The Golden Age of Reprints and Back Issues
I Complain Not
By Andrew A. Smith
Contributing Editor
March 2012: Regular readers of this column are familiar – probably too familiar – with my belief that this is the Golden Age of Reprints. But it’s also the Golden Age of Back Issues, and all credit goes to that beautiful series of tubes, the Interwebs.
Younger fans might very well ask what has changed since the Pre-Internet days, except that younger fans believe the world began when they were born and don’t really care what happened before that. Or maybe they don’t ask because some Crotchedy Old Fart Fan (COFF) will buttonhole them at the local comic shop and tell them anyway.
I complain not. The way of things, it is. [/Yoda]
But please, younger fans, allow this COFF to wander down Memory Lane and describe the bad old days. Don’t worry, I won’t go far, and if I get lost I’ll hit my MedicAlert bracelet. It’s more or less necessary to inform my answers to editor Brent Frankenhoffenstein’s questions below. If it gets too boring, you can go get a burger, and come back before I’m through. Onward:
Millions of years ago – well, before 1980 or so – the only places you could get back issues were from A) advertisements in the comics themselves (raise your cane if you remember the name Howard Rogofsky), B) flea markets, and C) trades with other kids. All of these options, for various reasons, were frustrating and unsatisfactory. But the main reason is that it was a rare thing indeed to find the exact book you most wanted. Usually you bought what was available, regardless of where those comics actually fell on your priority list. This is why I have a complete run of Captain Action but don’t have the first six issues of Amazing Spider-Man. If I’d had broader purchasing choices back in the day, I wouldn’t have wasted money on the second-tier books I saw everywhere, and instead snatched up the books I really wanted (that would today finance my retirement).
Oh, how things have changed. With the Internet, retailers no longer hold single-town monopolies, and must compete in price with every other online retailer – bringing back-issue prices to the lowest level I have ever seen. And, of course, the buyer can “shop” nationwide without ever leaving his or her La-Z-Boy. Today I get what I want, when I want it, and often at a reasonable price.
With that information under our belt, let’s address Frankenhoofenpfeffer’s questions:
1. Where do you buy your back issues?
Wherever I can find the highest grade for the lowest price. That includes online retailers, my local comic shops, and auctions.
Yeah, that’s kinda obvious, but re-read what I said about the miserable past above. Before the advent of the Internet, my options were few. The only good thing that can be said about living through the Dark Ages is that it taught me patience.
So now if I’m looking for Captain Phlegm #0, I check various places online and locally for the best book at the cheapest price, and if I’m unsatisfied I just wait it out. Eventually someone, somewhere, will price their entire Captain Phlegm run to move and I’m waiting right there in my La-Z-Boy with my credit card at the ready. Also, I can snack.
Just the other day, because of the new Earth-2 Huntress series, I bought online the issues I was missing of the old Earth-2 Huntress series (by Joey Cavalieri and Joe Staton, 1989-1990). It cost me less than a dollar apiece and about three minutes on Google Shopping. While I was at it, I finished off my El Diablo run (by Gerard Jones and Mike Parobeck, also 1989-1990), just to spend enough to get free shipping.
The next time someone says something about “the good old days,” slap them with a rolled-up issue of Captain Action.
2. What's your favorite find?
Before comic shops, comics were brought to various retail outlets by magazine distributors. This had various consequences, among which were A) not all comics were available at all outlets, and B) sometimes old comics were accidentally left on spinner racks at some locations far past their sell-by date.
For an example of B, I once found about 20 issues of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes #33 (“The Grandeur that Was Greece!”) about four years after it had been poublished, at a 7-11 where my family had stopped for gas on a vacation in Florida. (I’m guessing some employee found a stack of comics in a storeroom that some previous employee had failed to put out on display, and just threw them on the spinner rack.) It was weird – but as it happened I had missed that issue (perhaps they had all been sent to Florida?) and promptly bought it.
But my favorite find was a combination of A and B. I usually bought my comics at the Rexall Pharmacy at Summer and White Station in Memphis, see, but sometimes I went on a circuit of all the convenience stores and mom-and-pop shops within bicycle range of my house when I realized I was missing something. And I came to that realization when I saw Green Lantern #82 (Jan 71) on sale at the Rexall. I was floored.
Not just because of the gorgeous Neal Adams artwork, although that was stunning. But because I had assumed Green Lantern had been canceled sometime during the Gil Kane era, because that’s when Green Lantern stopped showing up at the Rexall. (Yes, younger fans, back then you only knew a title had been canceled when you could no longer find new issues. Strange but true. Also, we had no toys, and had to play with rocks.)
