BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02556 Today was a good comic book day because I had two of my favorites ready to pick up. The ongoing G.I. JOE and Transformers comics were great. I also get G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero which continues the story from the 80's, it is good but not my favorite. The great thing about the other two was some major reveals. Both had jaw dropping final panels. I did not see one of the twists coming at all and the other was insane. I'm loving these series and I also continue my reread of the Classic Transformers comics including many of the UK ones I have never read before.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02553 I've been working on a 3D project this past week. I'm creating a Character box for role playing games. I created it to incorporate the Thundercats because there is a Thundercats RPG coming out soon. I backed the project on Kickstarter and so I am working on perfecting the box for playing the game. I like how the box came out but I want to make another one with some additions. Also refine it a bit more.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02544 I now have 3 compendiums for comics of properties that were a huge part of my childhood. Transformers was my go to comic and cartoon followed by G.I. JOE and Thundercats. They were all great cartoons and even better comics. It wasn't until recently that I learned that there was a Thundercats comic from the 80's. I never knew that. The day I learned about it and the day that I purchased the first 14 comics I learned that Dynamite, the company that is publishing current Thundercats comics was making a compendium of the original 24 issue series. I recently received this in the mail and it is a very cool compendium. It even has a forward from Larry Kenny, the original voice of Lion-o. I'm going to have to find a better place to display these.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02543 I bought two sets of this 2026 Quest Calendar. It is a solo D&D adventure. I got two of them. One for andy and one for myself. However, I'm using .pdf files instead of the physical calendar so I gave my copy to Eva after I 3D printed a holder for her. The way this works is that you do part of a quest every day of the year. You have 6 characters to choose from or you can create your own character. You play as a villain, so it should be fun to be a little bad. I decided that I'd be setting mine up on a document on Google so that I could keep track of everything. Other things I started doing today was reading my comic book collection from the beginning starting with the original Transformers comics. I intend to read at least 4 comics a day, maybe more. We'll see how far I get in my collection this year.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02530 A while back skybound put together a Kickstarter for a Transformers Compendium. This collects the 80 issues from the 80's - 90's. That is the collection of comics I just completed in their original form. The compendium is 4 giant embossed cover books. Then they reprinted 3 key issues from the comic book series. They were issues 2,5 and 67. They even made some tech specs, lenticular images and portraits of characters. I did buy an extra Decepticon sticker because I bought the Autobot version of the compendium and so the sticker for Decepticons only was part of the Decepticon version. There was also an Autobot pin and a challenge coin. It is a beautiful set.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02527 It is very fitting that I received this note along with the final two Transformers Generation 1 comics for my collection. Issues 72 and 77 are now in my possession. I had many conversations with this seller. We even shared photos of our Transformers toy collections. He was really excited by my love for the franchise and was glad to sell the books to me. This note shows a great deal of care that he took with his books and also with making my purchase special. He couldn't have known that this would be my last comics for my completed collection or rather that they would arrive last. Just very cool to see that he cared. 

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02526 I continue to find cool things for my Wheeljack collection.The figure is Wheeljack from Transformers One prior to getting back his transformation cog. He's standing on two comic books. They are Transformers #21 of the new Skybound continuity. The covers, however are done by Tiago Da Silva my new favorite Transformers artist. He's done handful of these special covers for Transformers comics. today I received about 7 of them and learned that there are still 2 more that I do not have. What he does is creates one cover of a shiny new robot and the other cover is battle damaged. So the left one is battle damaged and the right is pristine. It is a very cool concept that he's done for many great characters. What turned me on to his covers and artwork was this Wheeljack set. I'm really excited to have it now!

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02505 For the past few weeks I have been working on a bunch of comic books and organizing them. I'm so close to completing my collection. Specifically my Transformers collection from my childhood. I am now 4 books away from having a complete collection of all the Transformers comics. A few more searches on eBay and I may even get it completed. When that is done it is time to start reading the entire collection. During one of my recent purchases of Transformers comics I got into a conversation witht he seller and we ended up trading pics of our respective collections of things like Transformers toys so I shot this to show him.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02498 I've been trying to complete my comic book collection recently and with that I have about 14 Transformers issues that I've been missing.Today Issue #61 finally arrived. This is one I have been unable to find for years but I got it on eBay. Most of the Transformers books that I am missing are the much later ones that had a lower run overall. That means that they will be more expensive. Hopefully through searchign comic book shops and comic cons I'll be able to complete the collection some day.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02494 When Allison and I started discussing our 20th Anniversary and how to celebrate it we were looking at a few things but they were things we had done before. Then Allison sent me a link to the Providence Tour company. she had gone with Eva and her friend Aviva on the Providence Haunted Authors Tour and really enjoyed it. The company had a Dinner Stroll on Federal Hill so we booked it for tonight. The stroll took us to Cassarino’s, Trattoria Appia, Pane e Vino, and Anthony’s Authentic Italian Cuisine. We were on the tour with three other couples who were all friends. By the end of the night we had had good conversations with most everyone from the group. We were about 10 years younger than the rest of the group. We learned that our tour guide was from North Attleboro. She was very nice. Our adventure started at Cassarino's for an appetizer sampler of calamari, bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and clams casino. Everything was excellent. We were allotted 35 minutes a...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02488 I have finally completed all of the documenting of the comics in my collection. I've also realized that some comic book series that I enjoyed I stopped before they stopped so I've been looking through eBay to complete the collections. I am now missing about 20 or so but still waiting for deliveries. I'm also going to create some better labels that go in the little rectangular spots for each box. I showed this image to my cousin and he said it looked sort of like Optimus Prime. I can see that as well.