VOICE FROM THE LONGBOX

Somewhere "out there" exists a place where a 7-year-old me did not receive his first comic (Tomb of Dracula) from the girl next door. He's married and has the same kids that I do, but he collects bottle caps or something. He doesn't work in a comic book store. He doesn't even know they have stores that just sell comics.
One morning, he sees two guys from something called “Marvel Comics” being interviewed on The Today Show. He discovers that these guys work out of New York City. And while "Marvel Comics" wasn't directly affected by the World Trade Center tragedy, the people who work in something called the "comics industry" put together a benefit book called Heroes. This comic featured spectacular artwork and text by the biggest names in their industry. And while he didn't recognize any of those names, he was floored by the emotional power of those illustrations. He decided that he wanted a copy of this benefit comic. At the end of the interview, they mentioned that they were available only at comic book stores. They flashed a “Comic Store Locator Phone Number” on screen and he jotted it down.
By the next day, it was simply something that he would do if he had time. Then, his kid was watching MTV's Total Request Live, and he saw them talking about Heroes and how money was being raised for families of the WTC victims. Waiting no longer, he picked up the phone and dialed 1-888-ComicBook and discovered some comic stores nearby.
He drove to one, stopped in, and purchased the comic. As he was leaving, he paused and looked around at the variety of material on the racks. These were nothing like the comics he (vaguely) remembered from his youth. They looked better. The artwork was amazing and colors were breathtaking. The people shopping there looked not unlike him. They were engaged in sometimes intelligent (and sometimes ridiculous) conversation about shows he watched and stories they read.
As he opened his eyes (and his mind) a little more, he realized that a lot of what he enjoyed in movies and television was available in comic form. Some of which were bound hardcover collections of stories published from when he was kid. "Wow," he thought, "I didn't realize how much I was missing. There's a lot of cool stuff here and all it took was getting me in the front door. I can't wait to come back." And he did. Many, many times.