I fell in love with comic books as a young toddler of four or five years when my parents took me along to visit another family with older children who happened to have a few comics laying around. I can’t recall the family’s name… or what town they lived in… or anything else about our visit. But this was during the early 1940s – the war years – and the kids in that family must have been fans of Timely comics because there was Captain America and Bucky and Submariner and the Human Torch knocking the bejesus out of Nazi and Japanese troops and war machines! And those colorful, lurid costumes! I was instantly hooked!
Not long thereafter, I accompanied my dad into a drugstore and noticed a wire spin rack loaded with new comics. Moth to a flame! Not only did I find Captain America and the Human Torch, but also Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern! And others! Their costumes! Their powers!! To my impressionable young mind it was like crack cocaine! And I’ve never been able to kick the habit.
This was the so-called Golden Age of comics which started with the publication of Action Comics No. 1 in 1938 featuring the first appearance of Superman. Boy! How I wish I had gotten and hung onto one of those with the cover price of a dime! Even in 1943 there were still many floating around in kids’ comic collections and were being traded back & forth. I probably could’ve traded for an Action No. 1! Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. The mantra of lost opportunities!
But there was a war going on with numerous paper drives for the war effort. Even though millions of comic books were being published every month, millions were routinely sucked up in these paper drives for Uncle Sam. I guess that’s what makes the Golden Age golden… the low survival rate of war years comics.
I wasn’t too concerned about collecting comics during my single digit years. Most of the kids in my neighborhood had small collections and we traded recent issues with one another in different genres just so we could read other comics for free. That’s how I became a fan of cowboy comics; and jungle comics; war comics… and crime comics! Of course, all these interests were reinforced by radio programs (Superman; the Green Hornet; the Lone Ranger; the F.B.I. In Peace and War) and by movies (Tarzan; Roy Rogers; Hopalong Cassidy; Casablanca; The Big Sleep). There’s a definite synergy between Comics and movies.
But the neighborhood comic collections in the late 1940s had a way of soon becoming dog-eared, tattered and thrown away after too much re-reading and careless handling.
As I approached mid-20th century I had also acquired a very strong interest in science fiction. It started off with newspaper comic strips featuring characters like Flash Gordon and Buck rogers which were soon augmented by comic book editions. Then came 1950 with the publication of DC’s “Strange Adventures” and “Mystery In Space”. The ten-year-old Sudzy started getting serious about preserving his most cherished comics!
So, yes, I’ve got some 50s era “Strange Adventures” and “Flash Gordon” and “Tom Corbett- Space Cadet” comics in pretty nice condition.
I also started collecting “Tarzan” comics published by DELL Publications back in the early 50s. I liked them so well that I subscribed to them for a few years just so I could be sure to get a new one every month in the mail! Back then DELL didn’t waste any money on packaging. The comic arrived in our mailbox folded over from top to bottom inside a plain brown paper band about 3 or 4 inches wide wrapped around the middle of the comic with my name and address on a printed label on one side of the band. The top and bottom of the folded comic was exposed to whatever shipping conditions it was surrounded by! And, of course, the fold-over left a broad crease in the middle of the comic running from top to bottom! None of this bothered me in the early 50s… but it sure would bother me today!
I kept these earlier acquired comic books stored away as treasures of my childhood. I wasn’t really a serious collector back then. By the time I hit high school in the mid-1950s I would buy the few science fiction titles mentioned above… but only as “support literature” to my intention of becoming an astronaut! Too bad I didn’t study Math and Science as assiduously as I did science fiction! As it turned out, I didn’t really have a great aptitude for science... and very little aptitude for higher math!
My interest in comics was greatly repressed by entering “adulthood”. After all, back then comics were considered a childish preoccupation for kids. And after I turned 18 I was legally an adult! But I resisted adulthood; I wasn’t ready for it! And for the next several years of my life the events and meandering path I took would prove that I wasn’t much of an adult. However, that path left little time for comic books.
About a decade later I was married and had a little baby son. Now THAT dragged me into adulthood pretty quick! Serious responsibilities have a way of doing that!
But it only took another few years of rearing that boy to re-awaken my interest in comics. By the time he was three years old I was reading him comic books as bedtime stories and when he was seven I took him to our first comic book convention in Columbus. It was there that I first became aware of such a thing as a “Comic Book Price Guide”. From that point on I became a “serious” collector and deluded myself into believing that I was only collecting comics for their “investment value”. What a great excuse for pursuing a childish fascination for the rest of my life!
However, becoming a serious collector really sharpened my ability to assess comics for their condition. Even for a novice, a quick scan through a Price Guide will show you that for comic book buyers, condition is everything. The price paid for a comic in only “fair” condition (dog-eared, wrinkled, stained, torn pages, etc.) can be multiplied by a hundred or more if it is in “near-mint” condition. So when I descend on comic shops around the country, as I have over the years from coast to coast, I am looking for comics that will qualify as at least “fine “ condition. That’s about halfway up the established comic book grading scale from 0 to 10. And while practicing this geeky hobby, I have encountered a few highly irritating conditions commonly employed by publishers and comic shop operators which strike me as being in no one’s best interests.
