Laser Swords and Spider Women (Hobby Origins, the Beginning...)

Not the name of a new tabletop game but rather my earliest recollections of the fantastical.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't interested in fantasy and sci-fi subjects.  The original Star Wars film debuted while I was still in diapers, with cheap imitations saturating the media landscape while I took my first steps.  Kenner Star Wars toys and their knock-offs were ubiquitous and my toddler eyes no doubt saw them in the bedrooms of older cousins.

My first concrete memory of anything fantastical is watching The Empire Strikes Back upon its theater release in 1980.  I clearly remember the Imperial Walker battle scene and the lightsaber duel but little else, and I think I slept through most of that first showing.  

Star Wars toys featured prominently at that 1980 Christmas, and I was hooked.  My rural hometown routinely brought back popular movies (maybe this was normal back then?) and either the following summer in '81, or a year later in '82 I saw ESB in the theater again, this time soaking it all in.  Knowing the general thrust of the story (ice planet fight, swamp planet stuff, cloud planet stuff) but then being amazed at the Vader-as-Luke's-Father revelation (SPOILER ALERT!) stands as a very clear memory.  

The few readers of this blog know that comic books are my one true love.  Despite stupidly selling my collection decades ago, my earliest comics survived the purge due to their extremely poor and therefore unmarketable conditions.  Armed with these actual copies and the unparalleled Mike's Amazing World of Comics database (R.I.P. Mike), I reordered my jumbled memories.

My first comic?  Spider-Woman #34.  Curious choice for a young boy but then I remember economics and not my preferences played the primary role in my earliest, preschool, comic book acquisitions.  The spinner rack resided at the liquor store* and perhaps in early 1981 I spied a Star Wars comic, or maybe recognized Spider-Man from the old '60s cartoon that was in syndication.  The memory is fuzzy but I remember being told "no", only to have the gruff salesman intervene and offer my dad a discounted comic to placate me.  This happened a number of times, with the shop owner selling my folks comics that either were damaged or poor sellers about to be discarded to make room for the next month's editions.  I believe Spider-Woman #34 fell into the latter category.  None of that mattered to me... the bright colors, slam-bang action, and over-the-top characters were more than my pre-kindergarten brain could ask for.  Remember Hammer and Anvil, two escaped convicts connected at the wrists by an alien super-chain?  As I type this, my nearly 50 year-old brain realizes what a wonderfully wacky supervillain concept this was; there was no chance a child could understand.  But I was enthralled.  I think that my inability to comprehend the comic's plot (I couldn't read yet), coupled with the intense visual imagery (violence, Kirby-crackle, Spider-Woman's curves, etc.) suggested to me that comics were for "big-kids".  I felt like I was being let into a secret world.  And I was hooked for life.

*Note: this is not as seedy as it sounds.  Where I'm from in the western USA, "liquor store" was (in the 80s at least) a term for a general convenience store.  Dad was typically stopping in there to just grab the paper, a half-gallon of milk, maybe some chewing tobacco, or get some fishing tackle.  And yes, some beer.  As evidenced by the spinner rack right at the front door though, it was a kid-friendly place and the foundation of my comic book collection.      

(Pictures copyright original owners, used without permission but at resolutions intended for educational purposes only.  Buy Marvel Comics).

 

Bitten by a Radioactive Space Marine Miniature (Hobby Origins: Intro)

Recently I returned from visiting my parents out west for the holidays, an eight day trip by car with only my dog for company.  The USA is a damn big place.  

Despite the monotony of road, binging a handful of good podcasts made the miles fly by.  All the podcasts I consumed focused on gaming, naturally, with the biggest standouts being The Bedroom Battlefields Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast and The Crown of Command Podcast.

I noticed that I particularly enjoyed the episodes where guests recounted their "origin stories", telling how they first started into the tabletop hobby.  All that driving gave me time to reflect on why those episodes appealed to me, and I think the key factor is the commonality of experiences.

Of course, hearing all those stories about the adolescent glory days of hobby time in the 80s and 90s made me think about my own origin story.  How did it all begin?  When did it all begin?  As it turns out, questions harder to answer than anticipated.

The older I get, the fuzzier the memories get, with events getting transposed and intermingled.  Some hobby memories are burned into my soul, never to be forgotten.  Others are only vague suggestions.  I've therefore decided to start a number of short posts here to recount my hobby origin.

I don't anticipate anyone will read them (except the bots from Singapore), but really only I am the intended audience.  I hope that by writing down my journey into the tabletop gaming hobby I can not only experience that warm glow of nostalgia, but recover some lost memories and maybe even correct some false ones.