I've been flicking through this book I got out of the library called "Sci-fi & Fantasy Collectibles" by Phil Ellis. It covers Action Figures, Books & Annuals, Comics & Graphic Novels, Toys, Trading Cards, Posters and Ephemera. It's not an in-depth catalogue of everything ever, more like a fascinating skim across the surface, with plenty of tasty full-colour pictures. I swear to god, there's some images here that really mess with my head...long forgotten childhood obsessions raise themselves forlornly and beckon me into the past. There was one thing I was looking at that triggered some buried memory for a split second, but it was gone before I could grasp it. The worst bit is when you look at some of the prices these things are fetching and realise that your mum chucked 'em out 20 years ago.



Another thing that I got a bit miserable about recently was when I realised that all the comic strips I wrote & drew when I was a kid no longer exist. Until about the age of fourteen, I was convinced that my destiny was to illustrate Marvel Comics. I got the book "How To Draw Comics The MARVEL Way" for Xmas when I was about eleven. That really helped me develop my style. I was so sure that was gonna be my career. Then, in my teens I just sort of lost interest. So anyway I just had this urge recently to look back through all that work I did, all those stories and ideas I had, but they're long gone. Thrown out to make space for more useless crap, no doubt. It feels like I had bottomless reserves of creativity and enthusiasm back then. And commitment. I wonder what my eleven year old self would think of the adult that he became? Disappointed might be an understatement....