I’ve never considered myself to be one of the more “prestigious” members of the Fanzing/Monitor Duty staff. I started contributing as an eager teenager (if Michael can freshen my memory of what year he took over Fanzing, I could give you an exact age — suffice it to say that I was the youngest contributor!), with a desire to write but an inadequacy that set me back in my articles. I never did any sort of fiction, though I had started a story called “The Running Joke,” which involved the Joker accidentally entering the Speed Force. The story never got past the inciting incident, however, as I took a hiatus to be a missionary for the LDS church. I came back from my two-year mission to Dallas, TX to discover that Fanzing had recently been terminated and replaced with Monitor Duty. Disappointed though I was, I decided to contribute what I could. In the 4+ years that I’ve been back, however, I’ve contributed a meager amount of posts, partly out of laziness and partly out of not knowing what to discuss.

So there’s me. The guy who likes this website and is one of the longest-running contributors to it, but who remains in the shadows due to his underwhelming contributions.

But enough of that – I am not writing to seek pity or give excuses – I just thought I’d explain a bit of who I am in order for the impact of what I’m about to announce to have a more profound effect: I graduated from college a month ago! I went to BYU and graduated from their competitive film program, with an emphasis in editing and post production. This past month I’ve kept myself busy with a trip to San Francisco, a family reunion in Southern Utah (no, I do not practice or condone polygamy), and, most of all, job searching! I’ve had little luck in the job search, however, and have therefore decided to pack up and move myself to Washington, D.C. where my brother and sister are living. I feel good about this and think it will help me be more proactive and positive about my job search, being in a new environment that will help me feel like I’ve got a fresh start.

Anyways, the main reason I’m even posting is because I just went through my comic book collection to pull out a few gems to take with me to D.C. (I’m leaving most of my collection, as well as a lot of other things I own, in storage or at my folks’ place here in Utah), and I thought it would be fun to announce to the world the few comics I’ve decided to take with me: the “Kingdom Come” TPB (one of the best comic stories ever written), the “Death of Superman” TPB (this is the story that got me interested in comic books), the “Crisis on Multiple Earths” TPB (I’ve actually never read this), and all 5 issues of the “Zero Hour” crossover, which bring back fond memories of my glory days in comic book reading. I look forward to my flight, which leaves in 8.5 hours, because I’ll have time to revisit my youth.

(As a sidenote, I never really got back into comics after my mission. I caught up with “JLA” to the point where the team was picking up new members like Major Damage and I was totally turned off to the series. I also have read “The Flash” up through issue 6 or 7 of Bart’s little series, and I have liked a lot of what happened over the last few years but not enough to get me to the comic book shop on a regular basis. I mostly get my comic book fix through films now. I still think “Hulk” was a good movie, except for the ending battle sequence.)