You're a good egg, Mr. Heller. 

Sorry to hear this, George. You provide a real spirit of fun, optimism, and camaraderie here. Here's hoping the challenges you're facing will eventually work themselves out very soon. Try to stay as upbeat as you always sound in your posts. I hope being such a vital part of this the community remains a source of happiness for you. It sure does for us.

Thanks, PH.

Let's see how things have been going:

Stretch drive for the marathon of 2021, lets assess before we go into that final stretch. Outside of the FB group auctions, I don't see myself buying anything new before the end of the year. There's a Jim and Dan show next weekend, but I am skipping it (I usually skip the December show often it's the same Sunday as my wife's family get together, but that was this past Sunday, this year, we have a D&D session scheduled) and I won't be hitting any shops before the end of the year except to pick up m pulls and maybe some bags and boards if I can find them.



Back issue prices got out of hand for keys since the pandemic started. I am priced out of these right now, so it will be a while before I get those three Hawlkman keys if ever. The other Hawkman related stuff was more doable. I did manage to get a copy of Atom #7 and the two World's Finest issues, but none of the rest.



I picked up 2-3 issues, not much else



I picked up one Matt Baker issue (Hawk #9), nothing Toth, but I did manage to get ahold of copies of the Toth Genius trilogy via interlibrary loan to read, so read a lot of Toth material this year.




I made a lot of progress on Sgt. Rock (and Our Army at War) and The 'Nam. I picked up a handful of Ghost Rider, Phantom, and I.Vampire stuff, but I gave up on getting the Atom stuff for the most part.



Didn't do much on the GR stuff outside of the AOK from the Captain. Same with Xenozoic and an AOK from tartanphantom. Did get the Gemstone reprints on the three Piracy issues and one of the Aces High. Finished off Dune and Chilling Adventures. And got a little loser on Spirit Magazine. Picked up one of the Flash Gordon issues. The rest, not so much.

Other goals emerged and dominated my buying in 2021. Scooby Doo, Usagi Yojimbo singles, and Groo the Wanderer. Happens every year.



nowhere close. Read over 1000 comics, a lot was from trades, or digitally. I think I got to a little more than 400 single issues I actually owned.



I've read way more than 50 trades this year, but only 43 of them that I owned at the time (a few I purged after reading as I wasn't going to reread them). A chance I could hit 50, but doubtful.



I only read 1 and a bit of a second Wheel of Time book. I will likely pick up the series again after the first season of the Amazon series finishes up. I've read 15 novels/short story collections outside the Wheel of Time, plus a number of non-fiction books, art books, and game (rpg) books). A lot of my reading time was devoted to that area this year.



I met my total Goodreads goal in November. I am currently at 93 or 87 pledged.





A lot of organizing goals got derailed by 2 things-a shortage of supplies making it difficult to accomplish some of these, and finding a D&D group and starting up 2 campaigns ongoing plus periodic one-shots meaning alot of my free time has gone into DM prep instead of organizing comics.

Still overall, all things considered, not bad in terms of what I actually accomplished. No plan, especially yearly resolutions/goals, survives first contact with reality, but I did ok on a lot othe things, at least making significant progress where I fell short of the stated goals. I have got a lot of thinking/rethinking to do before I establish my 2022 goals though.


-M