I can't remember my first comic book.

I think it was Star Wars. That's the earliest comic I remember reading. I remember what house I read it in (when you move every year -- sometimes more than once -- that's the way you keep time). I was four.

But, cool as that was, that's not the comic book I want to talk about. (And it WAS cool!) My wife and I recently moved again (we're trying to keep up with my parents who, on their twentieth wedding anniversary, had lived in twenty different homes -- my wife and I are in our sixth year of marriage and we've lived in seven) and I was going through some old boxes of my stuff that my parents wanted to get out of the house while packing for their most recent move.

Wow. That's a lot of moving. For those of you who couldn't follow that (I'm not sure if I even followed it), here's the short version: I was looking through some boxes I hadn't seen in years and I came across a treasure. A literal treasure. I hadn't seen it in years, but it is something I've thought about occasionally over the past two decades.

Now, I don't collect comics as an investment. I can't afford it in the first place and I like reading my comics in the second place and these days it just doesn't pay in the third place. Besides, I tend to like stuff that no one else likes to begin with.

The book is Casper Digest Stories #2.

Is it worth anything? Well, a search on Mile High Comics' website brought up nothing. Another search on eBay produced the same result. Besides, looking at the condition of this thing: its cover is bent, faded, written on, and torn. On the inside front cover is more writing. Pages are bent. It's well read. It's probably pretty much worthless.

Was it any good? I remember the stories quite well. I remember the story about the Genie and the hippies. And the aliens who make gravity go away. And the story of the ogre who's looking for his ladylove. And the one about the giant who smoked cigars and got dissed by the ladies because smoking's bad for you, folks. It's a thick book ("BIG 132 PAGES" as the cover says) and there were lots of one page gags and short stories. However, I haven't reread it. I don't want to spoil the memory. (Although, I just took another peak . . . I may find myself reading some Casper before going to bed tonight.) But the stories aren't why I remember it.

Remember the writing on the inside front cover? It said, in a sloppy cursive, "To Benji From Denis." (Yes, I was a Benjy. But he spelled my name wrong. It was with a "y", NOT an "i"! The "i" was the dog, not me! Of course, that was something my elementary school classmates did not care about when I pointed it out to them.) I still remember this kid. He was in 5th grade. I was in 2nd. And he actually played with me and my friend Matt on the playground. And he was cool. Obviously, he was cool -- he was in 5th grade and I was in 2nd!

Of course, in my little school in the little Ontario town of Sundridge, when you got to 6th grade, you had to go to school in Burks Falls, which was fifteen or twenty minutes away. I can still remember asking him at some point if he would consider failing 5th grade so he could stick around the next year. I can also still feel that sinking stupid feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you've said something that you know is idiotic before the other person even replies.

On the last day of school, Denis told me he had a surprise for me. And Casper Digest Stories #2 was the surprise. I remember showing it to my mom after I got home and she said something about that being a really nice thing he did.

I never saw Denis again. I hardly remember what he looked like. I don't remember much about him at all. Yet he still looms large in my memory. And all he did was give me a little book with cheesy four-color stories.