Today it's the rise of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Long before James Gunn turned them into a blockbuster tentpole franchise, the Guardians were without a home.

They had no series of their own despite knocking around the Marvel Universe for decades.

Then in 1990, through the genius of one man, Jim Valentino brought them status and success in publishing that they had never experienced

before or since.

And I was fortunate enough to have a front seat for all of it.

We share how they went from dormant to dominant, outselling notable comic book franchises

like Iron Man, the Avengers, Captain America, and Green Lantern.

The Secrets of the Rebirth of the Guardians of the Galaxy on an all-new episode of Robeservations.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to another edition of Rob Zervations. I am your host, Rob Leifeld,

and Rob Observations is a podcast that's been running about four years come the spring.

And we talk about comic books and we talk about the ways that comic books have advanced on all these platforms through, through my own eyes, through my own childhood.

I started picking up comic books, 1974, 1975, all the little local liquor stores, grocery stores, you know, mini-marts, a lot of mini-marts, mini-markets,

like 7-11.

There was one called Stomp and Go.

There was one called U-Totem.

The thing that united all of these different outlets was their access to comic book,

Spinner Rack shelves filled with comic books that were cheap

that kids like myself could buy four for a dollar. And this started my lifelong obsession,

which turned into a career, which hasn't gone so bad. I'm really excited to be in my 39th calendar year. You start counting 1986 on your fingers.

86, 87, 88. When you hit 24, 2024, you were at 39 calendar years of actually working, being

published in the comic book world, in the comic book business. And boy, have I seen crazy stuff from when i was seven years old

really starting to to feel the fever build and buy comic books to these giant blockbusters and

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