The following wall of text I've cross-posted a few places. I first wrote it on my Facebook wall for friends, but I'm proud of it and am excited for both feedback on the text and feedback on the heart of it. I would love to hear your stories! Of all the places it's been posted, here at Hubski it'll spur the most conversation.

Finding the White Whale. A Collector’s Story

I was informed the young’ns call them blogs, but I call ’em essays. I wrote the following essay the moment I got home from a very successful trip to a near-by comic convention. I was still riding the emotional high, but I was very excited to share. If you’ve got the time, please enjoy it! I heard that two of my friends teared up reading it.

On May 15th, 2015, I completed a collection. That doesn’t sound like much of a to-do for mortals who aren’t into that sort of thing. “That sort of thing” being, “the compulsion to seek out trivial bobbles that fill some imagined hole in one’s life.” But today ends a quest I’ve been on since I was eleven years old. It’s not the first time I’ve, “completed a collection,” either. I completed my video game collection a few years ago. That didn’t end well, but more on that some other time. I don’t fully understand why my brain chemistry makes collecting things so important. The importance of those objects has diminished greatly since my son Oliver was born, of course. In some ways, however, he’s a catalyst to inspire more collecting—we just had to track down the complete set of Rescue Bot Transformers–yet my love for his social well-being inspires me to make sure he understands how collecting, left unchecked, can be a harmful distraction from a real, social life.

All things in moderation.

Be in control and conscientious in everything you do.

At Motor City Comic Con I found issue 29 of volume 4 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That completes every main-line book Mirage, Archie, and IDW ever printed on the Turtles. Every one of them is a first print, except for the original 1984 issue 1. No one NEEDS to spend $3000 on a comic book printed on the cheapest of yellowing newsprint. I didn’t know I had begun collecting anything at all when I walked into a used bookstore with my mom–maybe in 1992–off of 36th Street near the corner of Division Avenue in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a trade paperback of the original three issues of the Mirage Ninja Turtles. It might have even been my first comic book ever. It was darker and grittier than the cartoon I loved, but it was awesome to my little 12 year old brain–despite the “errors” of having all their masks colored red, and Splinter being a rat and not a human. Of course I didn’t know the comic was the original. And gosh–that old-book smell. I love the smell of that book. Between that trade paperback and the first two regular issues of the Mirage run my Aunt Marie got me for a birthday (issues 48 and 49)–these were my first Ninja Turtles comics and they’re still in my collection. Only now? I have EVERY issue.

Having every book in that run means a lot to me. I don’t know why. It’s very comfortable.

Realistically, in the grand scheme of life, it means very little. Logically, I know that. Maybe those feelings come from the period of my life when I’d get on my bike–sometimes with my friend David–and ride down Division Avenue to the Shell station on 28th Street to buy the Archie Turtles series off the spinner rack. Remember when comics were sold at the grocery stores and gas stations? Fond memories. It’s part of my childhood. Maybe it’s not part of who “I am” now, but these books and these characters, and these friends and memories are the runway on which adult Joseph Reed was launched. Having all these books is a connection to that time.

Marrying my wife, hearing my son thudding through the house, being a teacher to many wonderful students makes me feel complete. This is the man I truly am. Having a complete collection of silly paperback books with anthropomorphic amphibians is . . . different. Having a family and a good job is the food. The nourishment. Collecting funny books and toys is the candy. Being a complete adult and being a complete geek doesn’t compare at all; except that I did just managed to make a metaphor out of it.

I’ve been hunting for this book for . . . well, about twenty years. Only I didn’t know it. It was printed in 2008 but it was always “destined” to be released. So yeah. Twenty years. I’ve been specifically and actively hunting for this particular book for two years. I saw it at Motor City Comic Con one or two years ago and passed on it. At the time, I was purchasing the Turtle books sequentially from low numbers to high, based on how much disposable cash I had budgeted for myself on that particular outing. I saw it, and back then at the time, didn’t know how rare it was. I just bought the rest of what I needed to fill gaps in the set. So once I got some of the other books out of the way, and I realized how gosh darn’d difficult 29 was being, I sort of kicked myself.

I waited in line at the Suburban Collection Showplace on May 15th 2015, got my ticket, and walked straight for the booth I knew would be most likely to have it. This particular booth, run by the guys who put on the convention, always had lots of Turtle books in their bins. It’s consistently been the most respectable selection of Turtle books I’ve been able to find in three states. No dice yet–they were still setting up the booth. Behind the long boxes of comics set up on tables the racks (where the valuable comics usually were,) were still empty. “If it’s going to be here, it’ll probably be back there on that rack,” I told the clerk. He agreed and I left to hit every other comic vendor in the building. I ran into Gavin and Deanna who manage a local, Grand Rapids comic store, Tardy’s. We’re pals, and they know what I’m looking for. “I’m on the hunt for that book. It’s the only reason I’m here,” I tell them. They’ve had their eyes open for me in the store as well, and I love them for it. Compassionate people with the hook-up are awesome. I owe them for their awareness. The search continued. Over the next hour and a half, I had hit every comic booth and didn’t find a thing I wanted or needed.

Defeated, I walked through artist’s alley and celebrity row. There were several folks there who broke my brain–your psyche realizing Lieutenant Dax from Star Trek is a real human being complete with feet, legs, and shoes that don’t usually get shown on screen–and a real life outside of the alien make-up. As a clear-thinking human, you know she’s an actor when you see her on TV, but seeing her and these other folks in person shocks you awake.

By then, I had given up on finding the book. I’m sad. It’s an investment using a personal day from work, driving across state, buying a ticket to a huge convention. . . . and all for this one book, essentially. It ends up being a gigantic waste of time and money considering there are real-life things you could have been accomplishing. There is a heartfelt sadness as I walk by the Tardy’s booth again and talk to Deanna about not having found it. But you know? It’s a rare book. I knew very well I probably wasn’t going to find it. There were only 1000 of them printed and, as far as I’ve been able to research, were sold ONLY through the Mirage website. You had to KNOW the book was coming out AND you had to order it before it disappeared. There are fewer of these books than there are of the original #1 which had a print-run of 3000. The likelihood of finding this book in the hands of someone who wasn’t keeping the book for his or her own collection was slim. Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen that easy. Keep in mind for over a year, not a week had passed that I hadn’t gone to E-bay and searched, “tmnt turtles comic -idw -cover -variant -archie.” I usually searched daily if I remembered. I hadn’t seen the book online in those two years. Not once.

Still defeated, I head back toward Don Rosa to get an autograph for Oliver on his Scrooge books; pick up a few things here and there, Star Wars on BluRay for cheap . . . when I noticed, walking by, the racks behind the longboxes at that first booth were finally filled. I turned on the spot mid-stride to head over there.

On the rack (oh my god there it is) I can see half the cover sticking out from behind a Peavey guitar box leaning against the wall. Weeks ago, I predicted I would be a blithering, weepy idiot when I eventually did find it and I was not wrong. My trembling hand pointed at issue 29, volume 4 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and my literally-quavering voice said, “that’s the one I need.” It was all I could manage to get out. The clerk grabbed it and initially tried to tease me by picking it up, hesitating, and asking, “this one?” I think he saw the tears welling up in my eyes because he handed me the book pretty quick after that as if to realize that this grown-ass man was about to have a breakdown. There are all kinds of “socially awkward” at conventions. He had no idea which one I was or wasn’t. I managed to keep it together (mostly) for never actually expecting to see it in person. The book is within the price limit I had set for myself. Better yet, it was even autographed by Peter Laird. Yeah, I’m done. Bam. Cash.

I didn’t even put the book away in my satchel. I just carried it around with me like a security blanket in my trembling, numb hand. I take it over to Gavin–the nearest person I know who would be able to relate or care about it–and show it to him. He was happy for me. I didn’t realize right away that he was holding out his hand wanting to see it. He probably thought I was keeping it like My Precious, but I’m not THAT crazy. He took it, gave it a look, congratulated me, and confirmed that it was a good price. I certainly agreed. With that, I was officially done and could leave the convention. There was nothing else in that building I could possibly want. Were there more obscure turtle books I could have found in some bins? Yes. But I really didn’t care and I left the convention three hours earlier than I had scheduled. No other Turtle book out there will be as hard to find. And I can say that literally having searched E-bay for over a year.

What do normal people do with their spare time–people who don’t have this psychological candy to live for? I might call them, “boring” except the adult in me knows they’re probably living a social, spiritual life that is more complete than my superficial, material-based second-life. That’s who I have, though, in the little corner of my psyche. My inner child still plays there. That 9 year-old boy playing with Todd's little, plastic turtle toy. He was a grown man who received it as a gag gift. But he let me play with it. I had no idea what I was committing myself to by falling in love with that little thing as a child. It’s finally come full circle and his journey is complete. I mean seriously complete.

Whatever that means.