I wrote the mystery note in this week's CBG, about returning to the place where I had bought comics as a kid (The Paper Peddler in Avalon, New Jersey) when I was at the beach during the summer. It was a strange feeling, being there all grown up and not seeing many comics I wanted to buy. As a regular of my neighborhood comic shop, I get almost anything I want already. My trip to the Paper Peddler was more nostalgia then a serious comic-buying trip. But I sure remember the comics I bought there. I nearly got hit by a car walking home reading the ALL-STAR SQUADRON/INFINITY INC. team-up way back when.

I like your idea of beach newsstands loading up on done-in-one issues from the landlocked comics shops. It's a great idea for a partnership. I hope someone reads your column and decides to give it a try.

Your time travel riff on the Star Trek Ride was truly funny! Good stuff! I will probably hit the ride again when I hit town for the upcoming comics conventions - just so I can chuckle at your comments in person.

I'm a major fan of X-MEN EVOLUTION and I thought your comments on "Impact" were very interesting. I missed that episode, but one of the things I enjoy about the show is how it presents the X-Men mythos to my kids (all under 10). There is no way I would let my children near the current issues of UNCANNY X-MEN. My nine-year-old daughter has asked to read it, but I always tell her no. "It's not appropriate," I say, and she gives me a shrug and goes back to her Archies, and age-appropriate DCs.

I think the producers have always done an excellent job with the show and I was surprised to hear about the events of Mystique's "demise." While it won't cause me to change my opinion about the series, it does makes me wonder what they were thinking. My kids are very much into the characters and events and I would hate for this to send the wrong message. At least now, I will be prepared to discuss that episode when we see it. I can just hear my "why is it not right to push a petrified metamorph off a cliff?" conversation with them.

Please don't let your critique be the only words your readers hear about this otherwise excellent show. People need to support (and enjoy) this quality presentation of Marvel's flagship title. I am always baffled why Marvel doesn't give more support to a long- running cartoon about one of its franchises which also happened to be one of the more popular films of the summer! Marvel said it all when they canceled the comic book based on EVOLUTION. I saw the numbers and they were indeed low, but what a great entry point into the Marvel Universe for young readers!. It's quite clear from the direction of the regular X-Men books and the overall Marvel sales strategies that the company is chasing the ever-dwindling market of mature comic-book fans.

Don't you think a marketing department worth its salt would have include a subscription form in the MILLIONS of X-MEN EVOLUTION Burger King Toys that were purchased a few years back? Even a small percentage of return would have catapulted the Evolution title high up the sales chart, right next to those few Marvel titles which can even get close to the 100,000 sales mark!

I guess I'm sounding like a Grumpy Old Comic Book Fan! All I ask is that you pass onto your readers who are also long-time X-Men fans that EVOLUTION is a place where great stories are being told! The DVDs of the entire first season just hit the market. They are sold as four singles or a collector's four pack. People need to do themselves a favor and shell out the ten dollars--the equivalent of three or four comics--and enjoy the series themselves or give it as a Christmas present! The show has a great message, is loads of fun, and gives a lot of screen time to Kitty Pryde!

I've been reading comics since I was about three years old, and it stuck with me all through the 60's when I was buying Batman, the occasional Superman, and the Marvel heroes who were on TV at the time. I really wasn't a serious collector. If I had been, a lot of the books I managed to hang onto would be in a lot better shape than they are now.

My actual collecting years began in 1971, and oddly enough with the Batman book you recently mentioned in TONY'S TIPS, the one with the Frank Robbins take on the Beatles. I still have it with me and, despite constant reading, it's still in one piece. It had been four years since the last Batman book I had bought and I had no idea of the changes that had been made between 1969-1971. To see that stark, somber cover, and then to discover the great art of Irv Novick and Dick Giordano...and the return to the relentless, obsessed Batman of which I had been only vaguely aware was like a catharsis! I would become...A COMIC COLLECTOR!

Yes, I would become a magnet for loathing. Yes, there would be no women in my life...at least for a while. Yes, I would be the object of derision, hatred, and the punching bag for every jock who knew of my hobby. But I had my funnies and I would meet those who shared my love for comics, striking up friendships which exist to this day.

Eventually, I even stopped being a virgin. But that's a tale for another day...

Excellent column, as always. By some remarkable synchronicity, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #9 was the first super-hero story I ever read. But whereas you saw it in 1964, I caught it in 1973, thanks to the excellent UK weekly reprint titles that you had a major hand in producing, as I recall.

Looking back on those reprints, for 5p a week, we could get our hands on Spidey and Thor in SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY, and the Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil in THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL. Those issues have become quite collectable...mainly for nostalgic UK collectors, I guess, although there are some classic Starlin covers on early issues which could interest US collectors. It's likely that many of the British creators currently populating, even dominating, the US field started with these weeklies. Influential or what?

My general view of comics executives, and, indeed, executives in all walks of life, echoes that of scriptwriter William Goldman's adage, "Nobody knows anything." According to Goldman, nobody in Hollywood has the faintest idea what's going to work or what's not. Hollywood executives stick their fingers in the air and hope the wind blows the right way. If it works, they get started on sequels. It's safe to say that whoever thought up the idea of reprinting classic Marvel titles on cheap paper stock and pumping them out to UK kiddies each week was a sales and marketing genius who put a lie to Goldman's adage. Any idea who actually came up with the concept? Roy Thomas? Stan Lee? Some guy named Isabella?