Henry's Asylum

Nothing Funny About Comics

Comic book collecting used to be an intense hobby of mine. I mean, I went all out. I once had Fantastic Four #1, Hulk #1 (when he was grey – he became green in issue #2), Tales to Astonish #27 (first Ant-Man), Mad #1 (it was a comic book before it became a magazine) and on an on. I went to conventions in New York (including the Star Trek conventions) circa mid 70’s and my friends and I even had a “company” (The E.P. Henry Corp. – that name hasn’t seen print in decades!) which had a table at a few of these. But you know what spoiled everything for me? Grownups. That’s right grownups. Give them a whiff of a money making opportunity and they’ll ruin the fun every time. Now, you have collector’s items that are “restored” professionally, graded and sealed in plastic. Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, you’re not actually supposed to read them, right? Just own them and sell them. I sold all mine years ago. The last one that I had, I brought to a comic book store in Albuquerque, New Mexico in order to sell it. It was an issue of Spiderman (#20- something). I observed a father and his son attempting to buy a comic for the kid’s collection. But the boy didn’t have quite enough money for the Spiderman (#80- something) that he wanted. The dealer was acting like a regular Ebenezer Scrooge. I was completely disgusted. So I hand the kid my Spiderman and told him he could have it for free. Needless to say, everyone was stunned. The dealer asked me why I did that. I looked right in the eye and said “Comics should be for kids.” I walked out of that store and the chapter, in my life, entitled “Comic Books” was closed forever.

posted by hbrennan @ 3:29 PM