About midway through the summer, my road warrior partner and I made our way to what must be the grandest of antique/flea markets either of us had ever been in. I'm talking at least two and a half hours were spent just quickly gazing over everything, taking in the massive amount of dusty history and thinking just how cool - and way overpriced - some of this stuff was. While the innards of this Mecca were impressive, there was a sadness that filled the air as there was almost nothing worth talking about as far as movie paraphernalia goes. This is the type of place I expected to find some serious random memorabilia, yet, nearly a thing was worth more than an inquisitive and respectful glance.
As I made my way through the monstrous maze, I stumbled upon a massive collection of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazines - like three full boxes of them - and within one of these barely stable boxes, I hoped to find one special issue in particular. There was a good 40 minutes of time that I spent flipping through every allergy inducing book before I realized my luck was running on empty and sadness began to settle in. I didn't find that one issue I was searching for, and I then began to walk around in a catatonic state of disappointment with a lurking sinus infection due to the lack of Swiffer use. And then, from afar, I saw a wall filled with numerous books, and hope suddenly came rushing back to my being. As you can see, this is quite the collection of literature, plus, this was only one of two sides that had called for me to scrounge through.
While this collection of books was massive, it didn't take long to find a few random pockets of Isaac Asimov Magazines and the search would be back on with a fury. With a new sense of hope and a sparkle in my eye that glistened as I flipped through each issue, I finally found this…
See that dude on the left? Look familiar? Well, he shouldn't, because I look pretty different since I posed for this cover when I was 13-years-old, but that is in fact me, the kid with the tight pant roll unlike any you have ever seen before. I know, it's pretty sexy how I'm just chillin' in the cut like it's no one's business - in a pose that begs to be imitated - but please, compose yourself for a moment - lets not get off track here. This fine piece of ass, I mean art, was done up by an artist named A.C. Farley, and I already went over that connection in the second paragraph of this post from the past, so no need to go over details again as it's less about the history, and more about actually finding this thing.
Seriously, it is one of the coolest things ever to be in some random antique store in Indiana, only to find a magazine that has me on the cover! Like, that magazine has been there for who knows how long, in a state far from where I am from, and I found it! So, while I did not find some awesome old movie poster, or cool toy, or what have you, I did find something that would have more sentimental value than I would have ever expected to have randomly run into.
minutes from where I grew up. I have all of my Mirage Studios TMNT comics to this very day (actually, I have all of my comics still), most of them signed by many of the artist and writers involved with the original series, including Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the creators of the Turtles and founders of Mirage Studios.
So as you can see, I have a soft spot for the Turtles property (Totally Tubular Trailers?), and even if the movies and TV series were never nearly as cool or dark as the original Eastman and Laird creation, they were still a ton of fun. Knowing that such a majorly successful franchise/property was thunk up and created near where I grew up, and is now all but completely sold off is a little sad to me. Especially when I had some personal connections to that franchise/property in a lot of ways, so I feel like it's kind of mine. I am pretty selfish, however.
