BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02498 I've been trying to complete my comic book collection recently and with that I have about 14 Transformers issues that I've been missing.Today Issue #61 finally arrived. This is one I have been unable to find for years but I got it on eBay. Most of the Transformers books that I am missing are the much later ones that had a lower run overall. That means that they will be more expensive. Hopefully through searchign comic book shops and comic cons I'll be able to complete the collection some day.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02494 When Allison and I started discussing our 20th Anniversary and how to celebrate it we were looking at a few things but they were things we had done before. Then Allison sent me a link to the Providence Tour company. she had gone with Eva and her friend Aviva on the Providence Haunted Authors Tour and really enjoyed it. The company had a Dinner Stroll on Federal Hill so we booked it for tonight. The stroll took us to Cassarino’s, Trattoria Appia, Pane e Vino, and Anthony’s Authentic Italian Cuisine. We were on the tour with three other couples who were all friends. By the end of the night we had had good conversations with most everyone from the group. We were about 10 years younger than the rest of the group. We learned that our tour guide was from North Attleboro. She was very nice. Our adventure started at Cassarino's for an appetizer sampler of calamari, bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and clams casino. Everything was excellent. We were allotted 35 minutes a...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02488 I have finally completed all of the documenting of the comics in my collection. I've also realized that some comic book series that I enjoyed I stopped before they stopped so I've been looking through eBay to complete the collections. I am now missing about 20 or so but still waiting for deliveries. I'm also going to create some better labels that go in the little rectangular spots for each box. I showed this image to my cousin and he said it looked sort of like Optimus Prime. I can see that as well.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02484 Back in the 90's I was all about collecting the WildStorm comic books and my favorite character was one called Grifter from the WildC.A.T.S. I even created a costume for this character. I'm thinking of resurrecting the character for a future Granite State Comicon. I've got a few things to find for the costume. I'll also need a wig. I had hair back then.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02483 For a while now I have been reorganizing and documenting my comic book collection. I moved the comics from the cardboard boxes to some upgraded plastic boxes that provide more protection. I've been taking each comic out and photographing it, documenting the publication date, cover price and more information for each book. The spreadsheet shows about 2670 comics and the album of photographed comic covers is at 2080 so I have close to 600 more to go. Some need boards and bags and some, I am discovering, are missing issues. I discovered that one of my favorite comics, WildC.A.T.S. has 6 volumes of books and for some reason I am missing a large chunk of the 5th volume but have all of the 6th. So it is off to eBay I have been going to fill out and complete the collection. It has proven very helpful to get the collection complete. I figure if I can photograph a box a day I should be done with this by the weekend. Then I can show my new shelf with all the boxes of b...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02478 This year's San Diego Comicon featured a Transformers set that combined the character of Jetfire with two characters from the comic book Void Rivals, Darak and Solla. Void Rivals is part of the Energon Universe of comic books. This would include Transformers, G.I. JOE and Void Rivals. Skybound, which is under Image comic has the license of Transformers and G.I.JOE. They also have M.A.S.K. too because characters from that universe are also running around in this new one.  I have been collecting all the comics from the Energon Universe and they are awesome. I love how they are intertwined. For instance Darak and Solla crash land on a planet in their book and they discover Jetfire. This set is of that meeting. There is even a comic book with a special cover included in this set. It is a cool display but I seem to have run out of viable places for it to be displayed so it is on the back of the futon at this time.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02473 Today I drove up to New Hampshire to Double Midnight Comics to sell a huge lot of Transformers toys. I'd been collecting these toys for well over 40 years. After college I bought a ton of them and kept buying them. In 2007 I had them all out and did a photo shoot with the local newspaper because a Live Action Transformers movie was going to be released. The local paper was doing a story on people who were Transformers fans and I got into the mix. At one point I had 19 very large boxes of Transformers, many that were still in their own boxes.  Today I sold about 300 toys to Double Midnight. They were split up into 23 boxes. I photographed every one of them and wrote in the descriptions and dates they were released so that Scott at Double Midnight could look them over and decide if they wanted to buy. He gave me fair price for them and so yesterday I got my ad's van and Andy and I loaded up all the boxes and I drove them up today. While I was there I checke...