when I started this blog five years ago, I was a pet sitter and the name animal-crackers made sense. now I'm a stay-at-home-dad and freelance writer, but rather than confuse everyone by getting a different blog, it's just easier to keep posting things here.

I bought my first comic book in February 1982 at the Elmira-Corning airport gift shop. Dad's flight was late and Mom needed to distract us kids.

My distraction was Star Wars #56. (The cover art is Lando Calrissian getting his ass kicked by Lobot.)

A month later, I signed up for two subscriptions -- Star Wars and Captain America. Over the next 10 years my collection grew to about 300 issues. Not a big deal really, considering I had a friend who's collection was close to 3,000.

Although I always picked the comics I liked to read, I kept an eye out for issues that might be worth something someday. And then sometime in college I stopped buying. The books were carefully stored, waiting for the day I might cash in my investment.

Yesterday, I tried. I took a stack of my oldest comics to a local dealer who carefully picked through them and made an offer.

Seven dollars for the Wolverine #1.

That's it. I spent about $400 on these things and now there's one that's worth $7.

I feel like I've been Enronned.