Of Comic Books and Family Vacations: Who is Goldenrulecomics?

Who is Goldenrulecomics? Actually, the better question is who ARE Goldenrulecomics!

I am the father of a teenager, and we live in New Jersey. I handle the writing of our articles, while the teenager does the technical side of the things we do online.

My teenager is fascinated with computer programming, design, etc., something that I really don't have much interest in. But I thought it would be good to find some way to participate in my teenager's online adventures (if only to keep an eye on my child!), so I looked into the two of us cooperating on a blog.

Since I work full time, a blog didn't seem to make much sense: My teen wasn't interested in writing anything regularly and I tend not to have much free time. So when we found Squidoo I thought it would be a good compromise. Squidoo has been taken over by Hubpages, so we are continuing our work here.

I pick the topics and do the writing, and my teen helps with links, uploading videos, and any problems that pop up. The topics have been left to my discretion, with one restriction -- my employer says I can't write anything about the company or my area of work.

So we have focused on two main themes: comic books and tourist attractions.

This is a photo of us in Ocean City, New Jersey.

We Love Traveling and Do It Whenever We Can!

My wife was a U.S. State Department brat, so she grew up in more than a dozen countries. While my childhood was spent on the same street until I went to college, my grandmother believed strongly in traveling as much as possible. We did a cross-country road trip from New Jersey to California in the early 1970s, for instance, then followed that the next year with a drive down the new Walt Disney World in Florida. And we went many other places besides, but nothing more exotic than Canada.

So after my wife and I married, we ran off to Chile in South America! We spent four years exploring the country, then came back to the United States to have children. Even when our first-born was in diapers we were traveling around the United States and Canada, and even went to to Oaxaca, Mexico, on one trip.

After our second was born I got a transfer to London, and for five years we explored England and France. We did take one longer trip to Germany, but my wife was so in love with France that we kept going back there whenever we had a chance. I wish we had known about Squidoo at the time because I certainly would have been doing many reviews of the places we saw there.

We returned to the New York area in 2009, and since we've been back we've taken up our old habit of traveling within the U.S. and Canada.

(In this photo our children are battling in front of Bodiam Castle in rural England.)

Here is the article we wrote about our trip to Nova Scotia, where we were bedeviled by poor weather but had a good time anyway. We wrote a companion piece on tips for traveling to Nova Scotia, and we hope to expand on some of the places we visited in separate pieces as well.

Things to Do in Nova Scotia: Highlights of Our Family Vacation
Nova Scotia offered our family a good mix of what we look for on when we go away on vacation. There's beautiful scenery to hike through, historical and cultu...

Top Five Travel Tips For Tourists Going to Nova Scotia
Our family recently visited Nova Scotia, which a wonderful place that has a wide variety of things to do for everyone. We wrote an online diary of the trip, ...

The Product of 15 Years of Collecting Comic Books!

I began reading comic books sometime in the early 1970s, taking after my older brother. One of the first comic books I can remember reading was Avengers No. 80, which appeared in September 1970.

My brother, who is four years older, and I really didn't have much in common except for comic books. We'd buy them every week at whatever convenience store we could beg our mother to stop at (this was before comics were distributed just in comic book stores). At least once a year we would go to a huge flea market in Englishtown, New Jersey, where there were several dealers selling back issues.

And we even got our mother to take us on the bus to New York City, where we went to some of the mid-1970s conventions!

My brother stopped buying comics after he got out of high school, and I gave him money for his half of the collection. I also began to wean myself off the comics after high school. Once I went away to college I found I just didn't have the money to afford the habit. But over the approximately 15 years I collected comics I probably bought most of the Marvel Comics published from 1965 to 1982 or so, and many DC comics besides. The photo here shows my collection, neatly boxed in the attic.

Today, comics can cost $3.99 or more each, which is quite the sticker shock for me! I can remember when we would get every new comic on the spinning rack, some sodas and candy for less than $5. And because it was such cheap entertainment, we even bought comics that we weren't necessarily interested in, so we were exposed to many different types of stories. I think you'd have to have a lot of money to be willing to experiment with different comics the way we did back wheh the cost of each issue was only 15 cents or 20 cents.

My two favorite series when I was a young reader was the Avengers and Daredevil. I mentioned above that the first comic book I remember reading was Avengers No. 80. The first Daredevil comic I can remember reading was Daredevil No. 81, which appeared in 1971. Here are some reviews I have written about the two series:

Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller A Marvel Comic Book Review of The Complete Elektra Saga!
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Vol. 2 collects issues 168-182 of the original Daredevil series. Issue 168 was the first comic of the series that Miller ...