When it comes to the individual small comic shop, I really can’t complain much because I know this is the kind of small business that has a very high casualty rate. It takes a very tough-minded (or, perhaps insanely optimistic) individual to even consider starting up a comic shop. Most never last more than a few years. After all, they are dealing with a product at the low end of popular culture which caters to a young, fickle and ever-changing customer base. I have dropped in on a hundred or more such shops over the decades ranging from the Atlantic seaboard to Seattle, Washington, and only a small handful are still in operation. So I generally have deep empathy for comic shop proprietors.
The only complaint I have with some proprietors (and it’s a minor one), has to do with back-issue comics wrapped in clear plastic “baggies”. The bag is, of course intended to help preserve the comic and is composed of either old-style polyethylene or newer style mylar. Mylar is preferred because it is lighter and clearer than polyethylene and supposedly can last forever without eventually breaking down... chemically. I don’t know how serious that concern is since I’ve got some comics over 70 years old stored in polyethylene bags and they are doing just fine.
My complaint is that some dealers bag their comics UPSIDE DOWN in the baggie and store them that way in the back issue long boxes. So when customers pull a comic out for closer inspection, the baggie fold-over flap -- taped shut over the back of the bag at the bottom -- gets bent, wrinkled or pulled loose during the pull out and re-insertion process. Now THAT can’t be good for the comic! And it’s certainly aggravating for customers, Why would a dealer DO THAT?! (Quibble, quibble)
My BIG complaint has to do with the publishers of comic books and the vital information they put on the cover. Now bear in mind that over the past century or so, there have been hundreds – if not thousands – of comic book publishers. Most have either died out or been absorbed by bigger publishers.
Why, I was even a comic book publisher myself back in 1977! I had a 9-year-old son with artistic ability who also loved comics. An older brother proposed the idea that my son and I should publish our own comic so we could claim to have the only comic book ever completely drawn by a 9-year-old artist! I liked the idea… so we did it. On a limited basis. My brother helped to finance the project and by the end of 1977 we had published the first issue of IMAGINEX COMIX . The first – and only – printing was just 1000 black & white copies on very cheap newsprint. Publishing anything with limited financing can be difficult! I scrambled around to a few local vendors to get copies placed in their stores and actually sold some comics! However, I didn’t come anywhere near to recouping the cost of publication! Such is the fate of most vanity projects.
But I digress. IMAGINEX COMIX No. 1 had – running along the top of the front cover where MOST comics put vital information – not only the title and issue number but also the logo and publisher name AND – most importantly – the month(s) and YEAR of the comic! So, all you comic publishers out there, why is it so important to put this information on the cover… preferably somewhere near the top? Simply put: to aid the efforts of lifelong fans and hardcore collectors of your product!!!
PUBLISHERS: show a little respect and helpfulness for us loyal, if hopelessly addicted, consumers! When we start pawing through long boxes of back-issue comics looking for missing issues on our “want lists”, the single most helpful thing you could do for us pop-culture zombies is show the number and DATE of the issue on the cover! Near the top… so we don’t have to pull the whole comic out looking for a DATE! Going through this maneuver can damage a comic’s condition too.
Probably the single most aggravating and disgusting thing that publishers do to piss off us hard-core collectors is to print the MONTH on the cover of any comic… but not the YEAR!!! What the f… good does it do when one is looking for missing back issues to see a month but NO YEAR?! And just how much trouble is it for a publisher to print a couple more digits along with the MONTH?! Come ONNN!
And then there are publishers who apparently think it is sexy – or stylish – or for some other asinine reason – to just not put any date at all on the cover. Anywhere! Which means if you are looking for back issues on such a title, you have to pull the comic completely out of the box and look inside for the indicia, which (in very small print) always shows the year the comic was published. Now back in the mid 20th century when I first started collecting, the indicia was always shown at the bottom of the first page just inside the cover. Well, no longer!
Nowadays it’s the wild west for all publishers as to WHERE inside the comic you might be able to locate the indicia! Sometimes it’s the inside front cover. Sometimes it’s the inside back cover. Sometimes it’s a few pages into the comic. Sometimes it’s the last page of the comic. Sometimes it’s in the MIDDLE of the comic! Sometimes it’s printed SIDEWAYS on the last page right up next to the spine of the comic! That’s a cute little stunt that DC has pulled on some of its titles! Actually, I wouldn’t give a hoot where publishes put their indicia if they would just be decent enough to always print the Year of the issue on the cover… preferably near the top. Is that too much to ASK?!
Now, as a life-long fan I realize that comics have undergone several sea-change shifts in fortune… just in my lifetime. There was the booming Golden Age war years followed by the repressive early 50s when Dr. Frederick Wertham and Senate investigating committees wanted to blame crime in the streets on comic books. A “Comics Code Authority” ensued stipulating a kind of visual morality for comics… which has pretty much withered away. (YAY!)
Then in 1956 comics re-invented many of their super-heroes with new names and costumes launching a Silver Age of prosperity and expansion continuing throughout the 60s. As we all know, a LOT of things were happening in the 60s! Not all them were good! And comic books are like a cultural mirror reflecting the major moods and trends of the day. One of the good things about the 60s is that comics really started “growing up” during that period. In general, the stories, the characters and the art all were improving and getting more mature. Thanks, Stan!
In all the “Ages” since (Bronze, Copper, Modern), comics have proceeded with a yoyo pattern pretty much in sync with the economy and major world events. So… you wannabe history students out there. Do you want to bone up on various periods in a quick, entertaining and visually stimulating way? Check out some back issue comics. Sure… you will see a lot of exaggeration and pure fiction. But so is politics!
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