Hey everyone I would just like to let you know that I have started up my own youtube channel where I will make many different series of short web shows. If you are interested in comics and love to just listen about how others keep their collections, seeing what they buy, and their opinions on different things give my channel a sub and enjoy my videos. My youtube name is TheIncredibleCJ and I plan on having three series of web shows. My main and driving force will be the series where I show off the growth of my collection which I have started with my starting video just 9 months into my short collecting career. My second series will be weekly where I will show my weekly hauls and if I have any special orders I will show them off as well. My third series will be random timing when I feel like I have something to say, that series will be called The Incredible Soapbox or something like that. Below I will provide links to my videos and if its not for your interests no problem, just exit out and continue on your merry way.

Thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy my upcoming channel,

C.J.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILABZVjcU4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAEiOUL9_9E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJfBywTrSTo

Well every year people make their self-resolutions for the new year and try to change something about themselves and their lives. While I made a few of those I was watching a YouTube video where this guy describes how he is making comic collecting resolutions for his collection and his buying habits. After watching his video I have decided to make a few of my own. Before I get to my resolutions I figured I should describe my current comic collection and habits (As a poor

college student).

The Collection:

Last year for my senior of high school I did my senior project on Batman and through my research into the character and his history as a pop culture icon (in the real world), I found myself drawn to researching the various story arcs and the past of the character (in the comic world). With all that said, I started reading the trades that were in the school library and from that point on I have been hooked ever since. I bought my first few comics at an antique shop in March of 2012 and so I have been getting into it ever since then. Since March I have been able to amass a collection of a little over 600 comics. I was able to select a few series early on to catch up on and start reading. I have the full run so far of Batman, Batman The Dark Knight, Justice League, and Green Lantern all in first prints with the exception of Justice League #1. I also have the 12 issues of Avengers vs. X-men. My collection was amassed pretty much by the buying of grab bags from Midtown Comics and a few value packs (when they had them by character) from mycomicshop.com. My oldest comic is from 1981 and span up to this month. I have added a few more monthly pick-ups including Amazing into Superior Spider-man, Avengers, and Fantastic Four since the Marvel now began.

Current Habits:

I currently buy my monthly/bi-weekly comics of Batman, Batman TDK, Justice League, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Superior Spider-man, and Avengers and when I get some extra money to spend on myself I will get a grab bag or a back issue I missed. But I got a few grab bags for Christmas for 150 total books and I found that out of those I got 51 doubles which I plan to sell to get my months’ worth of issues from my local shop to help them out and me out, thanks to the major overarching story arcs that is Death of the Family, Rise of the Third Army, and Throne of Atlantis.

Resolutions:

1. My first resolution is to try to increase my monthly pull list by a series or two. I want to start consistently getting Daredevil and possibly try something new (suggestions welcome for all superhero comics or even other).

2. My second resolution is to stop buying so many grab bags and begin to save that extra money to add more key issues and story arcs to my collection. My favorite heroes I plan to collect stories and series for are Batman, Spider-man, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Avengers, and the Justice League. In my life I would like to get as close as possible to completing the first Batman run, first Fantastic Four run, first Daredevil run, and whatever else I want to have regarding the other characters I like. My goal for this year is to start those collections by getting at least one Silver Age to early Bronze Age book for each series listed and I want The Defenders #1 from the original series. I have the first 6 issues from the 2011 Defenders series so I want to get that collected as well. I want to work on getting cheap filler issues for those other series as well.

3. I originally told myself that I want to get all the issues for the major story arcs for my favorite characters but I have since decided that I want to read them more than I can wait to complete runs, so I have decided that I want to start buying trades so I can read the past stories of my favorite characters quicker and that will also allow me to buy higher grade issues for the characters I like and not have to worry about opening them. To second that I will also be able to read key story arcs on characters that I like but do not necessarily want to spend all my time collecting so I can enjoy more stories and maybe find some new favorites. I do not own any trades at the moment.

I will let either nobody or anybody who happens to read it in the blog how everything is going every few months of so. Let me know what your comic collecting resolutions are and give me a good follow while you're at it :)

Thanks for the read if you got this far before falling asleep,

C.J.

So I was reading news about superhero films and I have come to the conclusion (in my opinion) that DC is simply screwed if they do not get their butts' in gear and try to keep up with the Marvel filmverse. Marvel is spewing out films left and right and none of them are real crap. DC has put out what like five films since 2000? and Marvel has put out 5 X-men related films alone, 4 Spider-Man, 2 Iron Man, Thor, 2 Hulk, Captain America, and an Avengers movie, and not to forget to mention that sequels to most if not all of those franchises are in production and I believe they plan on expanding to more heros. DC has put out three extremely quality films Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, and put out two completely crappy films, Green Latern and Superman Returns. Oh I forgot completely about Watchmen, which is in between the films I just listed, it was alright. Now as I was saying, DC films is in serious trouble if they do not keep stalling the films they plan to put out.

