I know it’s bad when…..

Sometimes, I am such a fucking geek. Like when:

* I look at the cover of a random issue of Who’s Who and realize I can name every DC character on it.

* I scan through the latest Sight & Sound magazine but only read the Kim Newman reviews.

* I watch that bit in the musical episode of The Brave and the Bold where they’re surrounded by rock band names and laugh out loud because one of them is the Trenchcoat Brigade, but then the laugh dies in my throat because I realize they’re all DC superteams and I know every single one of them and I am such a fucking nerd. (For the record, as far as I could see, there are also the Female Furies, the Challengers of the Unknown, The Metal Men, the Tornado Twins, (are they still future-dead?), the Inferior Five, The Great Ten, the Monster Society of Evil, the Injustice Gang, the Revenge Syndicate and the Boy Commandos. The only one I didn’t recognize was the Rocket Rollers.)

* I hug the big pile of 2000ads in the corner of the room. I wish I was joking about this but I really did this the other day. Shit, I nearly had a thrill power overdose.

* I watch that Doctor Who/Handlebars video over and over and over.

* I spend my whole goddamn weekend rearranging comics into big piles, while friends completely change the landscape around their house with big diggers and giant wooden poles and I don’t feel bad about that at all.

* I pull the Classic X-Men comics out of the sale pile that’s building up in the other corner. Partly because Claremont and Byrne fucking rocked and mostly because those Ann Nocenti/John Bolton back-ups were bitchin’.

* I don’t even pretend I’m holding on to that issue of Wizard because it’s an artifact of a dead zeitgeist, and admit it’s because I bought it when I was 17.

* I look at the cover of a random issue of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition and realize I can name every Marvel character on it.