What were we talking about again? Oh, yes. My photographic memory.
It's actually come in handy when it comes to remembering where stories appeared in my vast Archie comics collection. When it comes to some of my absolute favourite stories in the world, I can pick out what book it appeared in and go from there. In fact, the two-part story that I have planned for February 13 and 14 is one story in which I can remember what book it is in, so I have easy access to it when I snap the pictures of it.
But my memory isn't linked to specific stories. In some rare cases, I can actually remember where I was when I received certain digests!
And that's what this blog entry is about. I'll post seven digests that I can remember where I was when I got them, how old I was, who bought them for me (or if I bought them myself), and what significant events took place when I got them. I figure it's a cool way for you all to get to know a little about myself.
I'll be going in chronological order here as far as when I got these digests - not when the digests were printed. You'll see why that is in a bit.
The first digest we're looking at is "Little Archie Digest #24". This one will always have a fond memory with me because it was the very first Archie comic I ever owned. I had learned to read at an early age, and I was reading at a higher level than most five year olds that were around. I was reading so well that I grew bored with children's books and found them not very interesting. So, my mom went grocery shopping one night and bought this book for me. I've been hooked ever since. And this book was very well loved. So well loved that my original copy actually fell apart because I read it so many times and had to buy a replacement copy of it a few years later once online shopping became a possibility! And I've been a fan of Little Archie comics ever since.
So, yeah...three copies of the same book. At least it was a double digest, and I had a lot of time to kill. I mean, I was in a hospital bed in the children's ward. What else was I to do?
Next is "Laugh Digest #8" - which came out four years BEFORE I was born. And no, I didn't go back in time to snag this one. My sister actually bought me this book when I was nine.
Back in those days, she was a fan of those true crime novels, and the cheapest place to buy them was a used bookstore in town called Mulberry Hill Books. It has since changed its name to Book Trader, but if you're a fan of used books, you'd definitely enjoy this store a lot. But while my sister was looking around the store, my gaze froze on what was the largest pile of Archie comics I had ever seen. I mean, this store had almost every single digest ever made, and the minute I saw that pile, I wanted to buy every single one they had. Of course, that didn't happen. But my sister did allow me to buy two books for a dollar each. I can't remember what the other one was, but this one caught my eye because it was at the top of the pile and it was bright yellow. Plus, I had never seen a digest from the 1970s before prior to this and thought the covers looked cool. Over the next 29 years, I think I've built up about 45-50% of my collection from that used book store.
Do any of you recall having Secret Santa gift exchanges at work or at school? You know, where you draw a person's name out of a hat and get them a present that doesn't exceed a certain dollar amount? In fifth grade, I participated in one of these for the first time, and our budget was five bucks. Mind you, in 1991, five bucks didn't buy too much, but it was doable. Anyway, a girl named Bailey bought me two books, "Archie's Double Digest #57" and the book pictured above, "Archie's Story and Game Digest #22". It was the perfect gift for this comic book guy, and believe it or not, I still have both of these books!
So here's an example of really bad timing on Archie's part. First of all, the book pictured here "Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest #61" is one that I bought myself. I bought it in Ottawa at the Rideau Centre (a giant mall in the middle of the city), and it was really the only thing I could afford to buy at the mall as I was a broke student at that time. Of course, it wasn't until I saw the cover that I realized that it seemed a bit off. Mind you, it wasn't really the fault of Archie Comics that the digest came out when it did - Archie comics are usually ready to be shipped weeks ahead of its on sale date. The problem was that this particular digest's on sale date was - get this - one week after the September 11 attacks. Yeah, a gag about delayed flights just one week after the worst terrorist attack on American soil...yeah, no wonder I remember that vividly. But again, nobody's really at fault. It was just horrendous timing.
Ah yes...another digest that reminds me of a hospital stay. Come to think of it, it'll be eight years ago tomorrow that I had my gall bladder removed - and it ended up being a nightmare of a surgery. Six hours, thirty stitches, a foot long scar across my chest...yeah, for my first surgical procedure, it was brutal. But at least when I was recovering in the hospital, my family hooked me up with some reading material to distract me. I received "Archie's Double Digest #216", "World of Archie Double Digest #4", and this book above - "Betty and Veronica Double Digest #188". I only know which ones I received because they all had an April 2011 cover date on them, but still. Free Archies!
And finally, a story about a sad event. Two and a half years ago, my cousin died suddenly at the age of 48, and my whole family traveled out of town to pay our last respects. It was a bittersweet moment in the sense that while I was saying goodbye to my cousin, I was meeting a whole slew of other family members that I didn't know existed, and meeting them helped me come to terms with who I was as a person. Needless to say, my talents in art were DEFINITELY explained, as it seems to be part of the Turcotte family genetics.
Anyway, on the way back to the hotel after the wake, we were quite hungry and we stopped off at a local mini mart to pick up snacks to eat in our rooms before we went to bed for the night. And after I picked up some Cheetos and some cherry Cokes, I noticed "World of Archie Double Digest #61" at the magazine counter and bought that as well. Of course, this elicited some chuckles from my family making cracks about how I was still buying comics at 35. But, whatever. It gave me some reading material that night.
And that's the stories of how I acquired some of my collection. Maybe another time, I'll share some other memories. For now, I ask you all...do you remember where you were when you bought certain comics? I'd like to hear some of your stories!
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