Come see Collectors Attic at the Virginia Comicon on February 18th!

Please come and see Collectors Attic at our first Comic Convention VA COMICON on Saturday, February 18th. It will be at TORQUE Club at Richmond International Raceway. We’ll have some nice graded books, fancy wall books and plenty of $1.00 comics to browse through!

Collectors Attic at the Va Comicon

Lee-Davis High School Class of 1981 35th Reunion

Lee-Davis High School Class of 1981 35th Reunion

I want all of my fellow Class of 1981 members to be aware of our Reunion coming up very soon.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2016
4-9 pm
CLUB MIDWAY AT CALABASH SEAFOOD
7514 LEE-DAVIS ROAD
MECHANICSVILLE, VA 23111

We will once again be holding our event at Club Midway, directly across Lee-Davis Road from the school. Please note that the venue will be totally closed to the public during our event and we plan to have door guards to assure only paid attendees are admitted both inside and on the outside deck.

More information is available at:
http://ldhs81reunion.myfreesites.net/

You can email the committee:
[email protected]

My Friend Dave Luebke

I don’t remember the exact day that I met Dave, but it was sometime in the early 80s. My friend George had told me there was a relatively new thing called Comic Book Shops. I had been getting all my comics from 7-11 or Peoples Drug Store. We started going to Nostalgia Plus on Patterson Avenue. Somewhere along the line he mentioned there was another place down the road called Dave’s Comics in the Village Shopping Center. Dave’s had subscriptions that would allow you to never miss a comic and save 10%! On top of this all his comics came already bagged.

After several visits and conversations I started to become friendly with both Dave and the store manager Marlon Cohen. When Dave decided to move to a larger space a few doors down, he talked to me about his plans. I would visit regularly and check on the progress of his larger, more modern store. This store would have Back issue bins with sliding drawers and neon lights on the walls. This is the space his store currently occupies.

Besides being a regular customer, Dave and I became outside of work friends. There were a couple of breaks for things like college and a short lived experiment of my own Comic Book and Racing collectibles store on the other side of town. Dave and I had more conversations about life, the universe and everything than I can count.

When we were both single, Wednesdays at Innsbrook After Hours became a regular thing for us. We enjoyed the music, but we were both admiring the pretty girls and looking for potential dates. Neither of us met any serious dates there, but eventually we both met ladies we wanted to marry.

Back in July 1990 we spent the day in DC with soon to be ex girlfriends and finished the day at a Paul McCartney concert at RFK stadium. It was a concert we always remembered that was capped off with Fourth of July fireworks.

More significant than old girlfriends, was The lady in his life Sheryl. I remember the day of their wedding like it was yesterday. From that day forward I never thought of Dave without thinking of Sheryl and Dave. It was funny how many times Martha and I ran into Dave and Sheryl on a Saturday at the Bow Tie cinemas on the Boulevard. More often than not we were going to the same movie without having planned a thing.

An important part of a relationship with Dave, and me for that matter was food. Dave introduced me to Vietnamese cuisine at restaurants on Horsepen Road. Innsbrook nights meant dinners at the much-missed Jimmy’s Deli. I don’t remember what restaurant it was, but there was an evening when Dave introduced me to comic book legend Martin Nodell, creator of the Green Lantern. There were also a number of enjoyable afternoons in November at the annual Urbanna Oyster Festival.

In recent years the more common scenario was seeing Dave and Sheryl when I stopped by the shop to get my comics. I’d let Dave know that I would be having lunch next door at Mai Sushi and to come and join me. Dave would come over and we would spend lunchtime talking about our lives and the world of comics.

I am going to miss seeing my old friend. New comic Wednesdays will never be the same, but I am glad to have over 30 years of memories of my kind, intelligent and humorous friend.

What Day Is It?

Mike,  Mike, Mike. What day is it? Yes, its hump day, but more importantly it is Back to the Future Day! Wednesday, October 21, 2015 is the day that arrives in Hill Valley. There have been dozens of faked memes on Facebook showing other dates, but today is the actual date shown in Back to the Future part 2.

