YouTube Comic Community: The People, The Books, and What It Means to Me!

(YouTubers reading this, I’m sorry I couldn’t include everyone but it would have been hundreds of pages long so I had to pick and choose)

Comicvine.com is an excellent place to write blogs (such as this one), communicate with fellow geeks, and a community type of feeling. One thing that comicvine doesn’t offer is the ability to develop real life, face-to-face relationships with people. The place where that is happening is YouTube. Sure sure, when you hear YouTube you automatically think of ridiculous videos of people getting hurt, doing stupid things, funny cat videos, music videos, and what not, but there is a secret side of YouTube that many don’t know about. It in fact hides communities of people who share some sort of interest, and one of those happens to be a community of many lovely people that love comic books!

The comic community is a place where hundreds of comic fans make videos showing off their hauls, reviews, live comic shows, and various other forms of geeky entertainment. For the most part, everyone in the community gets along and discusses their comics over twitter, comments, private messaging, or even in Google+ hangouts. It’s an excellent place to really build relationships with people who share the same love of comics as you do. The people in the community have no judgment of what other people like and take everyone’s opinions into account. Sure we have our DC, Marvel, and Indy people but we all mesh in a great fashion. The people in the community are so great they are always willing to help out each other start or help each other finish runs by sending each other comics. Joining the YouTube Comic Community was one of the best decisions I have ever made and I have made some friendships with people that I would take bullets for. And the best part is, it is easy to join and is a very welcoming community.

Around last November (2012), I began getting really into collecting back issue comics and had no idea what direction to take. Since I had no one else in my life to really influence my collecting, my answer was research! I created an account on this lovely website and began to post forum questions asking people to help me get started somewhere. Around that same time I started looking up comic collection videos on YouTube. I watched a whole bunch of them but it never really hit me that all of these people posting these videos were all communicating with one another. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon three amazing YouTubers that I put all the pieces together. These three men were;

Daken Howlett (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UClS9kIl1kf-Dm76DKmD6pXA),

Ricks Ageek (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCl9_OkHBCi2Iq70DiOAuJQ),

and the Great Legend himself, RDowdy95 (http://www.youtube.com/user/rdowdy95).

I started watching all their videos on a regular basis, kinda sitting in the shadows and admiring the books they have and the knowledge that they had. Unfortunately, Rick sold his collection and decided to start collecting toys but he makes great toy haul videos! It wasn’t until January when I saw a video that Daken posted where he talked about his collection resolutions to start the New Year and I thought to myself, ‘I really should join YouTube and learn from these amazing people.’ On January 11^th of 2013 I made my first three videos; an introduction, my first comic collection video, and a comic resolution video. I reached out to Daken to let him know that he inspired me to make videos and to see if he could help me get established in the community. I reached around to a few others and then saw that I gained a few subscriptions which I never expected to get very many at all but we’ll get to that later. The first person to really reach out to me was RDowdy and he really helped me get my name out and I was able to start making some friends, and really learn about the community.

There are two men that everyone must know when entering the community and those are the two godfathers, as we like to call them. We have a man that is the speaker of the community, who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and shoot down the trolls, and a man that I have the upmost respect for; Hippyscollectables (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9HGbH95YlL7Y_HmAiau8bw). Hippy has supported me from the start and is just a really fun guy to watch and talk to. He is just a great person and his collection and comic knowledge is amazing. The other guy has probably the biggest collection I will ever see in my life, is an absolutely humble and big hearted person, and is downright hilarious when on camera and that is nobody other than CaptainStrangelife (http://www.youtube.com/user/captainstrangelife). His comic knowledge is outstanding and his collection is so big that there is no word I can describe it with! He is such a nice guy and unfortunately I haven’t been able to really have many conversations with him but I always tease him about having a drink one day. I am lucky to be able to consider both of these guys as my friends.

