I used to watch the Batman TV show with my Dad before I was old enough to talk. My first two record albums as a kid were a Popeye story LP and the Neal Hefti BATMAN! TV soundtrack. Incredibly formative influences, both of them. I'd say the first thing I read, ever, was probably the Uncle Scrooge comic my Dad handed me to quiet me down the day of my first "big boy" haircut - so what would that have been? When I was 3 or 4? I started collecting comics about 3 years after that and started off as a DC comics fan (the BATMAN! TV series in rerun having worked it's wiles) and a Spider-Man fan. Over the years I tended to fixate on comics from Marvel, but that has always been peppered with books from DC, Dark Horse, Archie, Indie books, you name it. I love all comics - really. Seriously. All of them.

I work at Dragonlady Comics in Toronto - but also would like to shout out my support of my good friends at Paradise Comics, The Beguiling, and All New Comics.com. I am glad I live in one of the few cities in North America that managed to weather much of the hard times the industry suffered over the past 15 years. Comics are alive and well in Toronto, and I'm happy to be one of the folks singing their praises.

Lately I'm proud to say I'm a consultant, committee member, nabob, go-fer, and mayfly for the Canadian Comic Book Creator's Appreciation Awards - a national awards event recognising the work done by Canadian comic book creators in the international comic book industry, held annually here in Toronto at the Paradise Toronto Comicon.

As far as what I collect, that changes depending on a lot of factors or just the mood I happen to be in. Just about any Marvel comics, particularly if they're from 1986 or before. I have an unnatural love for those 30 foot monsters-in-boxer-shorts that Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko seemed to draw so many of in the 60's and of the weird-as-weird-could-be DEFENDERS run by Steve Gerber in the 1970's. I love superhero comics from Fawcett and DC and Tower, Warren and EC horror comics, classic Dan DeCarlo Archie or Chili & Millie comics, Wally Wood or Steve Ditko science fiction stories, fun indie books in any format and vintage newspaper comics.

My favorite characters include Popeye, Vicky Ocean from "Very Vicky", Captain Marvel (Shazam!), The Fantastic Four, Cerebus The Aardvark, Henry McCoy - The Beast, Flip from Little Nemo in Slumberland, Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse, Green Arrow, Spider-Man, Hawkman, crazy Kirby Big Face characters like MODOK and Arnim Zola and Kalibak, ThrillKitten (Alice) from Rob Walton's under-read RAGMOP(you HAVE to read this OGN), Steve Ditko's Shade: The Changing Man, The Phantom Stranger, Evan Dorkin's "Eltingville Club", Dr. Strange, The Spectre, The Inhumans, Hopie and Maggie, Howard The Duck, Cynthia Martin's Star Wars comics, Chip Zdarsky's Monster Cops - lots and lots and lots of them.

Favorite creators are really very hard to list. Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Elzie Segar, Stan Lee, C.C. Beck, Steve Gerber, Winsor McCay, Steve Ditko, the Byrne/Austin super-team, Dan DeCarlo, Stuart Immonen, Alex Toth, Darwyn Cooke, Micheal Golden, Fred Hembeck, Gail Simone, Walt Simonson, Archie Goodwin, Jana Christy & John Mitchell, Gene Colan, Jamie Hernandez, Dave Sim, Milton Caniff, Steve Rude, Trina Robbins, Alex Raymond, Neal Adams, Alex Williamson, Dave Sim, Jim Steranko, Brian Micheal Bendis, the Rogers/Austin super-team, and Mike Mignola. That's a good variety right there.

I have a regular blog at LiveJournal that I update often - often with scans of comics that are out of print or otherwise available to simple folks who don't wanna drop a lot of coin on eBay. I have a Myspace account as well, but I'm rarely there.

I look forward to meeting and chatting with y'all!