Now why are they stalling? Don't they know that their overall popularity of the future is at stake with the ending of the Nolan Batman era? Obviously they know this but it is because of one reason. They are simply stuck. They are having issues agreeing on how to go about introducing the characters because Marvel was able to produce the Avengers' individual character movies so effectively. In my honest opinion I think DC feels they need to jump into the big team movie before doing two things: 1) Giving Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman their own movies and 2) Effectively rebooting Green Lantern and Batman. Personally if they can pull a Marvel with a little surprise at the end of The Man Steel they could effectively launch right into the team-up movie but if not I think it would do the company better to put out a quality film for all the characters starting with The Man of Steel. They need to introduce to the none comic book readers the origins of the charcters before they can just randomly throw them into a team up and the movie would be far to long if they tried to introduce each character's backround.

My last opinion that want to throw out there is my opinion on JGL as Batman. I do not think in any possible his character John Blake should be the "new" Batman in the filmverse but I think he could rock the outfit if they change his castinf role to Bruce Wayne. I think he has the acting skills and he could easily beef up. I much rather have him for Flash or Green Lantern. Now to throw something else out there if they change his name to Toby McGuiness I think JGL could pull off a spin-off Nolan's series in a Batman Beyond movie. They could bring back Bale to play old Bruce Wayne and have JGL play a college aged Toby, he is to old to pull off the high school version. Honestly, I loved the cartoon (haven't read the comics even though I would like to, just never pick them up) and would love to see a live adaptation and they staged it almost perfectly with exception of the stupid John Blake "Robin the cop."

So to wrap it all into a pretty bow, DC needs to get their asses in gear!

Follow me :)

Until next time my fellow comic fans, same bat blog, same bat guy,

C.J.

So I recently made myself a collection checklist for issue of major story arcs that I need to get and managed to compile a list of over 700 books. This list only goes as far back as the 80s for the arcs and I had to leave out so many because I need to collect these ones before I go on to others. The list mainly compiles of Batman, Justice League, and a few Green Lantern arcs, but I also added Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Flashpoint event (if you want to count it as JL go ahead but I listed it separately) and Marvel's Secret Wars I and II. This list so extensive because I also managed to list all the tie-in issues. I also listed some key issues from the past couple of decades that could be a possibility if I get a few extra bucks to spend on myself every know and then... I anticipate this collection taking me several years considering I am in college now and after I complete my Ph. D. for Chemistry (Freshman in undergrad and I don't know what field of chem yet) I need to get a solid job as well. I also need to keep up with all the series I collect now so its gonna be a little at a time kind of thing.

I happened to have an extra twenty bucks lying around so I ordered the Green Lantern annual I missed and a 1st print of Nightwing #8 because I missed that too (got the second print but wanted the first). So I went through the list and stumbled upon the Batman story arcs, Year 3 and a Lonely Place of Dying which combined is Batman 436-442 and tie-ins New Teen Titans 60-61. Anyway I bring this up because this is the arc where Tim Drake is first introduced and where he first becomes Robin and the books were only like a dollar each for a mix of very fine grade to near mint. I was expecting that the first appearance of Tim Drake and the first appearance of him as Robin would be more than a dollar considering I thought that would be a major event in the Batman Universe but I managed to get all that after shipping and handling, bag and board for each book at 25 cents a pop, and tax for just $25.04. I'm not complaining just a little surprised that it turned out that cheap. Anyone else a little surprised?

Feel free to comment with your opinions and don't forget to follow me as well please:)

Until next time batfans, same bat blog, same bat guy,

C.J.

This is my first post in six months or so but I'm back and my comic collection is well on its way to becoming a collection. I now have compiled almost 500 books and its still growing. I dont have any key stone pieces to my collection yet but hey you have to build one to get key stones for it. I really want to get a NM first printing of The Killing Joke as my first keystone piece. My collection revolves a lot around Batman, obviously.. but I do have quite a bit of Green Lantern, Justice League, Spider-man, Daredevil, and the Avengers. I can't wait until I can call my collection a real collection when it gets up into the thousands with a couple of keystone piece.

I just got done reading Batman 1-7 and I plan on ordering Batman #8 sometime this week, but I have to say I think this new 52 series is great! Scott Snyder did a fantastic job developing and integrating the Court of Owls as villains and has done a great job telling it. He did an excellent job bringing about the origin and back story of the Court. He made it seem as though they have been in the story for a while when really it has been 8 issues. I also need to give credit to Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion for their work with Scott as well because the artwork is also amazing. Everytime I read one of the comics my mind just gets sucked in and when I hit the last page of 7 I cried a little inside just wanting to know what is going to come next. I cannot wait until I get my hands on 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and beyond.