The Avengers in the Late 1960s: A Marvel Comics Review!
Marvel Essential: Avengers Vol. 3 contains issues 47 to 68 of the comic's original series, as well as Avengers Annual No. 2. For the most part this collectio...

The Avengers Debut! A Comic Book Review of the Marvel Masterworks Collection!
The Avengers Volume 1 was one of the first four collections when Marvel Comics began publishing its Marvel Masterworks series in 1987. Since then the company...

Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Brings Greatness to the Marvel Comics' Superhero!
Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volume 1 contains the first nine stories that Miller drew of Daredevil in the late 1970s (issues 158-161, 163-167). Bring...

I basically write whatever topic I feel like writing, otherwise it would be too much like a job! Then I have the younger half do whatever technical things that need to be done to get the article ready for publication.

We have read much advice online about focusing on one niche and building out that topic in many different ways, but that hasn't really been my interest.

But I do wonder if the people who have been kind enough to read our entries have a preference.

Please let us know if there's a particular area that you prefer. Thanks!

Top Things to Do in Chicago: Highlights of a Family Vacation
We recently spent a seven- day vacation in Chicago, the third- most populous city in the United States. Chicago had plenty to see and do for our entire four- person family, with each of us getting to choose some attraction. There was great art and architec...

Highlights of Chicago's Art Institute: A Family Day Trip
The Art Institute is one of the truly must- see attractions for any visitor to Chicago. World- renowned for its Impressionist, Post- Impressionist, and American paintings, the institute says it contains about 300,000 artifacts and pieces of art spanning mo...

Highlights of the Museum of Science & Industry: A Chicago Family Day Trip
The Museum of Science & Industry on the south side of Chicago is a wonderful place to spend a day for the entire family. The largest science museum in the western hemisphere, it has more than 2,000 things to see or do spread out over 75 halls. Original...

Things to do in Montreal: Highlights of a Family Vacation
Montreal, the largest French-speaking city in the Canadian province of Quebec, was chosen as the site of our Spring Break family vacation this year. My daugh...

Montreal's Biosphere: An Evironmental Museum in a Geodesic Dome!
The biosphere is a museum dedicated to increasing public awareness of the environmental issues facing the world today. It does this by mixing a lot of inform...

Highlights of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica
The Notre-Dame Basilica in the Vieux-Montreal section of the city is well worth a visit, as it is considered one of the grandest churches in North America. C...

Highlights of Montreal's Science Center
Montreal's Science Center will keep any child entertained and busy for hours! There are plenty of activities and experiments for a child to do, and all have ...

Highlights of Montreal's History Museum, the Musee du Chateau Ramezay
The Musee du Chateau Ramezay is located close to the center of the Old Montreal section, which makes sense since it is housed in a home built in 1705 by the ...

Montreal's Museum Of the First Canadian Female Saint: Marguerite Bourgeoys and Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel
French-born Marguerite Bourgeoys arrived in Montreal in 1653, when the Canadian city had about 50 inhabitants, and persuaded them to build the city's first s...

Highlights of Fort McHenry, Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner
Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine is a great place to visit, full of inspiring history, lovely grounds and cool views. It's also a place to ...

Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore: A Tourist's Guide to Comic Book Heaven!
Geppi's Entertainment Museum is located in Baltimore and is dedicated to all sorts of American pop culture: comic books, television, radio, movies, magazines...

Moon Baltimore Book Review: A Great Little Tourist Guide!
We used this guidebook for a long weekend in Baltimore, and never felt the need to consult any other tour books or seek out more information from the Baltimo...

Thomas Edison's Laboratory: A New Jersey Family Day Trip!
The Thomas Edison laboratory in New Jersey is a great family day trip. Edison was the inventor of the first practical electric bulb, the motion picture camer...

Gettysburg Battlefield Museum: A Pennsylvania Family Day Trip
The Gettysburg Visitor Center and Museum, located in the Gettysburg National Military Park, is the best place to start any visit to the Civil War battlefield...

George Washington's Headquarters in Morristown: A New Jersey Day Trip
The Ford Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey, served as George Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters during the winter of 1779-1780, close enough to New ...

Thomas Edison House Glenmont: A New Jersey Family Day Trip!
Thomas Edison, one of America's greatest inventors, lived for more than four decades in a 29-room mansion called Glenmont in the exclusive Llewellyn Park nei...

