When I was a kid growing up, I lived in a small town. There were no comic shops. My exposure to comics came from where they were sold, mostly at the local grocery stores. We're seeing a resurgence of interest in comics, or at least comic characters, thanks to the movie blockbusters of the...

How many of us who grew up in the 1960s and early '70s were lured by those enticing ads promising everything from X-Ray vision to crown-wearing sea monkey pets for a mere couple of bucks? As a kid these ads were just about the coolest thing in the world to me, they stoked the flames for my...