Back to the Future part 2 came out waaay back in 1989, so if you don’t remember it you can be forgiven. Maybe you’ve only seen the original from 1985. Here is the trailer to give you a reminder:

 

Back-to-the-Future-Part-2

 

So wear your Nikes, drink a Pepsi, read a USA Today and look desperately for your Mattel Hoverboard. Aside from that, it’s a great day to watch the Back to the Future trilogy  on Blu Ray or in a theater, or at least one of them!

 

One Year of My Favorite Albums

Here is my list of favorite CDs/Albums of all time. I have decided to list them with no more than one album per artist and no Greatest Hits. I went with 52 Albums-one for each week of the year

Also known as the albums I love to listen to over and over-In no particular order:

Fleetwood Mac /Rumours
The Cars
Genesis /ABACAB
Prince /Purple Rain
The Smiths /Meat is Murder
Eagles /Hotel California
Rush /Moving Pictures
Elton John /Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Electronic
Red Hot Chili Peppers /Californication
Death Cab for Cutie /Plans
Greenday /American Idiot
Boston
ACDC /Back in Black
Pink Floyd /A Momentary Lapse of Reason
The Police /Synchronicity
Beatles /Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
U2 /War
Yes /90125
Paramore /All We Know is Falling
Michael Jackson /Thriller
Madonna
Simple Minds /New Gold Dream
a-Ha /Hunting High and Low
Eric Clapton /August
Van Halen
Styx /The Grand Illusion
Foreigner /4
New Order /Republic
Carolina Liar /Coming to Terms
Linkin Park Meteora
Keane /Under the Iron Sea
Depeche Mode /Violator
Peter Gabriel /So
Jimi Hendrix /Are You Experienced?
INXS /Listen Like Thieves
Journey /Infinity
Kiss /Destroyer
Live /Throwing Copper
Pet Shop Boys /Please
Robert Plant /Now and Zen
Scorpions /Blackout
Smashing Pumpkins /Siamese Dreams
Garth Brooks /No Fences
Soundgarden /Superunknown
The Sundays /Blind
Supertramp /Breakfast in America
Talking Heads /Speaking in Tongues
Shania Twain /Come on Over
Tears for Fears /The Hurting
Toad the Wet Sprocket /Dulcinea
Rolling Stones /Let it Bleed

Let me know what your Year of Albums would look like.

My Favorite Non-Fiction Books

Here are my favorite Non-Fiction books of all time. I could break these up in to lots of categories, but I’m going to go with two lists: fiction and non-fiction. These are my non-fiction favorites all in no particular order, but they are all books that I have rated 5 stars on Goodreads

Non-Fiction:

  • All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Robert Fulghum

All I Really Need to Know

  • The Last Lecture Randy Pausch

The Last Lecture

  • Flyboys James Bradley

Flyboys

  • The Devil in the White City Erik Larson

Devil in the White City

  • Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken

  • Manhunt James Swanson

Manhunt

  • The Making of Star Trek Stephen Whitfield

Making of Star Trek

  • Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs

  • Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story Paul Arrant, Jr

The Rest of the Story

  • 1776 David McCullough

1776

These are some of my very favorites. What are yours? Let me know your top 10 favorites lists!

My Favorite Fiction Books

Here are my favorite Fiction books of all time. I could break these up in to lots of categories, but I’m going to go with two lists: fiction and non-fiction. My favorite genre is Science Fiction, but I try to read some of every type. My one exception is romance. Like Hip hop in music, it has never interested me. These are my fiction favorites all in no particular order, but they are all books that I have rated 5 stars on Goodreads

Fiction:

  • Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451

  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull Richard Bach

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

  • The DaVinci Code Dan Brown

DaVinci Code

  • The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

Kite Runner

  • Charlotte’s Web E.B. White

Charlotte's Web

  • Einstein’s Dreams Alan Lightman

Einstein's Dreams

  • Dune Frank Herbert

Dune

  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

  • The Man in the High Castle Philip K Dick

The Man in the High Castle

  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon

Kavalier and Clay

These are some of my very favorites. What are yours? Let me know your top 10 favorites lists!

My next list will be Non-Fiction Favorites, so start thinking of your own favorites.