Highlights of the Frick Collection in New York City
The Frick Collection is an art museum in Manhattan's Upper East Side, and is world-famous for its collection of Old Master paintings. Included in the collect...

Highlights of the Library of Congress: Thomas Jefferson, Bob Hope and the Gutenberg Bible!
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, photographs, maps and other items in its collection. The Thomas Jefferso...

Highlights of the National Gallery of Art: A Washington Family Day Trip
The National Gallery of Art is located on the National Mall in Washington D.C., and is a great change of pace from the many museums that are nearby. The pain...

Ford's Theatre, Where Lincoln Was Assassinated: A Washington D.C. Family Day Trip
Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. was the scene of America's greatest tragedy. On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, having successfully guided the c...

Renoir and Highlights of the Phillips Collection: A Washington D.C. Family Day Trip
The Phillips Collection opened in 1921 as America's first museum of modern art, and it is still considered one of the premiere places to see such masterpiece...

Highlights of The National Zoo: A Washington D.C. Family Day Trip
The Smithsonian National Zoological Park, commonly known as the National Zoo, is a great place to take the kids when they need a break from all the monuments...

Highlights of the National Museum of American History: A Washington D.C. Family Day Trip
The National Museum of American History in the heart of Washington D.C. is one of those places that can really capture the attention of every member of the f...

Highlights of the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery are located in the same building, and are officially called the Donald W. Reynolds Cent...

Marvel Masterworks X-Men Comic Book Review: Enter the Phoenix! Plus Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler!
This volume reprints Uncanny X-Men No. 101-110 in full color, a collection of 10 comics during a run that really established the new X-Men as a major franchi...

Hulk in the 1970s! The Rampaging Hulk Marvel Essential Comic Book Review
Marvel Essential: The Rampaging Hulk 1 is a collection of Hulk stories from his short-lived late 1970s magazine. This volume includes the tales from issues 1...

X-Men Reborn in the 1970s: Storm and Nightcrawler Debut, plus Wolverine!
Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 highlights the rebirth of the team in 1975-1976, reprinting Giant-Size X-Men No. 1 and X-Men No. 94-100. Promote...

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man: A Review of the 1970s Marvel Comics Series!
Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man first appeared at the end of 1976, and was a comic book aimed at cashing in on the growing popularity of Spider-Man....

The X-Men in the Early 1970s: Neal Adams' Dynamic Art
Marvel Essential Classic X-Men volume 3 is a real hodge-podge of stories that shows just how far below the radar screen the original X-Men had fallen in the ...

The Ghost Rider Debuts! A Marvel Comic Book Review
The Marvel Essential series contains four volumes devoted to the Ghost Rider superhero, who first appeared in 1972 in a comic book called Marvel Spotlight. H...

Marvel Essential X-Men Comic Book Review: Wolverine, Storm and a Return to Greatness!
Marvel Essential X-Men collects Giant-Size X-Men 1 and X-Men 94-119. Giant-Size X-Men No. 1 introduced the new team of superheroes, reviving the X-Men comic....

Spider-Man in the 1970s! A Marvel Comics Book Review
The Essential Spider-Man Vol. 8 contains issues No. 161-185 of the Amazing Spider-Man series, plus Nova issue No. 12 and the Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 11...

Essential Iron Fist: A Marvel Comic Book Review!
Essential Iron Fist Volume 1 collects the first four years' worth of Marvel comics starring the character, who debuted in 1974 during a martial arts craze. T...

Our Reviews of Comic Books from the 1960s

These stories were originally published before I began reading comics. I had read many of the issues either because I bought them second-hand in the 1970s or got them when they were reprinted.

Captain America in the 1960s: A Marvel Comic Book Review
Marvel Essential Captain America Volume 1 reprints Captain America's stories from Tales of Suspense No. 59-99 as well as the first three issues of the newly-...

Marvel Essential Fantastic Four Comic Book Review: Dr. Doom and Daredevil Guest Star as the Legend Grows!
The Fantastic Four rocked the comic-book world when it debuted in 1961, with writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby introducing more characterization and real...

The Amazing Spider-Man Debuts! A Marvel Masterworks Comic Book Review
Marvel Comics began publishing its Marvel Masterworks series in 1987 with The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1, among others. Since then the company has come out wi...

The Fantastic Four Debuts! A Marvel Essentials Comic Book Review
The Essential Fantastic Four Volume 1 contains some of the most important stories that Marvel Comics ever published. This book contains the first 20 issues o...