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02484 Back in the 90's I was all about collecting the WildStorm comic books and my favorite character was one called Grifter from the WildC.A.T.S. I even created a costume for this character. I'm thinking of resurrecting the character for a future Granite State Comicon. I've got a few things to find for the costume. I'll also need a wig. I had hair back then.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02483 For a while now I have been reorganizing and documenting my comic book collection. I moved the comics from the cardboard boxes to some upgraded plastic boxes that provide more protection. I've been taking each comic out and photographing it, documenting the publication date, cover price and more information for each book. The spreadsheet shows about 2670 comics and the album of photographed comic covers is at 2080 so I have close to 600 more to go. Some need boards and bags and some, I am discovering, are missing issues. I discovered that one of my favorite comics, WildC.A.T.S. has 6 volumes of books and for some reason I am missing a large chunk of the 5th volume but have all of the 6th. So it is off to eBay I have been going to fill out and complete the collection. It has proven very helpful to get the collection complete. I figure if I can photograph a box a day I should be done with this by the weekend. Then I can show my new shelf with all the boxes of b...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02478 This year's San Diego Comicon featured a Transformers set that combined the character of Jetfire with two characters from the comic book Void Rivals, Darak and Solla. Void Rivals is part of the Energon Universe of comic books. This would include Transformers, G.I. JOE and Void Rivals. Skybound, which is under Image comic has the license of Transformers and G.I.JOE. They also have M.A.S.K. too because characters from that universe are also running around in this new one.  I have been collecting all the comics from the Energon Universe and they are awesome. I love how they are intertwined. For instance Darak and Solla crash land on a planet in their book and they discover Jetfire. This set is of that meeting. There is even a comic book with a special cover included in this set. It is a cool display but I seem to have run out of viable places for it to be displayed so it is on the back of the futon at this time.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02473 Today I drove up to New Hampshire to Double Midnight Comics to sell a huge lot of Transformers toys. I'd been collecting these toys for well over 40 years. After college I bought a ton of them and kept buying them. In 2007 I had them all out and did a photo shoot with the local newspaper because a Live Action Transformers movie was going to be released. The local paper was doing a story on people who were Transformers fans and I got into the mix. At one point I had 19 very large boxes of Transformers, many that were still in their own boxes.  Today I sold about 300 toys to Double Midnight. They were split up into 23 boxes. I photographed every one of them and wrote in the descriptions and dates they were released so that Scott at Double Midnight could look them over and decide if they wanted to buy. He gave me fair price for them and so yesterday I got my ad's van and Andy and I loaded up all the boxes and I drove them up today. While I was there I checke...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02471 It is time to take out the sleep pants. The weather has gotten colder and I've been in need of a little more warmth overnight. I didn't get much for a photo today because I've been working on my comics for hours and hours. I've got a lot of the comics documented but each box takes a couple of hours to photograph and document. I have at least 4 comic book boxes left to go. And I'm still awaiting a few comics from eBay to finish off the collection.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02459 I've got the comic books bagged, boarded and many boxed. The spreadsheet shows me where each one is stored and now I have some labels on the boxes. These are placeholders until I make up some full color ones to make the organization better. I have this little wireless heat transfer printer that can print onto stickers. I found an Autobot symbol online and was able to print it with the printer to make box labels for the Transformers boxes. In the end I'll probably have 8 or so of them. Eventually I'll have the whole collection stored away and be able o take a box at a time for reading. All books are being ordered in a reading order so that I can enjoy all of them. I had gotten way behind in reading but kept up in the collecting of the different series that I enjoy. That means that I probably have a couple hundred books to read and enjoy soon.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02457 Well, I've gone through all of my comic books over the past several weeks and I've determined that over 40 years of collecting I am missing 40 comic books in m collection. So, the hunt has begun to fill in those gaps. So, I'll be visiting comic book shops in the area and trying to find those hard to find books. There have been times when my shop didn't pull a particular comic and I missed that. There were other times when I was just a kid and couldn't get to a comic book shop on a regular basis to find the books for my collection. The biggest gap is in my original Transformers comic book collection. Those were from when I was 10-14 years old. The hardest time to stay consistent in collecting. These are also some of the hardest to find books out there. The final issue goes for around $40. That's crazy but I'll keep looking.  This shop was in Putnam, CT and was about an hour ride. It was worth the ride because it was such a nice store ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02456 While going through all of my comic books I discovered a few comic book cards that were in different boxes. These are from Wildstorm Studios. WildC.A.T.S. was one of my favorite books from the 90's. I collected every6thing I could with these characters and even did a Etymology report on the origins of each of the names of the characters. I brought in comic books and action figures to demonstrate the meanings of the names for many characters. My favorite character from the team was a character named cole Cash or Grifter. He was the best. I even did a costume of him back when I worked at Sacred Heart University. I wish I still had that costume. Would be great to have at Comic-cons now.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02455 While I was organizing my comic books I came across the instructions for rather, Players Guide, for the Wildstorms Collectible Card game. I've been looking fro this for a while because now that I have it I can get the cards down and see if andy would like to learn how to play the game with me. I think that Andy will pick it up quickly and I've always wanted to play this with someone else. I've played n my own as I collected the cards but not really with other people. In other comics news I picked up a copy of the Cold Slither comic book at Rubber Chicken Comics because my comic shop didn't have a copy for me. This is a one shot of the fictional band from G.I. JOE that is made up of the Dreadnoks. I was talking with my friend Ken all about it and he even remembers the entire song that went along with the show.