If you’ll please entertain me for a few minutes, allow us to travel back to 1985, when a little 5 or 6 year old version of me was standing wide-eyed in a Hook’s drugstore in Greenfield, Indiana, witnessing a spinning comic book rack for the very first time. As you can imagine, this became a core memory for me, as well as a lifelong love and obsession.
While I’m pretty sure that the first comic book I ever got was issue #19 of BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS in 1985 (a cover which featured a reflection of Superman fighting Geo-Force inside of a Christmas ornament), the first cover that I remember, spinning on that rack in my youth, was THE OUTSIDERS #2, also from 1985, which featured a nuclear bomb smoking a pipe (and is included with this article). This issue also happened to feature some very early work from the great Todd McFarlane.
Once the toys were widely available, with the DC SUPERPOWER’S COLLECTION, and MARVEL’S SECRET WARS both in 1984/85, it was over. I was addicted and hooked. The SUPER FRIENDS were now my friends too, with a cartoon that ran on and off through 1973 all the way to 1985. While I remember very little of the plots of those early comics and cartoons, they nourished my imagination in ways I’ll forever be thankful for.
Not only did those adventurous tales open up a love for reading, it sparked a creative drive towards visual art and storytelling, as well as a multitude of possibilities regarding topics of science-fiction, horror, and human history. Often, something as “cheap” as a comic book, can guide us towards profound realizations of morals, ethics, and integrity, through the lens of fantastical heroes and villains and their endlessly entertaining exploits.
In his classic work, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993), writer and illustrator Scott McCloud does an excellent job of tracing the history of visual art all the way back to ancient Greece and Egypt, and even to the origins of human history deep inside of prehistoric caves. The myths of giants and monsters, super powered heroes and sinister villains, has always been with us and will likely remain for as long as storytelling exists.
With its endless worlds, multiverse, and thousands of characters to draw from, comic books can capture the imagination, and possibilities, in a very unique and impactful way. It is a shame that, despite the phenomenal box office success of comic book films in the past decade, the interest for comic books themselves hasn’t necessarily stayed consistent. After the unlimited gimmicks and relaunches of the 1990’s, the physical medium never really recovered from losing the trust and attention of many fans.
Yet, despite the growing trend of online digital subscriptions of pretty much any issue or title you might wish to read (at least from the major publishers), there will always remain collectors. Those who genuinely just love comic books, and those unscrupulous types that simply buy up everything they can in hopes of creating scarcity and turning a profit. Unfortunately, we need all types of collectors in order to keep the energy and medium alive.
While I have collected comic books pretty consistently since that little kid first discovered them in 1985, I have bought, sold, and traded my collection more times than I can count (I owned a comic book shop for 5 years, and it kinda goes along with the territory). However, my excitement and appreciation towards the comic book medium always remained, and has gotten me through some tough times in life, both financially and emotionally.
My collecting in recent years has been more aligned with horror and sci-fi titles. I like the old stuff and can’t really keep up on every annual event and “earth shattering” crisis that takes place like clockwork for the sake of sales and relaunches year after year. Thankfully, there is still a ton of great stuff out there from the 1950’s – 1990’s to keep a person busy and entertained for the rest of their lives.
What was once shunned and ridiculed as being merely “kid’s stuff”, has grown into a multi-billion dollar market, stretching across endless franchises and companies. Perhaps it has become too mainstream and the heart and soul of the genre is facing an inevitable and drastic decline in coming years? That is completely possible, and even likely. But let us hope, dear reader, that the comic book itself is here to stay, and will elevate to new standards and plateaus, for generations of fans to come.
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Michael A. Dyer is the creator and host of the HORROR TO CULTURE podcast, vidcast, and website.
