The thing with being autistic, I have both been led to believe and experienced first-hand, is that every so often you get a Great Idea in your head about something you are going to be Into. Sometimes these Things That You Are Now Into stick around and become long-term hobbies and interests, at other times they fall by the wayside. But in my experience, they're usually worth following along with for at least a little while, unless they involve a major uprooting of your entire life. Which they usually don't.
While at the Portsmouth Anime and Gaming Con yesterday, our friend Dan spoke a little about collecting stickers. For some reason, Dan's enthusing about this tripped something in my brain, which suddenly and uncontrollably exploded with a chorus of "I want to be into collecting stickers!".
I actually used to be into collecting stickers when I was a kid. For two separate years, I collected stickers for the Panini sticker album themed around The Beano, and I used to swap stickers with my friend Joanna. Joanna herself is probably a story for another day — and one that, for once, I don't think I've actually told here previously — but all you need to know for now is that we were both pretty avid Beano sticker collectors, but I don't think either of us ever actually completed one of those albums 100%.
Panini stickers were, of course, one of the original "booster packs", and doubtless our parents grit their respective teeth any time we asked for a pack of stickers to go in our albums, particularly if a significant number of them ended up being duplicates of ones we already had. But it was a fun thing to do as a child, and an opportunity to socialise, too; I don't remember anyone else collecting Beano stickers, but I always enjoyed the chance to spend some time with Joanna. As I say, though, story for another day.
So anyway, with that in mind, my brain decided that Now I'm Into Stickers, so I immediately took the opportunity to wander off and buy a few packs of stickers that had caught my eye earlier. And, today, I dug out one of the lovely "journal"-style notebooks I've had in my drawer for ages but never really done anything with, and I started sticking stickers in it. Not only did I stick the stickers I bought yesterday in it, but I stuck some stickers I've had hanging around for ages in there, too; I had, up until this point, resisted sticking them anywhere because I was worried about the "permanence" of whatever I might have stuck them on.
This is actually something that Dan expressed yesterday, too, and thus my immediate solution was to stick them in a book. What's more permanent than a book! Unless you throw it away, obviously. But I'm not planning on throwing this away any time soon.
Anyway, do you want to see? Of course you do. Here:
I like doing title pages in the style of Victorian novels. I have done this for many years now, and I have no intention of stopping.
On the first page, a Neptunia sticker that's been floating around various rooms in my house since Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution showed up. I finally stuck it in something. So to speak. On the second, one of the first batches of stickers we did as a bonus extra in Evercade cartridges: a selection of sprites and artwork from Indie Heroes Collection 1, a compilation of "modern retro" games made by today's indie developers for vintage systems.
On the next page, some stickers from Piko Interactive Collection 2 for Evercade, which technically came out before Indie Heroes Collection 1 and thus was the trigger for me to add the "in no particular order" caveat to the title page of this volume. On the following page, a selection of stickers from the Goodboy Galaxy/Witch n' Wiz dual cartridge for Evercade, focusing on the former game. If you've never played Goodboy Galaxy I highly recommend it; it's an excellent exploratory platformer.
Then we have the stickers that came with Toaplan Arcade 3 and Data East Arcade 2 for Evercade, mostly based on the original cabinet or marquee art for these games.
And the same deal for these stickers, from Toaplan Arcade 4 and Atari Arcade 2.
Then a bumper crop of stickers from the Strictly Limited Games release of Sisters Royale, a shoot 'em up by the folks who made the Castle of Shikigami series. A lot of folks have beef with Strictly Limited for the amount of time they take to make their physical editions of games — I have some orders that have been outstanding for multiple years — but they always come through eventually. Their special editions are some of the highest quality but most affordable special editions I have on my shelves.
A bit of overflow of Sisters Royale stickers here, plus the first of the sticker packs I bought yesterday from the Portsmouth Anime and Gaming Con. This "Pretty Girls Sticker Pack" is by an art studio called Kumigaki.
And finally, for now, anyway, a few Final Fantasy VII-themed stickers I nabbed from a local outfit known as Taroball Studios.
So there we go. Stickers! And none of the dissatisfaction with empty spaces you got with Panini albums. I wonder if I'll ever fill this book? Only one way to find out!
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