While some of you may have been wearing buttons today proclaiming your support for Obama, McCain, or some third-party candidate, as for me, well, I decided long ago that I’d never sport a button for any candidate who was actually running at the time.

And so I wore my favorite political button of the ones I’ve managed to pick up over the years. I’d gotten this Hubert Humphrey button in 1968 after my Social Studies teacher at Junior High School 68, Mr. Botwinick, encouraged us all to take part in the political process.

When I was 13 and living in Canarsie, I joined the Thomas Jefferson Young Democratic Club and campaigned for Humphrey. I even once got a chance to shake his hand at a rally. And while putting up posters and handing out flyers all across Brooklyn, I got this beautifully designed button.

While digging into my button collection for this, I found many non-political ones which also had me feeling nostalgic.

I got this next button in 1964 when I was nine years old. I joined the Merry Marvel Marching Society the moment its existence was announced. I can still remember filling a Junior Mints box with pennies, nickels, and dimes, taping the box closed, stuffing it in an envelope, and then forcibly taping that closed. It’s a miracle that the package made it to Madison Avenue. But it did, and so I wore this proudly for many years, much of the time on my X-Men t-shirt.

Here’s a button I wore in the 6th grade at P.S. 115. There were many buttons available on this theme back then, though I’m not sure why. I guess it was part of a fad. But the fact that I chose to wear it proves that I had delusions of grandeur even then.

I picked up this next one at the 1972 EC Comics Convention held at the McAlpin Hotel, at which I tormented Bill Gaines with taunts about the National Lampoon, saw all of the amazing original artwork from those comics, and got sketches from Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Marie Severin, and others.

Here are two buttons I grabbed at a July 4th weekend Comic Con, perhaps in 1979. Does anyone remember why 1980 was being called the year of the Batman?

These last three buttons were printed up at one of the parties at MagiCon, the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention. They were made on the spot in response to events at the con—in this case, the acceptance speech by Nancy Kress, an accidental announcement at the Hugo ceremony, and the general worship of Pat Cadigan.

And now, enough of buttons—it’s time to return to the returns!