elfs | A brief wave of nostalgia

I stopped by a new comics and games store in my neighborhood the other day. I was amused to see that they had their own glass case of fantasy knives and so on, and the walls were lined with ancient comics and games. As I was wandering around, the owner hauled a small cardboard box out from behind the counter and began sorting through its contents.

I was immediately drawn to his cache. He said that they were from a friend of his who was getting rid of them, and he wasn't even sure what they were or how much they were worth. As I watched, he pulled out several first edition printings of Ogre, G.E.V., Holy War, Kung Fu 2100, and a couple of Car Wars supplements, all in their original plastic envelopes, from back in the early 1980s.

I hate to wax nostalgic, and I'm a terrible collector; I think books and games and such should be played, not left on a shelf to collect dust in the hopes that someday some other collector will spend more to buy them from you. I hate the totemization of media containers. But I had a brief understanding of it when I seriously coveted that copy of G.E.V.