We are so back.

About 4 months ago, I was in Woodstock, Illinois visiting family and during some downtime, I found myself on this app/platform called Whatnot – think eBay meets a live-streaming garage sale, but for people who collect random shit. I’m just lurking, trying to figure out how the whole thing works, when I decide to drop a line in the chat. “Hey, I’m a lapsed comic fan from the 90s. Anything cool that’s not too superhero-centric?”

The host, who’s for some reason has death metal playing so loud it is hard to hear him, stops mid-sentence and says, “Oh, I got you.” He reaches into a longbox of comics and pulls out The Nice House On The Lake Issue #1.

Fast forward a few days of agony waiting for USPS—and the comicbook finally makes its way to the package room of my apartment complex. I crack it open, and holy shit. This isn’t just good; it’s mind-blowingly awesome. Imagine if a serialized Netflix show took human form and slapped you across the face with plot twists—that’s how this comic reads.

This is exactly what I was looking for without looking for it.

Me, being me, I had to learn all I can about this book and it’s author – James Tynion IV. Apparently this dude has been reimagining what horror comic books can be for years and I am oh so late to the party. But that’s ok, this is a party that really never ends. He has done work on Batman, so add that to an ever growing list of books I need to find – but his breakout book, Something Is Killing The Children is looked at the way television buffs look at prestigious shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad – you get it.

After flying through that first issue of The Nice House On The Lake (and telling everyone about it), I knew I had to get my hands on the Volume 1 trade paperback. And of course I didn’t stop there. Nope, I had to collect the whole goddamn series even though I have the issues already in the aforementioned paperback. I’m a lunatic.

I was so all-in that I sent that very issue to a comic book grading company (CGC) to have it encapsulated forever (see the photo above). Sure, it might not have much market value, but to me, it’s priceless. This is the exact book that helped reignite my love for comics, and now it sits on a shelf reserved for those oh so special books that are in fact, key to me.

I just picked up the latest series, The Nice House On the Sea Issue #1 that just came out in mid August. But this time, no lonely guy at the comic shop searching for dollar books in secret. I brought Geoff and two of our oldest friends—fellow comic bros from back in the day—along for the ride.

In a future issue (next week?), I will dive deep into that magical day – the comic convention we hit up and the insane deal we pulled off at a local comic book shop that included 60 plus comic books and a 50 percent discount.

Thank you so much for joining Geoff and I on this kind of weird, but hopefully cool ride through the comic book hobby. I know Geoff is prepping another Dollar Bin Diving video as I type this – so keep up with us on Instagram and Youtube as well.