Great job DC, the new 52 was an excellent idea, now go make some great movies!

Thanks reading feel free to comment with your thoughts and give me a follow :)

C.J.

I was pondering ideas for television series and thought of a brillant idea, DC and Marvel should make BETTER television series. The only series that I can think of that I like at the moment right now is Young Justice (feel free to argue if I missed something). Comic Book fans love to watch television adaptations of our favorite characters, whether its live or animated. As of late and even as of the late 1990s for the most part we have been deprived of anything spectacular (or at least I have since Batman: TAS, JL, the old X-men, and the 90s Spider-man and so on). I miss the ability to watch new episodes of superheros kicking some super villain ass. The department as of late for both companies has been low or non-existent. They each have had some good moments but really in my eyes have been inconsistent. DC has given us one good show for all ages and that is Young Justice, Green Lantern: TAS is alright but I would rather play video games than spend a half hour watching it, and that new Batman CGI crap looks like it is not even worth putting 5 minutes into but unfortunately I will and will unfortunately never get them back. I haven't really been paying close attention to Marvel's television running so please tell me if I've missed something so I can watch it.

That is the end of that spiel but I'll finish with thank god for Netflix so I can watch some of those old series (THEY NEED TO PUT BATMAN: TAS ON THERE THOUGH).

C.J.

So the comics I feel like I have been waiting for a year now still are not here (its been like 5 days lol) but I was able to go to this sweet collectables store in the local mall to be surprised by an awesome $1 comic section. I was able to pull out 22 good comics for me (broke a deal for 2 free), from the pile and have been slowly reading them. I found the full 4 set of Daredevil (297-300) Last Rite and the full 6 set of Daredevil (320-325) Fall From Grace. I read Last Rite and I thought it was great and am looking forward to starting the Fall from grace set soon. Oh and all are first prints in VG to VF condition (from the knowlegde I have). I also found a fairly new Spider-man featuring Blade, a couple random Batman's just for collecting, a Fantastic Four reprint to read for fun, 3 48 page Action Comics featuring the Green Lantern, Brightest Day Green Lantern 55, and a full set of 5 of Justice League America (46-50) Glory Bound story. I also recieved 2 of the books I had to order from a different site, Batman 3 and Justice League 1 (which was pretty sick but I never ordered the rest :( ....). I found some pretty good reads for a really cheap price but I still hope those other books get here quick!

So I guess the moral of the story is, while you wait for 80 comics to be shipped to your house for your special enjoyment, go to the local collectable/flea market/antique/comic shop for some cheap buys to hold you over!

Thanks for reading and follow me,

C.J.

My comics have shipped but have not arrived. If you read my last post you should know that I have a great starter lot of roughly 80 comics headed my way via mail but the problem is, I WANT THEM NOW! I have always been considered a patient person, considering in my 4 years of varsity baseball I have drawn over 40 walks and counting, but when it comes to waiting for the start of a new lifetime love, it sucks. I have found that I have no patience when it comes to waiting for something that I really want. These comics are something that I have been waiting on getting for a while now, and once I ordered them, I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas. I am so excited to finally dig my nose into some comics and explore my favorite characters, like Batman and the Green Lantern, and my favorite teams the Justice League, and the Avengers. I have roughly 32 Batman comics, the new 52 Green Lantern 1-7, 19-23 Justice League comics, and 18-20 Avengers, plus the firsttwo 0-1 Avengers vs X-men on their way and I want them now! I guess if the don't get here tomorrow I will just go to the comic store a couple minutes away and get some series fillers like the new Green Lantern and the Dark Knight 2 and 4 to round out that series up to date. I really hope they get here soon.

C.J.

As of yesterday, my first step to becoming the comic fan I want to become has shipped. My updated collections of Batman 1-7 and Green Lantern 1-7 (well until today when 8 hits shelves) have been bagged, boarded, and shipped to my house! I cannot wait until they arrive along with issues 1,3,5-7 of the Dark Knight (2 and 4 are sold out but I think my local shop hascopies), Justice League 1 (Lack of money, but an issue 1 was in stock so I had to get it), Avengers vs X-men 0-1, and an assorted bundle of Avengers, Justice League, and Batman (roughly 60) are on there way!!! I'm beyond pumped to dive into those books of superhero greatness and begin my lifetime collection! I just wish we had teleports so they get here in 2-10 minutes instead of 2-10 days :(

I can only wait now, I've only been waiting like 3 months to get money so whats a couple extra days? (feels like years)

Thanks for reading,

C.J.