I immediately hitched up old faithful – my Schwinn Stingray – and set out on a miles-long foray to dozens of stores in search of old Green Lanterns the distributor might have failed to replace. And, amazingly, I found the entire Neal Adams run of Green Lantern to that point! In one day, I bought Green Lantern #76-82 at places as diverse as B&F Market, Stop-N-Go, and Walgreens!
They were stolen later that day, but that’s not the point. I still remember that magic afternoon.
3. What's your Holy Grail?
Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, the third issue of a new series had the lowest print run, and were therefore the hardest to find. For more than a decade, my Holy Grail was Conan the Barbarian #3 (Feb 71). After finding that, my Grail became Amazing Spider-Man #11 (Apr 64), because I had every Amazing Spider-Man from #7 on (except for #11), and I got tired of saying “I have every Amazing Spider-Man From #7 on (except for #11).” But I found that one, too. Now my Grail is whatever I’m looking for that I think is overpriced. Currently that’s All-Star Western #10 (Mar 72), which I failed to buy when it was reasonably priced and in the last year has inexplicably shot through the roof in price.
4. If you sell or have sold comics, where have you sold, how do you sell, what advice would you give to a seller starting out?
Buy low, sell high? Caveat Emptor? A penny saved is a penny earned? Sorry, I’ve always been a buyer, not a seller.
5. What's your biggest regret in either buying or selling comics or both?
That’s easy: Not buying early Silver Age comics back in the 1960s, before they escalated astronomically in price.
Which is not to say I really had much opportunity to do so. As noted above, the books I really wanted were hard to find in podunk Memphis, Tenn. (Especially Golden Age books, which were non-existent.) But occasionally I did find some, and managed to complete a number of Marvel series – Avengers, X-Men, Daredevil – and flesh out some long-running DC titles back to 1960 or so (Superman, Action, Flash).
However, the books that draw headline prices today were pretty pricey back then, too. To put it another way, a $100 book I couldn’t afford in the 1960s is today a $1,000 book – which is still too much for a middle-class kid to justify spending on a comic book. As always, those kinds of books remain juuuuust out of my reach.
I’m a level-headed kind of guy, and vaguely proud that I’ve never been a spendthrift. But sometimes I kinda wish that once, just once, I’d splurged on a Fantastic Four #1 or something back then. Just for bragging rights, you know?
Andrew “Captain Comics” Smith has been writing professionally about comics since 1992, and for Comics Buyer’s Guide since 2000.
Comments
There was a comic book store many miles from where I lived. Only remember going there maybe twice. They had an almost complete collection of Amazing Adult Fantasy for about a quarter each. Sadly I didn't get any of them. I picked comics I thought looked cooler (I could only afford a few) and now I look at the prices for those issues and wish I'd gotten those instead. I haven't a clue what I actually got, so none of them stuck in my mind like those AAFs. Today it looks like the best I can do is get the Omnibus, and even that's out of my price range.
He might well be correct. Now, even the number of males showing that behavior is likely not high (I mean, take a look at industry sales figures) but the obsessive/compulsive behavior is largely male, in the case of comics. Although, on shows like Hoarders, where people are saving EVERYTHING, it's largely femaile hoarders being shown. So, hard to tell....
Growing up in rural Nova Scotia in the 70s and 80s, I didn't have access to a comic book shop. Like Cap, I was at the tender mercies of whatever the corner stores carried. I don't ever remember a find like Cap's story about the Adams/O'Neil GL run, as back issues were only to be had at our town's one used bookstore. In the late 80s, I found some corner stores that were carrying comics that were about 3 or 4 years old at half of the cover price and I know I scored a lot of early 80s Batman, Detective, and Green Lanterns that way. While I was going to university, there were lots of collections sold to the used bookstore which was a nice cheap way to get some good stuff.
Speaking of cheap, I rarely ever ordered anything from the ads in comics. My recollection was that the prices were too high for my blood, and I'm thinking the exchange on U.S. dollars for this Canadian only made it worse. Now I look at the prices from those ads - especially for Marvels from the 60s and early 70s, and I cry!
All hail Lord and Lady Curmudgeon!
As one COFF to another, I very seldom buy backissues anymore, but I will take this opportunity to repeat my two guiding principles:
1. Don’t buy what you don’t read.
2. Don’t read what you don’t enjoy.
I know you’ve read those before and we’ve discussed them, but I haven’t repeated them in a while, so…
Yesterday, Tracy referred to herself as a “lady curmudgeon,” but I took it one step further and adopted titles. Tracy and I are now “Lord and Lady Curmudgeon.”