinkin’ Ratzis, Behold Superman’s Brother, this whole “DC’s revealing Joker’s Real Name!?!?” post is pretty much moot, I know I’ve been at this too long when the comics start talking back to me.

APRIL 2016

Thank God I know people who actually know graphic design, THE HATE CUPIDS, Free Comic Book Day plans and a Batman/Superman movies – two tastes that go great together, there’s a sneaky joke for my older readers in the title there, he was a regular prince I tells ya, back in the day we’d ping your Veronica with my gopher and that’s how we liked it, one of the ways I helped Rich with that book (more on the book later), my shocking realizations about ordering the funnybooks, oh don’t mind me I’m just trolling along.

MAY 2016

The connection of the Marvel Handbook to my secret origin, Batman Vs. Jaime Hernandez Vs. My Dad on Free Comic Book Day, more FCBD pics and I disagree with a famous cartoonist, more post-FCBD talk, so long Darwyn, just what is up with the internet and comics anyways, what finally defeated the Legion of Super-Heroes (which inspired a pal and irritated a comics writer), boy people couldn’t wait to be the first to spoil this comic, still need to get a copy of Freaked for myself.

JUNE 2016

I always called them “comic subs” but apparently nobody else did, DC Rebirth sales are still driving me nuts, so long Champ, we talk about The Greatest Single Issue of a Comic Book of All Time, they finally got me reading Flash again and also BTW I was right about Wacky Raceland, the (oh Lordy) collectibilty of newstand vs. direct sales comics, there are some comics I could point out where the error was even doing them in the first place, pal Andrew discusses his favorite Swamp Thing story at my request, so anyway about those Charlton heroes, I’m still trying to single-handedly kill the comics blogosphere, speaking of — I see Marvel is listing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie adaptation in this month’s Previews, I love 1970s Popeye comic books, ELECTRO-ROBOT HAND, on anthologies and alternate Swamp Things.

JULY 2016

Needlepoint Joker, I’ve since decided this is now my favorite comic book, in a strange way I miss the black and white boom, more b&w boom comics, one more post on the topic, BREAST. JOKE. EVER, I finally make it into Overstreet, the fun of funnybook ordering, so long Jack, Richard and Jerry.

AUGUST 2016

A brief appreciation of the current Superman titles, so long Gaspar, yet another follow-up to the b&w boom posts, big money out in the swamps these days, I’m finally dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, some BIG BIG SCANS of cover credits, the whole Watchmen-in-the-DC-Universe thing still tickles the hell outta me, I talk about a couple of direct-to-DVD Bat-cartoons, I go deep — almost too deep — into Swamp Thing Continuity Talk, I straight up review one of those Batman direct-to-DVD flicks, Ditko + Wrightson = AMAZING.

SEPTEMBER 2016

So long Tim, some nice 1970s Frank Thorne art, a hard 1990s Marvel retailing flashback, what if I went on too long about the What If comic, TUROK TALK parts one and two (and two-and-a-half courtesy commenter John), more fun 1970s Atlas Comics art, I am both proud and ashamed of this Superman cartoon gag, Googling up “skateboard tricks” sure came in handy for this post.

OCTOBER 2016

The missing Swamp Thing stories, my completely unbiased positive review for a book I helped with a little, so here’s the Thing, I may be cheap but I ain’t free, some comics are worth a lot but probably not yours, so long Steve, the weird and unfortunate legacy of Jack Chick.

NOVEMBER 2016

This is a strange calendar, come to think of it I haven’t gone back to that DC game, I review the other Batman direct-to-home-video cartoon I mentioned a while back, here’s to you drive-by dude who dropped by the comments of this post to be offended and never actually read my site before or since, I’ve only made it partway through this mountain of Star Wars/Trek toys since this post, even more about old Star Wars toys, I’m the only person who thinks the subject line of this post about the Joker TPB is funny, try to remember the things you should be thankful for, somewhat related to a joke I made a long time ago about how skeptics would have a hard time in a universe where Aquaman is the King of Atlantis.

DECEMBER 2016

And just because of the way things were timed this month, all I have to list here is the latest End of Civilization post, which is as good of a place as any to remind you that I’m back to doing monthly EoCs after an extended break somehow caused by opening my store. Plus, I did some comics reviews over the past year, and I also threw in a couple Sluggo Saturdays, too.

Again, thanks to all of you for sticking with me all this time, for reading my site and leaving comments and even occasionally stopping by my store to say “hello” in person — that all means so very much to me, and I can’t tell you enough how greatly it’s appreciated.

For reading all that, here’s a picture of 13-year-old me with my grandparents’ tortoise while it’s eating a bunch of flowers:

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That is some real “that kid from The Walking Dead” hair I’m sporting.

Thanks, and I’ll see you all again in a couple of days.

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