Many collectors have followed their dreams and passions and turned their hobbies into businesses and their businesses into their dreams. William Insignares, has made pursuit not only to share his love of comics with those who stop into his Florida-based retail store, but with visitors all over the world who click on any one of the five languages available on his website. As is usually the case with any serious enterprise, it required passion, persistence and a degree of imagination for him to get this far. This journey into the imagination, as you might suspect, started with comic books.

Born in Englewood, New Jersey, and residing the in greater New York - New Jersey area until he was 15, Insignares started reading comics at the age of nine. It was a mishap and a subsequent trip to a department store that opened the world of comics to him.

I was collecting, building and painting Aurora monster model kits at the time, and living in Patterson , N.J. I had accidentally stepped on one, and was upset. My parents soon after took me to Valley Fair, which was similar to a smaller Walmart type of store. I was to use my allowance money to buy a replacement kit.

My allowance was $5.00 a week. Can you imagine going to buy a new sealed Aurora model kit with 5 bucks now? As we walked down the main aisle towards the back of the store were the toys section was, I lagged behind. Looking all around. Maybe the comics were calling out to me? I'll never know.

Soon after I came upon a couple of racks of comic books that were appropriately placed close to the model kits. I can still remember it as if it had happened just a short while ago-- I was such a geek and it was so crazy romantic...the moment I saw them. I fell to my knees. Yep. I just dropped on my knees right in front of the racks. The art was so incredible! Wow! Who were all these interesting weird looking people? Up until then I had only been exposed to the "Universal Monsters" thing, and had no idea about Spider-Man or anybody else to the like. I extended both hands out towards the comics. I grabbed at least one. I wish I could remember which. I wanted them all. By then my parents not seeing me right anywhere close to them had double backed. As they walked toward me I raised a comic book up in the air and yelled, "This is what I want!"

They said something like: "Forget about that! What is that?! Leave that alone. We came to buy model kits. I thought you liked model kits?"
I said "No more. I want these now!"

My parents would not give in. I guess I ended up buying the model kit, but I don't remember. My mind would be on nothing other than comics for the next 24 hours or so. I could not think of anything else. I was hooked already and had not even purchased my first comic! I am not sure if it was the day after or two days after but I still could not get comics out of my head. I had to have them. I just had to.

I told my younger brother, Carlos, about my new discovery. He was a year and six months younger than me. I had to convince him that monster kits were no longer cool, and the new thing for us had to be comic books. I decided we should skip school and use or lunch money to buy comics! I had never skipped school before-nor-had ever considered it until then. But, the stakes were high, and my mind was made up. We had had a big snowstorm that night before and there was still plenty of snow on the street. We set out in the morning just like we always did for school (which was a couple of blocks away), but instead we would detour to Valley Fair.

"I know a shortcut," I remember saying to Carlos. Valley Fair was probably 3-4 miles away or more. The "shortcut" would take us through a mountain trail that was snowed over. I recall the snow at times almost being up to our waist, but onward we pressed. It was no shortcut. I am not sure how many hours it took us to get there, but we did arrive. I immediately set out to hunt for the comics section and found it quickly. I remember sitting down and looking through, possibly even reading several comics before selecting my purchases. We finally set out to go back to school. My mom, I would later find out had had a moment of mother's intuition, that something was wrong with her "babies." Mothers have been known to have this, since they have a special connection with their children. She had decided to call the school to make sure we had gotten there safely. You can imagine what transpired after she was told that we had not arrived. We were about a block from the school when I saw a police car with a search light on top, he was driving slowly and shining his light on both sides of the sidewalk. Left and right.

I said to Carlos, "They are looking for us!"
He asked me, "How do you know?"
"I know," I said. "We are in trouble, man!"
I grabbed Carlos by the hand and we hid behind a parked car and waited until the police car drove past us. We ran up to the school and I told him to report to his class and I would go to mine. I strolled in to class, all casual, as if...
"Hey, watcha doin' here, boy?" My teacher asked.
"Uh, I'm late," I responded,
"Everybody is looking for you. You're in big trouble. Your parents are going to whip your beeehine!" (That's "beehine" as in butt.)

