My bedroom floor, ca. 1984

I haven’t had a nostalgic tingle rattle my sternum like the one I had when I stumbled across this centerfold a few days ago. It’s like someone snuck into my bedroom when I was six years old and snapped a picture of the comic book portion of the carnage. I can almost hear my mother screeching at me to “CLEAN THAT MESS UP!”

The thing is, it’s not the big titles that key the trip down memory lane, not the Star Treks, Supermans, Batmans, etc. It’s the lower-tier books. Blue Devil. Vigilante. Atari Force. Jemm, Son of Saturn (God yes, Jemm). Books that were from that little slice of time, that had their moment and were very much forgotten as the wheel kept on turning. They came and went like childhood itself.