A staple of the comic book community is the live shows. RDowdy holds his own Comic Book Friday every Friday night, just to give an example. I happened to be invited to my first live show on February 7^th of 2013 and it was there I met some people who I consider some of my best friends in the community. The show is called Super Friends and it airs on Thursday night on my favorite plumber’s channel, Matt F (SofaKingMatt) (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq4FyRRTGVr2eSvSqUJWHFQ). Matt is just an awesome guy all around. He is the biggest Green Lantern fan that I ever come across and he is one of those guys that you can have the most awkward conversations with and it really isn’t awkward, just a festival of laughs. At the time, his partner in crime on the show was a guy I think extremely highly of and that is DaCostaDCcomics (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5AN5KbY8DZ6c7KohtdNI0w). Johnny is a joker, and is one of those guys that really made the community experience enjoyable for me early on. He was always there to talk to and really just made me feel the most welcomed and I can’t thank him enough for being a such a great guy. Not to forget to mention that he and I both love Batman, even though he loves Jason Todd and I like Dick Grayson. Johnny currently holds his own live show, in which I guest on sometimes, called Batchat. I don’t need to really say what they talk about right?

Near the end of February I started talking to three of the best friends I have ever made:

Scott or RunningWithComics (http://www.youtube.com/user/RunningWithComics),

Frank or Frank ComicNoob (http://www.youtube.com/user/frankkoutoulas),

Nate or TheDarkNate40 (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDarkNate40).

Frank, Nate, Scott, and I met just by kinda commenting back and forth on each other’s videos. In late February, Frank messaged me and brought up the idea that we should start up our own show, since we were both new readers/collectors and thought we should make a show for the new fans like us. It was funny because I was thinking the exact same thing and was literally going to send him a message that same day. After we talked for a bit, we had the idea that we would try to make a trio with Nate. Nate was all for it and the rest was history, 3 Guys 1 Live Show began its trek. Or did it? No it didn’t! 3 Guys 1 Live Show was only a couple issue mini-series that was replaced with the actual on-going series, 4 Guys 1 Live Show, in which we brought in the man named Scott! The four of us just started talking all the time and since we started doing the show together back in March, we have formed a bond that has brought us into a family. We all consider each other brothers and would do anything for one another. But yeah check out the show every (well mostly we have missed like 3 Tuedays) Tuesday night on my channel at 8pm EST.

On our show we began to make friends by inviting guests to join us. A few include our favorite Canadian twosome of Kevin, Thespins1390 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMhDuQp1hC5i89u8QNzXL4A) and Tim, Vamplew444 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgoxz-RNyFf3ej7lfEmSwnw). They both post weekly haul videos and occasionally (by occasionally I mean almost never) have their own live show, Baxter Building Banter. Kevin is a very intelligent and down to earth guy and Tim, well he is just a crazy drunk. Just kidding, Tim is one of the most hilarious guys I have ever talked to and is a great friend. Through the show we were able to get close to our boy WELLINGTON, theComicBookLowdown (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIAwXh0EmTdrsuRxc_xVk-Q). Wellington is a funny dude, and even though we haven’t been able to chat to often lately, he is still one of my good buddies within the community. And of course our boy MacHammer (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYylwHHi2c0s6XTSdv0kTOg) who is a fun guy to talk to and is all-around a great guy. He has a great sense of humor and really is knowledge about the books that he reads.

Our community even has its fantastic female crowd! Reader1717 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgAwJd0ZDdwjg2CYCZd4kw) is one of the kindest people I have had the pleasure to get to know in the community. She is so humble and really cares about the people in the community. She has one of the warmest hearts and I can’t say enough good things about her. She is just straight awesomesauce! LahRasa (http://www.youtube.com/user/LahRasa/featured) is another one of these amazing ladies that help round out the community. She has a great love for her books and is excellent at reviewing the books she reads. She is an extremely talented artist and is one of the great people in the community. My last featured female is Sarah Smash (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlh58SpJR21NDRY1rtmNrw). I recently just started watching her videos but she is a great person as well. She has an awesome nerd room which she just showed off recently and her love for the characters is inspiring. She has a great sense of humor and is enjoyable to watch, and I can’t wait to get to know her! These aren’t the only ladies in the community but just the few I have had the pleasure to really get to know.

