This is casual attire for a townie bar or a comic book convention. Clever.

I don’t buy leather jackets. Is this overpriced? Buy it anyway just because the dude is doing some variation on “The Fonz” in his auction photos.

What has been seen, cannot be unseen. You know what you must now do. Purchase.

Guy in a stupid jetpack with laser wrists, CHANCE!

OR

Terribly designed cyber blade jet shoe purple-hair clown, SPEEDFREEK!

Like the sort of person you would get a Berserk manga mousepad. Or any mousepad for that matter.

Or how about this set of Andy Cap smoking novelty toys(?)? If you can find the novelty cigarettes to go in their little mouths, they actually smoke. Perfect for young ones!

Here’s a good gift for no one. A full set of novelty (see how often that word comes up when dealing with low-cost, low-demand goods?) Spider-Man Euros. Money that can be used nowhere! Hurrah!

Let’s start with the end-all of comic book weddings. This is iconic. People have this tattooed on them. It sets the bar and I’ve never seen it matched.

And here’s a slightly less-memorable comic book wedding issue.

And, finally, the least-memorable comic book wedding issue to come with two collectable cards and currently sell for less than cover price.

Anyone heard of that first one? Totally new to me. The only Second City’s I know are the comedy tv show and the Saints. And before any one poo poo’s that Spidey issue as looking boring, it’s got Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko, AND the Lizard, all drawn by John Romita. I wouldn’t turn down a read.

CARDIAC!!!

There’s a couple reasons I think this dude was awesome. Number one, his costume. The late 90s were a time of giant shoulder pads to be sure, and admittedly I could do without them (and from the preview art at CBR it looks like they’re gone), but I’m a sucker for the white and blue costume scheme (see X-Factor era Cyclops and the Blizzard), so it worked for me. The other main reason is that his shades of gray origin was ahead of it’s time: he was a doctor who swore a vendetta against business men who placed profits before people, because a company withheld the release of medication that would have saved the life of his brother. So yeah, I’d say now is actually a REALLY good time to bring Cardiac back into the pages of Spidey (we won’t get into how they blew a prime opportunity a while back to bring him by doing a storyline where Electro went after the bankers who lost his savings). But since that’s not happening, I’ll settle for a one off story in an issue of Fear Itself: The Front Line.

Was it this issue?

Pretty confident it wasn’t this one. But it seemed to go so well with the image above, I included it anyway. Buy both these issues because this series was fun for thirty or so issues.

Here’s a couple auctions appropriate for the trip:

Coloring is the second-most misunderstood art tied to the comic book medium (lettering being slightly more misunderstood), and doesn’t get the respect it deserves as an art unto itself. As a professional penciller said recently, “there are good colorists, then there are colorists who are good AND advance the story and those are truly rare.” Well put. Do yourself the disservice of checking out those calling themselves colorists on Deviantart.com or Digitalwebbing.com and you’ll immediately recognize the value of a good one. For every 50 people who color, there is one that truly adds something.

So pick this up. It’s from a cool period in Amazing Spider-Man history and if you hang it up in your home you are doing your small part to recognize the artistry of comic book coloring. Or at least you are recognizing the process behind your favorite medium. Also, it’s the perfect cheap Christmas gift for a Spidey fan.