Spider-Man's Earliest Adventures: A Review of Marvel Comics' Essential Spider-Man Vol. 1
Marvel Essential Spider-Man Volume 1 contains the debut story of Marvel Comics' most-popular character, who first appeared 50 years ago in the summer of 1962...

The Mighty Thor Debuts: Highlights of His First Marvel Masterworks Collection
Thor, one of Marvel Comics' mightiest heroes, debuted 50 years ago in a comic book called Journey into Mystery. One of the Marvel Universe's earliest charact...

Captain America's 1960s Adventures in Color: A Marvel Comics Review
Marvel Masterworks: Captain America Volume 1 reprints the superhero's adventures in Tales of Suspense No. 59-81 in full color. This was Captain America's fir...

Marvel Essential Fantastic Four: Galactus, Silver Surfer and the Black Panther Debut!
Marvel Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 3 contains perhaps the most-sustained run of great comic book stories of the 1960s. This collection of Fantastic Four No...

Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier Comic Book Review
DC: The New Frontier was a series of six comic book issues in 2004 that focused on the 1950s, when many of the major superheroes that populate the modern DC ...

Joe Kubert, Comic Book Artist: An Appreciation
Comic book artist Joe Kubert died on Aug. 12, 2012, after more than seven decades of drawing and creating comic books. Over those many years he worked on a w...

Spider-Man Co-Creator Steve Ditko: Strange and Stranger Book Review
Strange and Stranger: the World of Steve Ditko was published in 2008 by Fantagraphics Books. Author Blake Bell traces the life story of this legendary and re...

New York Comic Con Anime Festival: A Comic Book Fan's Review!
The New York Comic Book Convention occurred Oct. 13-16, 2011, and coupled with the New York Anime Festival, drew more than 100,000 comic-book fans, video gam...

KotoriCon Anime Festival: Highlights of the New Jersey Convention
Hundreds of anime fans, role-playing participants, and cosplayers converged in southern New Jersey for KotoriCon 2012, held Jan. 6-7 at Gloucester County Col...

Gene Colan, Comic Book Artist: An Appreciation
Gene Colan developed such a moody, cinematic style during his six decades as a comic book artist that his work was as easily identified as the art of Jack Ki...

C.J. Henderson's Writing Advice: A KotoriCon Anime Festival Highlight
C.J. Henderson, a writer of novels and comic books, spoke at KotoriCon 2012, the anime festival at Gloucester County College in Sewell, New Jersey. His panel...

X-Men's Dark Phoenix Saga: A Marvel Comic Book Review
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga collects issues No. 129-137 of the original X-Men comic-book series, a series of tales that ends with the final battle over Jean...

Warren Buffett Invests Like A Girl: A Great Guide For Investors
Billionaire Warren Buffett and the women of the world have one thing in common: They are better investors than the average man. That's what the jacket copy o...

Starting Your Own Internet Business: A Step-by-Step Guide
Start Your Own e-Business, from Entrepreneur Magazine's Startup Series, is a comprehensive guide for anyone who is considering trying to make money on the In...

Everything Is Beautiful: Ray Steven's Classic Song From the 1970s!
''Everything is Beautiful'' packs a lot of emotion in a very simple song that is as true today as when it hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in Spring 1970. ...

The Secret World of Arrietty Comes to America: Movie Review
The classic story of ''The Borrowers,'' the little people who live beneath the floorboards who only take what they need to survive and things that won't be m...

Start Your Own Blogging Business: a How to Build a Blog Guide
Start Your Own Blogging Business, from Entrepreneur Magazine's Startup Series, is a comprehensive guide for anyone who wants to make money on the Internet th...

Midas Touch: Trump and Rich Dad's Kiyosaki on Being Your Own Boss!
Donald Trump, the famous real estate developer and TV star, and Robert Kiyosaki, best-selling author of the ''Rich Dad, Poor Dad'' series of motivational boo...

The Shadow Unmasks + The Yellow Band: A Pulp Book Review!
The Shadow, that mysterious crime-fighter from the 1930s pulps, is back in regular publication, with a series of books from Nostalgia Ventures. Each volume c...

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Twilight Sparkle Goes on a Quest!
''My Little Pony: Equestria Girls'' is the new movie starring the cartoon characters from the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic television series. The animated movie stars Twilight Sparkle, her dragon Spike, and her friends Rainbow Das...

Please let us know what you think of this article, our reviews or anything else relevant.

Thanks for visiting.