A word about passion...

...now, I'm not talking about the kind of passion you see in Romeo and Juliet...

...or, god forbid, Twilight...

...I'm talking about the kind of passion we dorks, nerds, geeks and the like have for that which we call our "thing".

That thing that grabbed us at that special time in our lives when we knew, in that moment, that that "thing" would be a part of us the rest of our lives.

You know what I'm talking about.

One of my favorite films of all time...definitely in my top 10...is Searching for Bobby Fischer. There's a scene roughly ten minutes in when the boy is in the park with his mother and sister and he sees the men playing chess for the first time. He is so engrossed in the game that he lets go of his mother's hand, loses touch with everything else around him and just...watches...the game.

The look on his face - in that moment - shows that chess will be a part of his life regardless of what he ends up doing for a living.

Every single one of us dorks, nerds, geeks and the like have had that moment happen to us.

For me, that moment was when I was 16. I got to hang out with a high school friend of mine and he asked if I wanted to go to "Jim's". I had nothing going on, so I said "sure." Halfway there, he tells me that "Jim's" is a comic shop he goes to regularly in Waterbury, CT (roughly a 45-minute drive from school).

I didn't have a car at this point, so I'd only been to Waterbury, or anywhere else for that matter, when my parents were driving to go clothes shopping or see the occasional movie.

Plus - I had no idea what a "comic-shop" was.

By this point, I had started buying/reading/collecting comics thanks to the convenience store (back before they were called that) located next to the local library I walked to once a week, which was also across the street from our church...that I had to go to once a week.

So I knew of comics and had been hooked on them by then. I just thought a "comic-shop" was a place that had two spinner racks, or something like that.

Then I walked through the front door...

It was Disneyland. It was Willy Wonka's Factory. It was FAO Schwarz.

It was a bunch of men playing chess in the park.

And there were comics everywhere.

I knew in that moment that comics would forever have a place in my life.

Now, it's 25 years later. I have a wife. I have a child. I have a job that's driving me nuts. I have a house. I have a car and a truck and bills and debt and fear and stress and...

...a passion for comics.

One of my dreams was to own a shop like that. To take my passion for my "thing" and make good use of it.

But the digital age is upon us. "Comics" as I know them are going the way of cassette singles and VHS.

I can't even hold onto my subscription to a magazine about comics.

But I have this blog. A place that is mine to talk about my passion.

My "thing".