Archie Meets the Punisher for me. Acquired it (eBay) about 2 months ago.

Didn’t see it on the shelves at the time (1994). I never lost interest - and I am glad I own it now - but I could never find a price that didn’t require a bank loan. On rare occasions, eBay had copies in the United States, but postage costs were prohibitive for my personal budget. It was every bit as awesome as I hoped for, particularly one panel (which I won’t spoil, but let’s just say it was very funny). I can’t remember, but I may have shared said panel in a Top Shelf topic.

It was only ever about the money. While I didn’t lose interest, there were periods of time where a leisure budget has to take a back seat due to personal finances, so the hunt became “dormant” if that makes sense.

It's hard for hunts to go on to long these days, so long as you're willing to throw enough money at the hunt...

As a child, then a teen, I had plenty of hunts go on for years. Hunts back then revolved around availability (at an affordable price) in comic shops I visited.

A few comics from my childhood that I wanted for ages eluded me until eBay became a thing. Nothing expensive, just never in stock anywhere. Punisher War Zone #2, a couple of Jim Lee Uncanny issues, one McFarland ASM issue, multiple Transformers UK comics, along with a number of others, still spring to mind! Often things I wanted got collected, and I was happy enough with reprints.

Edit: Funny story about that McFarlane ASM issue I'd missed- 303 I think- I was new to the whole eBay thing, and bid on a few copies for sale. I won 3 copies of it. 😅

Jughead's Diner #3. I think I was looking for nineteen years before Crimebuster awesomely tracked one down for me!



In the '90s, people saved old comics and they saved superhero comics, but if you were publishing minor non-superhero books in the '90s, they fell off the face of the Earth fast. In my case, my LCS was only ordering one or two copies of each issue, and I think stopped ordering entirely after #2. I don't remember where/how I found #4, but #3 proved far more elusive. In the end, it was well worth the wait. One of the best projects Archie Comics ever produced, and certainly its silliest!

There's always holes in my collection that I'm looking to fill, and I've got a notebook full of stuff, but these days I don't really make any sort of active effort to hunt things down. I've got too much of a backlog of stuff waiting to be read or re-read, and that keeps me occupied enough.  If I'm in a store and I see something that's on my lists, and the price is right I'll get it, but that's different.

I find that online shopping makes things easier, and a lot of my collections were completed that way, but back in the good old days things were a lot different.  The Transformers series from Marvel was one of the earliest series I collected as a kid, but I started on issue 2, then 4, then bought everything after that as it came out.  I had friends that let me read their copies of issue 1, but I was always on the look out for my own copy.  Eventually it was reprinted in a digest, and that's how I got to read issue 3 too, (though I'd eventually pick up the actual issue 3 as a back issue a few years later).  Somehow when the series ended with issue 80, I managed to miss that final issue.  It was never on the newsstand where I bought every issue before it, and I could never find it in any comic shop back issue bins.  I eventually found my own copy of issue one at a flea-market in the late 90s, for not too much (probably $20.00 or less).  Twenty dollars is actually around my threshold for any single comic, but I probably paid more when I eventually did get a copy of issue 80 from an on-line dealer in the early 2000s.


Another one that actually comes to mind, and this story just occurred yesterday, is a Treasury-size special with an original Spider-man/Hulk story.  I've read it before but never had my own copy.  I'd settle for a reprint, but it's one of those that never seems to get reprinted or included in any collections.  I was actually in a comic shop yesterday, a few towns over that I've only been too a couple times years ago, but decided to check out just on a whim.  I wasn't really specifically looking for this comic, but there it was sitting on top of the back issue bins, in plain view.  It was in a bag with a price sticker, but it was scratched out, couldn't tell if it was $10.00 or $70.00 (I guessed that it probably wasn't $10, but was hoping I could haggle a bit, since it wasn't clear).  When I asked the owner what the price actually was, he told me it wasn't actually for sale at all, but he just had it out to show someone earlier, and left it sitting there.  That really sucked!  I did get an old reprint of Marvel's Return of the Jedi adaptation from the 80s which I had seen go for insane prices on the wall of my regular comic shop, but it was only $20.00.  I had this and the rest of the series reprinted in collections from Darkhorse, but really wanted this version too (though it wasn't on my actual list), so that was a small consolation.  Plus, I also got some sort of magazine about the Christopher Reeve Superman movies for $5.00, and a Hulk sticker book (which I think I had as a kid) for $10.00.  I'm not sure if those were good prices, but they were right in front of me, and apparently there was a 50% sale going on.  Sometimes finding stuff you weren't actually hunting for is good too.

Still, now I'm probably going to have to actively go track down that Spider-man/Hulk comic, otherwise it's going to bug me for a while!

That's awesome! I've actually wondered how much material I've missed because of spelling or other keyword mismatches to my searches.

eBay now vs eBay circa 2002 is nothing like the same thing, sadly. I bought a few massive runs for sub $1 an issue. It's quite sad that so many prices are up 10 fold. My salary isn't up 10 fold 😅. It's even worse on Silver Age comics- everything is slabbed, and no one seems to sell runs.