Hello, Sean Welch here, Dean, Curator and Chief Purchaser of the Madison Comic Book Repository and Lecture Hall, formerly known as the Hawthorne and State CBR&LH and earlier the Winnebago Street CBR&LH. The decision was made to simplify the Repository's name when I moved to my new house. Through this blog the faculty of the Repository will be giving reviews, essays and informative studies on the ever-engrossing world of comic books and collecting.
I've been an avid comic book reader for almost thirty years.
My earliest memories of Marvel comics were some Mego dolls (Human Torch and Lizard) and a Fantastic Four lunchbox of an older next door neighbour. In the third grade I had a very good teacher in Mrs. Lehman. She encouraged us to read everything we could. I had a few Superman comic books and even penned a story called "Superman Saves the Zoo", in which a friend and I helped Supes corral some escaped animals. When my Dad took me to get a haircut at Jim's Barber Shop there was always Archie and Richie Rich comics to read. The neighborhood gas station had Whitman comics- those Gold Key reprints of Turok and Brothers of the Spear. At my Grandparents house I read my Uncle's Mad magazines and Dell comics like Sea Hunt and The Shaggy Dog as well as westerns. Some other early comics included a school giveaway from Radio Shack (http://my.opera.com/xyzcosmonaut/blog/superman-radio-shack) where some kids use a cheap computer to help save Metropolis. I also liked the DC Digest comics and read many comic strips every Sunday after church. The comics that really made me a fan were issues my brother and I picked up on a bus trip in 1981. I got Micronauts #28 (http://politedissent.com/archives/106) and I got my first glimpse of HYDRA and SHIELD. My brother Rory got Star Wars #47 (http://www.theforce.net/comics/marvel/cp_msw047.asp) and it was this comic book that really made me want to read more. We were already Star Wars fanatics and we had lots of action figures and collectibles, but this issue, "Droid World" influenced me to draw my own robots and make my own comic books. Later that year I paid fifty cents for Captain America #100, Avengers #27, Marvel Masterpieces #10 and several other silver age comics that made me a Marvel fan for life.
Over the years I subscribed to Micronauts, Strikeforce: Morituri and Captain America. Rory encouraged me to read X-Men when Jim Lee was penciller (I had bailed from all things mutant during the Silvestri era because every character had BIG hair and Rogue's villian past was written away as mental illness) and he has directed my attention to many good reads like Preacher and Low Life. I have become more interested in 70's Marvel titles and in the last ten years I have bought most of Warlock, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Nova, Man-Thing, Ms. Marvel and a bunch of random titles when I could find them cheap.
Recently I've been reading all of Ed Brubaker's comics: Captain America, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Men and Iron Fist. Civil War has been very good and Planet Hulk, too. The best comic out right now though, I think is DC's 52. I know- I heart Marvel- but this series has made me like so many different and formerly boring DC characters, like Booster Gold, etc. Infinite Crisis was mediocre compared to this and I hope DC can keep this idea going for a little while.
For those keeping stats: I am 35 years of age, living with my fiance- the lovely Beth Shoham- in the new house we just bought. I am a student at MATC for one more semester, after which I want to transfer to the UW.
Upcoming blog items will include "Rules of the Marvel Universe", "Super-Villain: You Should Have Seen That Coming!" and "What Ever Happened To...?".