There is a great collection of people in the community that aren’t in the United Stated. There is a vast community of friendly people across the pond such as,

DrMonkeyBot (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC022-DHtzXnz5wHioQqq0YQ)

TheHulksBigToe (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnV-WHN2hsZrvarYh9l6b3g)

Klaus Schnell (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9tJ5Yl0QwZ7yZFVvG0zrLQ)

Just to name a few of the many. DrMonkeyBot is just one of the calmest and intelligent people to watch on youtube. His knowledge is incredible and he is one of the kindest guys in the community. TheHulksBigToe is great as well and is just another one of those guys with a sense of humor that makes you laugh. And we both also happened to be on huge Green Arrow kicks at the moment. Klaus is probably one of my favorite guys to watch in this community. He loves his Leffie and music, and the videos that result are just amazing. He is a great guy and fun to chat back and forth with.

There are so many people in this wonderful community that I’m gonna miss a whole lot of them but I’m quickly run down some people that you need to check out and give them kind words as well:

Gimpy204 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9GfyKapJzsXz4qBVoMWd7Q), now this guy will make you pee your pants he is so funny. He does his haul videos drunk and it makes for some of the funniest videos in the community. He is a good guy and I can’t wait until that day we can actually sit down and have a hangout together!

Oddfellowsthoughts (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIHWLy2cuINhU_58XLBYYWw) is a comic book encyclopedia. This guy’s knowledge is completely outstanding and I look up to him in so many ways. I have the upmost respect for this guy and his knowledge. I hope that one day I can amass half the knowledge he has in his head.

Sleepreader666 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuXUnx3SfZc5O5a24gz6qmg) is another one of those extremely intelligent guys that I look up to. The way he can articulate his words and talk about comics is astonishing. He has a heart filled kindness and is one of the most welcoming members in the community.

Koestenbraumstar (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvh23HEbrVHjTCzCkvwaOqA) is just an all-around great guy. He is very kind and accepting to new members, and he has one of those knowledge bases that not only spans the realm of comics but also into movies, tv shows, and much more. I can’t say enough good words about him!

Foolkiller5150 (http://www.youtube.com/user/FoolKiller5150) is one of those guys that I look up to. He is such a great collector and his collection is massive! Plus we are both big baseball fans and also happen to be huge Yankee fans. His Yankees collection made my jaw hit the floor.

Mongostomptime07 (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfAr5XiBWutY46fRdTuR7Dw) is a great guy and he has been gone for a few months but we would text each other every now and then to see how each other was doing (until I busted my phone and lost his number) but I hope he comes back soon.

Solid4stBend (http://www.youtube.com/user/solid4stbend) is one of those silver and bronze age brought up guys that knows so much about comics. I love watching his videos and learning something from him.

Ynotart (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSh0mDTuBQZuDWaiLKk-gPA) is a kind-hearted and soft spoken guy (Until you piss him off, then he tells what's up) who really appreciates the art that goes into comics. He collects titles that I would never think of collecting but the way he talks about them sparks my interest and is just an all-around great guy.

ComicBook Nostalgia (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE_njpzbhgfzv39E583WAiw) is just really into collecting. I mean the amount of books this guy brings in is amazing! He puts out some of my favorite videos and is also a member of the armed forces and I respect everything he does for this country and all he contributes to the community!

I know that I am missing way to many people but quite frankly, this blog would never end because that is seriously how many great people interact within this fantastic community of comic book lovers. I joined the community not expecting too much with my channel and today I hit 300 subscribers and have made tons of friends in which I can share my love of collecting with! The best part about it all is anyone can join! If you are interested in the community and need somewhere to start, just post a video and comment on one of my videos and let me know to check you out your channel.

Oh yeah here is my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIncredibleCJ