In the last few weeks, many of us have reflected on the hard choices and decisions of selling comic books... none more heartfelt than Professor Pecora's last journal.

I can't say my recent selling decisions were motivated or predicated by equal or comparable reasons, no, on the contrary, they were done admittedly for very, very, selfish reasons... to accomplish a comic book collecting goal 34 years in the making: the acquisition of a Holy Grail!

Nonetheless, in order to get to the Promised Land, there were tough choices to make, and made they were!

I have been collecting comics since 1979, at the innocent yet precocious age of 10. Back in those early days, aside from Family, Friends, Toys, Sports, and Summer Vacation, comic books were the most important things to me. The heroes who sprang out of cheap newsprint pulp were corporeal and alive. They spoke to me in ways that are at times indescribable, through larger-than-life action on an grand scale straight out of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Little did I truly understand these four-color fables were created by Men and Women in their 40's, 50's and 60's. Adults relating to children? How and when does that ever happen? I barely understood my parents, let alone strange adults and their motivations. How could these old dudes understand the language of children?

But oddly enough, they did! Or perhaps, it should be said, I understood their language and the messages they were sending. Their stories of courage, valor, integrity, moral code, and justice helped shape and mold me! Men in tights, some flowing with capes and cowls, others with strange and fantastic powers with even funnier names, were my role models. And I wasn't afraid to tell anyone willing to listen (except nobody wanted to listen to a foolish little boy).

And in those early days, all those fables I collected... I took care of... immaculate care... as best as a child with limited resources and knowledge of conservation practices could. Why? Because like the Bible and other religious tomes to the legion of faithful... these picture books were sacred to me. They were my heart and soul, and intuitively, I knew, like history and folklore, they needed protection from all kinds of harm and evildoers. Why? To preserve their stories... those wonderful life lessons, like tradition... to be handed down for the next generation to ween on.

And back in those days, I vowed to keep my comics... every single one of them... to keep my collection intact... never to part with them... for to relinquish them was to give away a piece of my soul. But the Devil played a trick on me. Old Scratch dangled a carrot before my unflinching eyes: a Comic Book Store. And I entered this House of Temptation, and I discovered a Babylonian world that stole my breath and left me in awe with a desire for things I could not own... but so very desperately wanted. And I fell victim to sin... the pain and ache of coveting they neighbors' property (and sometimes his wife).

But like a sacrilegious hypocrite, I did the unthinkable, breaking my sacred vows as I hatched a scheme to win my heart's desire: a Silver Age comic! So I brokered a deal with the proprietor and traded away a stack of minty fresh comics for just one comic: Silver Surfer Volume 1, Number 11.

And I walked out of that shop, slightly numb, slightly dumbfounded... with a lump and ache in my throat. "Had I done the right thing? Trading thirty, maybe forty comics for just one?" Course I did! All the reassurance I needed was knowing that beautiful vintage comic was published the year I was born! And that was mind blowing to me! None of the other comics I traded away could say that.

That was the first taste of something that I could not put into words, but is commonly practiced every day, and around the world... applicable for almost anything civilization has to offer... Employment, Real Estate, Automobiles, Hotel Rooms, Plane Tickets, Technology, Burial Plots, etc: I negotiated an upgrade!

34 years later, not much has changed. I have bought comics with childlike glee, yet I have also sold comics in order to raise cash to upgrade my collection. And in the beginning, the pain to part with my childhood comics was akin to a member of my family or best friend, saying goodbye forever. But as the old saying goes, "Time heals wounds."

Sometime in September, I awoke under the influence of a strange stupor, overtaken by the voracious need to sell. Sell for what purpose I don't know. But upon reflection, this compulsion was unconsciously fueled by a hunger for something bigger and better to add to my collection: a Holy Grail!

And maybe, in some fantastic and inexplicable sort of way, if you could believe as such, during my sleep, my Spirit entered the otherworldly dimension known as the Dream Void/Astral Plane and cried out a merciful plea to the Universe, "My heart aches for something... something that is missing! But what could it be?" And the Ethos heard my cries and electrified the atoms of my being with but an answer: "Awake and Prepare... for it shall soon come!"

And prepare I did! For deep in the marrows of my bones I could sense something monumental was coming! But what? What exactly was this Thing? I did not know, but I intuitively felt, when the moment was right it would appear to me... like a crack in the clouds as a golden ray of sunshine beams down from the Heaven's upon a Holy Grail... which meant I needed to do something equally big in order to raise the funds!

They say all things we truly desire in life come with a price... a truly painful price... a sacrifice. And these last three months have been the most painful and sacrificial of all months in my collective memory... for the inner child has been crying... lamenting... having seen three much loved and treasured comics sold away.

What did I sacrifice on the bronze and blood soaked altar of comic book Neo-Paganism? Burnt offerings...

...these are the sacrificial lambs I had given up...

...Jack Kirby's The Demon Volume 1, Number 1: the First Appearance of Etrigan the Demon and his alter ego Jason Blood...

...soon followed by the sale of Strange Adventures 190: the First Costumed Appearance of Buddy Baker as Animal Man...

...and the third and most painful sacrifice of all...

...another Kirby creation: Thor 165, the First Full Appearance of HIM (Marvel's Golden Messiah, later to be named Adam Warlock), and the golden egg it carried: Stan Lee's signature. And that was my first and only comic with the master's inscription. And it was not a gratuitous signature by any means since Stan Lee not only co-created Thor and Him, but he co-wrote the story. Ouch! Giving that one up hurt!

I have "sacrificed" these three rare gems I had once so coveted. Each one, a hard-to-find key and historic comic that could easily be the centerpiece to a set. It was painful to see them all go, but I had to keep reminding myself, "One day you'll be reunited with them. In the meantime, there is another who shall soon come. You need to make room for his arrival. This one is going to be big!"

And now The Golden Dawn has arrived!...

...To be continued in Part Two.

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