Mint Condition on AD

John Harmon from Mint Condition returns with my favorite comic yet. This one gets to the heart of collecting: the highs, the lows, and the revenge. And due the sucess of this first batch of comics, we've already got John working on four more. Read, enjoy, and discuss!

Commentary: That's probably my earliest memory of collecting. I was really embarrassed to get it since it was a girl, but I thought fuck it, I need it. And that other kid pissed me off so bad. It was all kinda for nothing anyway when the Green Ranger came out and he was impossible to find. I only ever found one EVER. And my little brother ended up breaking the shield because he wanted to see if the diamond in the middle was detachable. Yeah it was. But only the one time...my mom ended up giving away all our Power Ranger stuff to goodwill anyway. Without our consent. Depressing, huh?

Mint Condition Links
Website: http://mintcondition.comicgenesis.com
Store: http://mintcondition.comicgenesis.com/store.html
Action Figure Customs: http://mintcondition.comicgenesis.com/mintconditioncustoms.html
MC on TopWebComics: http://topwebcomics.com/vote/6736/default.aspx
Email: john.mintcondition@gmail.com

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Find past editions of Mint Condition on Articulated Discussion right here.

Wes GRogan

Thursday, February 04, 2010 2:23 AM

Aw, so great and so sad at the same time!! I was a bit old for the Power Rangers but I definitely know the feeling. I spent forever trying to find the complete Thundercats set when I was a wee little child... Had a tough time justifying Cheetara at the time. I'm think it would be a lot easier now in the modern era of cosplay and all that. lol

clark

Thursday, February 04, 2010 3:02 AM

The two girl figures that I had as a kid were the Super Powers Wonder Woman, and a 3.75" Daisy Duke action figure.

Morgan

Thursday, February 04, 2010 3:45 AM

Man, I have just as much female hero action figures as I do male. Nothing to feel bad about, I was never ridiculed when I was littler, mostly 'cause no one really knew about my hobby. I feel for you on your mom giving your collection away, John.

I know the feeling...

The Articulated One

Thursday, February 04, 2010 6:01 AM

I remember a number of similar sequences from my younger days. A very distinct memory comes from Toys R Us where I was buying an action figure and saw a "cool" kid from school (Junior High at the time I think), and tried to hide my purchase because I was afraid he'd think action figures weren't "cool" and I'd be mocked.

I don't have such qualms these days.

StaticWings

Thursday, February 04, 2010 6:07 AM

REAL MEN COLLECT PINK TOYS!

LEon

I knew how that feel when your mum gave your toy away. It kinda happened on me too!

Thursday, February 04, 2010 6:18 AM

Man, why do moms do that?! Even worse, my mom would make us chose! My brother and I would have to look through all our toys and pick out the ones to give up before we could get new toys. That was pretty torturous...

Nice comic, BTW, I had a similar run-in when I was in high school, not the musical, just the regular crappy version.

Nightmare

Thursday, February 04, 2010 8:37 AM

I said the same thing when I saw the new mini pink power ranger on the pegs -- I need it! But I've gotta wean myself off of them, lol...

Friday, February 05, 2010 2:46 AM

@ Wes - Amen to that! The last relationship I was in, she constantly told me about needing to grow up and put the toys in the past, even though I actually find them rather fascinating in an artistic sense. Anyway, while she's telling me this she's constantly working on building up her army of little wooden angels for any given situation. Grrr.

Wes

Friday, February 05, 2010 2:52 AM

Great comic that highlights what's likely a common phenomenon among budding collectors! I never had that problem as a kid, but then my parents pretty much conditioned me not to want female characters. I ended up with Rogue of the X-Men by accident, but I wasn't in high school until I actually decided there was nothing wrong with owning female figures. I only bought the occasional figure then anyway -- and my friends and I were far more into video games, which made purchases like Princess What's Her Name completely understandable -- so I never got any grief over it.

Actually, I wrote about that stuff a while back here!

http://www.scary-crayon.com/misc/april/

I get more grief nowadays for buying *any* toy than I ever did for buying a female action figure -- to the people who criticize me for collecting toys now, Transformers are just as bad as Juku Couture dolls.

Any chance that TAO and Nightmare and clark (or any of our other fabulous reviewers) will feature in any AD editions of Mint Condition? ;)

Saturday, February 06, 2010 1:44 AM

I look like Boromir from LOTR...here's a picture!

darktailss.deviantart.com/.../DrNightmare-148998028

xD

Saturday, February 06, 2010 2:12 AM

Eerily enough, I look quite a bit like Faramir in real life. I guess we're some kind of kindred spirits or something, Nightmare.

John Harmon

Saturday, February 06, 2010 3:19 AM

My brother and I also had the entire series of Jurassic Park figures. Seriously, we had everything. We had all the humans, the dinosaurs, and the compound playset. I remember thinking how dumb it was that the compound didn't have some sort of aviary for the pterodactyl. I was 5 or 6 at the time.

Anyway, my mom ended up giving all of THOSE figures away as well. I think she sold them in a garage sale. Why? Because, in her words, she got tired of cleaning it up.

That's right. We played the Hell out of Jurassic Park, and in the end the compound was a mess and we didn't always clean it back up right away. Our mom did most of the time and she complained about it. I have no idea why. Just leave it a mess...we have no problem with it. Don't sell our freakin' toys at a garage sale. Moms...am I right?

Anyway, wow! So many comments already. Where to begin on the answering?

@Morgan I think many toy collectors know the feeling of moms giving away their toys. There should be a support group.

@TAO I remember the cool kids at my elementary school being jealous of me for having some really badass toys. They deserve to be jealous though. That's what they get for ridiculing me in Handball.

@StaticWings I don't exactly know about that...

@Leon See? Support group.

@3B another member for the support group. Seriously, that's one sick story. Deciding which toys to give up is like having to decide what order your family gets ritualistically sacrificed in. Ok, maybe that's a bit dramatic...toys is way worse.

@Wes Grogan that's too bad. My girlfriend goes with me on toy hunts. She encourages it. Seriously, that's how I rationalize so many purchases. If I'm on the fence about something I'll mention it to her and she'll say "Just buy it, it looks cool". Thanks babe.

@Wes Well Mint Condition really just features my characters. The AD comics are like a separate story going on, but they still feature my characters. I'd like to keep it that way, but if I ever did want to include TAO or Nightmare in a future comic it might help if I knew what they actually looked like, haha.

Thanks for all the comments!

Saturday, February 06, 2010 3:26 AM

Don't tempt me TAO! I have a Faramir figure that had the shed some blood to get, I don't want to go and customize that thing to make a custom-you, I might never get another!

Wes GRogan Pump

Saturday, February 06, 2010 6:19 PM

@ John Harmon - Haha, that's why it was the last relationship I was in and not my current relationship! Everything is relative... except my relatives. Those are just pain. Heh.

Fatcow

Sunday, February 28, 2010 5:37 PM

Should I get a Dedicated Hosting? At the moment I am using ixwebhosting but they keep shutting me down because of high server load. Im getting about 2,000 unique views a day. What brand should I get?

1/31/2010Mint Condition on AD - #4

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