Did anyone else feel like, growing up, it was either comic books or baseball cards, and that it couldn’t be both? Nerdily, we collected both, though our passion for cards was slightly superior to comics. Wolverine No. 1 wasn’t as cool as Cal Ripken’s rookie card, but it was still radical. Kobe Bryant thinks so, too - his last stop prior to the Olympics was Lee’s Comics in San Mateo (via Tirico Suave):

Kobe happily replied, “I’m into that dark shit. I’ve got a 13-hour flight to China and need something good to read.” … He chuckled, saying, “My Man!” and giving me a high-five and taking the first two “Preacher” volumes. I also helped him track down the latest volume of “100 Bullets,” of which he is an avid fan, as well as “The Dark Knight Strikes Again,” “Across the Universe: DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore,” “Batman vs. Two-Face” and “Batman: The Joker’s Last Laugh.€

Not much to add to this, with the exception of one nugget we just came up with while putting in our contacts this morning: Would Kobe be the most universally-loved basketball player ever if that night in a Colorado hotel room hadn’t happened? (Yup, we find his fascination with comics pretty awesome.) He certainly seemed on track for the distinction. Would Shaq have been traded? Would the feud with Shaq have happened? Would Kobe be targeting his modern-day record seventh NBA title this year?

Fanboy Kobe Into ‘That Dark Shit’, High-Fiving (Tirico Suave)