The heat came down on my brother and I, but I can't remember if we got our behinds whipped or not but I would not have cared. I had discovered comics. My life would never be the same again.

Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Hulk, Green Lantern, Flash, and Superman were my early favorites. I don't know if I ever considered myself a collector until my teen years. I read all my comics several times and played with all my toys. Nothing was kept in pristine shape. I could always just get a replacement, or so I thought. I just kept buying more. I would buy and resell firecrackers and use that money to buy more comics.

I also collected Mego action figures. My Uncle Pepe introduced us to those. He would visit us on the weekends and would bring a different one each time to my brother and I. Though my family loved the Aurora monster model kits, they finally accepted comics. My brother Carlos pretty much followed whatever I did. I do recall my mom reading Vampirella on occasion. Forget about her sharing those with me. It was about as taboo as me skipping school and going to buy comics.

From there, Insignares said, he followed the common path of drifting away from comics for a while, "I joined a gang and also discovered girls soon after comics, and I decided that fighting and chasing babes was more important than comics, and comics and models became second fiddle." But he never entirely lost interest in them. After a while, he found himself returning to them, particularly to Green Lantern. Early Golden Age issues turned out to be some of his favorites.

The prizes of my personal collection would probably be some of my early Golden Age Green Lantern comics. I try and keep my collection and my business far apart. I have seen and heard of too many comic retailers falling into that pit and never getting out. That deep hole were the weekly bill matches the collecting habit, and you don't have the dough to cover them both. That's not me.

Regardless, besides being on the lookout for a few Golden and Silver Age Green Lantern comics that I would like, I also look out for any Green Lantern items that I may not have. I have a display shelf in my office at home were I showcase some of these items. I have so many different Green Lantern collectibles that the whole display comes down and a new one goes up every couple of months. I just have so many items and not enough space for everything. By doing this it allows most of my things to get an equal amount of time on display as opposed to just sitting in storage.

What I find compelling about Green Lantern is Hal Jordan's undying (no pun intended) sense of commitment. His relentless pursuit to carry out what he believes to be right and to accomplish those goals. He possessed the world's most powerful weapon and was very creative and intelligent in the way he used it.
Not surprisingly, since I like the Golden Age and Silver Age Green Lanterns, and since there are some really cool items in my collection, I can't pick one "most prized" item. I can't decide. I don't know if I want to. I kind of see everything, all of it, as one big thing.

Like many other fans, I've been fortunate enough to meet the co-creator of the original Green Lantern, Martin Nodell and his late wife, the unforgettable Carrie Nodell. What very nice people!

In addition to Green Lantern, I have a big collection of full size superhero cardboard standups. Some go back to the early '80s. I also have a generous assortment of about 300 t-shirts. Many are hard to find superhero, rock concert, movie, and limited edition Hard Rock Cafe. A good portion of them I don't wear, or have never worn. Some have sentimental value to me. A few are autographed, sme by celebrities and artists who are no longer living.

I am currently working on completing Amazing Spider-Man #1-500, for which I need about 20, and Avengers #1-400. I need about 20 to complete that set.

As mentioned above, Insignares owns a retail store location and an internet comics site, demolitioncomics.com. Though, as he said, he works to keep his personal collection and his business separate, he knows that the same love of comics that caused him to open the business in the first place is felt around the world. That's what lead him to create a multi-lingual site, and it's helped him gain customers and fellow fans around the globe.

I have received letters and emails from people congratulating us on doing this. It makes me feel good to know that somewhere somebody appreciates the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into building something out of nothing. On many different websites in several countries, ours is the only comic book store listed as a link! It's wonderful. We do have several regular mail order subscriptions that are from individuals that speak very little English.

We sell many more Disney comics to foreign countries than in the U.S., but Judge Dredd and Spider-Man are also very popular abroad.

I see the comic book market place in a very good position. I am not surprised. Many people before us have worked hard to help get our trade were it is today. Let's honor the legacies of all those previous comic book industry professionals by moving our craft forward in a positive and useful direction. I see a bright future full of consequential recognition and prosperous revenue for all the devoted.