The Heroic Hobby of Comic Book Collecting

by Marty Weil

 

A friend of mine is a comic book collector. Like most collectors of comic books, he views them as artwork to be coveted, collected, and preserved. At one point, his collection grew to include thousands of rare comics. Serious comic collectors like my friend, who amass comics and study them as an art form, refer to the hobby of comic book collecting as Panelology.

 

While comic book collecting isn’t as old as stamp or book collecting, it does have a major global following. The hobby grew out of the pop culture phenomenon linked to the popular superhero characters of the 1940s, most notably Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel.

 

For the last several decades, two main publishers have dominated the comic book industry—Marvel Comics and DC Comics. In the mid-1980s, I worked in a comic book warehouse, along with my friend the comic book collector. Our job was to sort and distribute copies of Marvel and DC titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four to comic book shops in Chicago. It was during this time period—from roughly 1985 to 1993—that comic book speculation reached its peak. Before the late 1960s, virtually no specialized comic stores existed and the notion of comics as collectible art was virtually unknown. The 1960s is considered to be the Silver Age of Comic books. It was during the Silver Age that fans began to attend comic book conventions and valuable collections were developed.

 

Ever since the 1960s, people have collected comic books for fun and profit. To assist both types of collectors, there are a number of comic book price guides on the market including Overstreet Price Guide and Comic Buyer’s Guide. These price guides and others assign value for comic books based on demand, availability, and condition.

 

Comic book collections can grow to include thousands of titles. My friend’s collection—spanning several decades of accumulation—was destroyed by a flood. Even though he housed his comics in specialized products designed for the protection and storage of comic books, including special bags, boxes, and acid-free backing boards, a water-filled basement ruined his collection. Since comics take up a large amount of space, it is often difficult for collectors to adequately protect their holdings from natural disasters such as floods and fires.

 

As a result of the flood, my friend lost a number of high value comics from the Golden Age of Comic Books (1940s to 1960s). Comic books from this era are prized because most of them were tossed in the trash by a generation of parents who viewed them as worthless byproducts of their offspring’s childhoods.

 

Comic books have a rich history and are one of the most poorly understood areas of collecting. For those entering the field, it is important to understand the history and subtleties of the hobby. To help educate collectors, there are a vast number of books on the subject, including The Comic Book Encyclopedia by Ron Goulart, and Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright.

 

 Create your own business wiki!Help Privacy Policy RSS