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02471 It is time to take out the sleep pants. The weather has gotten colder and I've been in need of a little more warmth overnight. I didn't get much for a photo today because I've been working on my comics for hours and hours. I've got a lot of the comics documented but each box takes a couple of hours to photograph and document. I have at least 4 comic book boxes left to go. And I'm still awaiting a few comics from eBay to finish off the collection.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02459 I've got the comic books bagged, boarded and many boxed. The spreadsheet shows me where each one is stored and now I have some labels on the boxes. These are placeholders until I make up some full color ones to make the organization better. I have this little wireless heat transfer printer that can print onto stickers. I found an Autobot symbol online and was able to print it with the printer to make box labels for the Transformers boxes. In the end I'll probably have 8 or so of them. Eventually I'll have the whole collection stored away and be able o take a box at a time for reading. All books are being ordered in a reading order so that I can enjoy all of them. I had gotten way behind in reading but kept up in the collecting of the different series that I enjoy. That means that I probably have a couple hundred books to read and enjoy soon.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02457 Well, I've gone through all of my comic books over the past several weeks and I've determined that over 40 years of collecting I am missing 40 comic books in m collection. So, the hunt has begun to fill in those gaps. So, I'll be visiting comic book shops in the area and trying to find those hard to find books. There have been times when my shop didn't pull a particular comic and I missed that. There were other times when I was just a kid and couldn't get to a comic book shop on a regular basis to find the books for my collection. The biggest gap is in my original Transformers comic book collection. Those were from when I was 10-14 years old. The hardest time to stay consistent in collecting. These are also some of the hardest to find books out there. The final issue goes for around $40. That's crazy but I'll keep looking.  This shop was in Putnam, CT and was about an hour ride. It was worth the ride because it was such a nice store ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02456 While going through all of my comic books I discovered a few comic book cards that were in different boxes. These are from Wildstorm Studios. WildC.A.T.S. was one of my favorite books from the 90's. I collected every6thing I could with these characters and even did a Etymology report on the origins of each of the names of the characters. I brought in comic books and action figures to demonstrate the meanings of the names for many characters. My favorite character from the team was a character named cole Cash or Grifter. He was the best. I even did a costume of him back when I worked at Sacred Heart University. I wish I still had that costume. Would be great to have at Comic-cons now.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02455 While I was organizing my comic books I came across the instructions for rather, Players Guide, for the Wildstorms Collectible Card game. I've been looking fro this for a while because now that I have it I can get the cards down and see if andy would like to learn how to play the game with me. I think that Andy will pick it up quickly and I've always wanted to play this with someone else. I've played n my own as I collected the cards but not really with other people. In other comics news I picked up a copy of the Cold Slither comic book at Rubber Chicken Comics because my comic shop didn't have a copy for me. This is a one shot of the fictional band from G.I. JOE that is made up of the Dreadnoks. I was talking with my friend Ken all about it and he even remembers the entire song that went along with the show.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02452 As I continue to go through my comic books I keep finding gems from the past. One of my favorite studios was Wildstorm and they made this amazing set of 8 covers that all connected across their various titles. They did an amazing job with it. My new set of black comic book boxes came yesterday and I put them together last night. Today I filled them with so many of my IMAGE comics that I collected through college. I also put together 6 short boxes of comics that I want to sell.  Andy had a friend over after school. Yesterday Andy went to their house and today they came over here. I'm very happy to see that Andy has a friend that lives close enough that they can hang out together. We've always told the kids that their friends were welcome anytime in hopes that they would have friends come over to hang out or play. It will be nice to see this happen more often.