Thursday, April 15, 2021

April Sweeps - Day 439

Look, you're not gonna get a blog post from me today, since I have nothing interesting to say.

I know, I know, it hasn't stopped me for more than a year.  Ha, ha, hell-arious.

I didn't go the library--I had to get my car registered, and that necessitated an emissions test.  So I went ahead and got the oil changed at the same time, and it took over an hour.  It's probably the ninth or tenth time I've gone there and gotten the oil changed or the car inspected at that location, and "Judge Judy" is ALWAYS playing in their little waiting room.  I turned my back to it this time, so I wouldn't be tempted to watch any of it (I swear, more of my soul dies when I watch "Judge Judy" than the time I watched Eli Roth's HOSTEL and thought, "Wow, I'd really like to own this movie.") . . . but I could still hear it, jabbering in my ear, while I was trying my best to write.

I started on the darn twin story (which I am highly unlikely to finish), and after that, I had a couple of errands to run, and didn't bother hitting the library, since my car still wasn't registered, and I wanted to get it done as soon as I possibly could.*

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In April: 1533

I had another experience--heck, I think I mentioned it yesterday--that's a good basis for a Tale of eBay Horror.  The weird thing is, it ended up working out just fine today (in a highly illogical way).  So, it makes me wonder if I should even bother recording the experience.  Do people enjoy those?  Now that I don't hate looking at myself QUITE as much as I used to, it might be less torturous to edit.  Hmmm.

Push-ups Today: 66
Push-ups In April: 1587

Okay, one more thing.  I read an announcement that Warner Bros. has hired a team to make a movie of the DC Comics character Zatanna.  And I got it in my head yesterday to look up her first appearance (Hawkman, issue 4, from 1964) to see if I could afford to buy the comic, since when and if that movie ever comes out (or indeed, if she ever shows up in anything, from "Justice League Dark" to "Shazam 2"), that the value of that comic will skyrocket.  So I looked it up . . . and I'm already unable to afford to buy one.

No big deal--I didn't really want or need that comic (I don't even know the character, really--she was just somebody my buddy Matthew used to talk about...and everybody loves fishnet stockings).  It was just an idea I had.

But it reminded me: when I was a kid and picked up my first issue of X-men, I fell in love with the character Rogue.  I just loved everything about her.  And a year or so later, I found out that she was introduced as an Avengers villain before she became an X-man, so I sought out that first appearance.  Because it was in a worthless Avengers book (about a worthless team nobody liked), it cost me three dollars (the sticker's still on the book).

A few years ago, when I started buying comics again, I found another copy of Avengers Annual 10 for sale, and I was bummed that they only wanted seven dollars for it.  It had doubled in cost, sure, but Amazing Fantasy 15, which was $1100 when I started seriously collecting, had now sold for over a million dollars.**  So, I didn't buy it.  I already had Rogue's first appearance anyway.

But today, I remembered that, and thought I would scoop up another one, just in case they follow my advice and introduce Rogue as a villain in CAPTAIN MARVEL 2.  So, I thought I'd check, maybe buy two or three, if they're still in the ten dollar range.

They aren't.  Sadly, I can no longer afford an Avengers Annual 10 (which is considered by some to also be the first appearance of Madelyne Pryor, another character I loved in that same issue that introduced me to Rogue.  Not considered by me, though***), but I certainly should have scooped up a few (hundred) copies, for love of my favorite X-woman.

Although . . . when I was cleaning out my closet in January, I stumbled upon a comic book I had won in a 2006 or 2007 convention, and thought I'd check out its value.  To my surprise, it was worth quite a bit--more than it cost me to register my car today!  I intended to sell it, and maybe I should list it today, and use whatever it sells for to buy another Avengers Annual 10, maybe a CCG one (graded, with a certificate of its condition).

On a lark, instead of writing or blogging, I decided to see if I could afford a copy of The Demon issue 7, the first appearance of Klarion the Witch Boy.  Turns out I can . . . but I don't know if I should.

Well, you still got a blog post.  Not much of one, but hey, sometimes we DO get what we deserve.

Words Today: 787
Words In April: 10,846

*I complain about this a lot, but they always bring me a laundry list of stuff that I ought to get replaced or fixed on my car.  This year was no exception, as they wanted to replace the air filter, one of the daytime running lights, the engine filter, two of the tires, the brake fluid (oh my, 1% of it was water!), and both of the windshield wipers.  Oh, and for an extra ten dollars, they could send my paperwork in to the state and give me my registration sticker right there, instead of me doing it myself and having to wait a few days.
I had learned a lesson the last couple of times I've done this, so I said, "Look, just put a note in my file, and we'll get that done next time."  And the mechanic said, "There was already a note in your file from last time."  And I let him replace one of the filters, just for pretending to be interested in the audiobook that I had in the car.  Sigh.

**The record for that comic is still $1.1 million, back in 2011, but when I was a kid, I could've bought a low-grade one for a hundred or two hundred dollars, and that would've been quite an investment.

***It's a long story, but essentially, Chris Claremont was a fan of a band whose lead singer was Maddy Prior, so he named a child in that book after her (Maddy, not Madelyne).  Later, he named an X-men character who was an adult doppleganger of Jean Grey Madelyne Pryor too.  But it's not the same character.  Unless you say it is, in which case, fine, I don't want to fight about it.

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