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02451 While I was cleaning out my comics I came across this comic strip that I had cut out and kept from the newspaper. This was the April Fools strip in 2012. It was the time when Game of Thrones was on TV and the show was known for major cliffhangers. It was also at a time when My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was on the cartoon networks. I had collected the My Little Pony comic books for Eva but she didn't read them. I then collected them to collect them and have all but 1 of them, I guess. I'm finding many gaps in my collection. There were two crossovers between My Little Pony and Transformers. I have one full cross over and for some reason am missing 2 issues of the other 4 issue crossover. I may have to search eBay to round out my collection. Today was my first time filling out the FAFSA. We'll see how that works out. I hope I did it correctly.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02449 I'm making progress on my comic book cleanup. I've gotten most of my Transformers comics rehomed in the new boxes. I'll need a couple of more to complete the rehousing. I have a set of black ones coming Wednesday for comics other than Transformers. But I'm pretty sure I would need more to cover everything. Progress is being made. Photographing each cover is what is taking the most time, though.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02447 When I was younger I made these labels for my copies of Transformers Universe. I had some stickers of letters and used them to make these comic book boards. As I have been organizing and documenting my comic books I found these. I replaced them with some newer boards. But I had to get them documented. I've only completed two of the new boxes and have three additional boxes just filled with Transformers comics. I've got to go through them all and organize them and figure out what ones I might be missing. There are a bunch that I have never read and I need to organize them a bit more to put them in the correct reading order. Today Andy went over to their friend Onyx's house. Andy made 5 pans of mac and cheese and a bunch of cilantro lime sugar cookies. They came out really well, too. 

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02446 When I was at Granite State Comicon I found someone selling special minifigs including a Voltron Minifig. LEGO oes not make these but I liked it well enough to get it to add to my Voltron display. Th minifig sits atop Voltron. Today I was busy working on my second box of comic books. These were all Transformers books. I am finding a few that I am missing including a couple from my set of Transformers Collectors Club books. Strange that I am missing two of them and these should have all been mailed directly to me. So I am hoping that those two are somewhere mixed in with other books because I did not file them well or something like that.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02445 Today is National Comic Book Day. I have been hard at work reorganizing and cataloging my comic book collection starting with the Transformers. What you see on my desk is a stack of Transformers books that will finish up my first completed box of comics. However, my collection is not complete. I am missing 18 comics that should be in that box. I'll have to be ont he lookout for them at future conventions and at comic book shops around the area. I hope that I can find them all to complete the collection.  Speaking of completing things, I have also been trying to complete watching the Thundercats on Hulu but I am not going to be able to do that since I cancelled Hulu and my membership ends today. I got up to Episode 46 of Season 2. There are 65 episodes in the season. So, I'll figure out a way to watch the rest of them. The shirt is a new one from the convention. Both Eva and I liked it. I got it, though.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02442 It was time to upgrade my comic book storage. I've had my comics in cardboard long and short boxes for a long time. I found these plastic boxes on amazon and got a set of five.So far they have been filled with all the Transformers comics that I've had from over the years. But I have many more comics and ever since I started clearing out my Transformers toys I knew that it would be time to move on to the comics eventually. There are many comics that I am going to sell off but many more that I want to keep and protect. I may even try and complete the set of Transformers comics that I never completed back in the 80's and 90s. I'm missing like 10 of them. It is pretty good seeing as I was a 10 year old kid when I started collecting these and did not have a consistent way to collect my comics until I was in college. By then it was too late. So I'm issing many of the later ones but I'll find them eventually.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02441 The second day of the convention is the relaxed day. Eva had a very simple cosplay today as Adaine from Fantasy High. As we walked around together there were three people that recognized the character. Eva had made three special bottle cap buttons and gave them to the three people.  after our breakfast at the bookstore down the street we came back tot he convention as it began. We decided to load upt he car and then went across the street to the SNHU center for the other part of the convention. There were things like the Big Dumb Robot convention where people displayed robots that they had fabricated with 3D printers and other materials. There were some amazing ones there, too. Down on the floor of the arena were additional vendors. Eva found a tea to try and I picked up a set of books signed by the author and we even found some figures that andy likes to put together. They are called Eugy figures and they are made from cardboard or wood pieces that you glue ...