At a local flea market I found myself flipping through a single long box sitting below a vendor's table. I'd been disappointed with this trip to the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre, as this was the only box of cheap comics (and actually the only cheap comics, period) that I could find. There was one other vendor selling key Silver Age issues at guide prices, but no other "dollar bins." This particular one had quite a few issues of the latter bits of Avengers v.1, issues up in the 300s, which is the section of that series that I'm currently in the process of tracking down. So I'd decided to pick up a few, maybe $10 worth, when the lady behind the table said she'd do a good deal on the whole box. I considered for a few long moments, and then asked what kind of deal. She said $50 for the whole thing. Again, a few long moments passed, and then I agreed. I dashed to the ATM, got another $40 out, and left with a box of comics.
I've spent the last 4 days going through, databasing, bagging, boarding, removing duplicates. In the end, doubles included, there were 228 comics, which very roughly breaks down to 22 cents per issue. I think I did alright there.
Up above, there, you can see the collection laid out after I got home. The stacks of comics are all issues from the same, or similar, series. Thus, the Avengers pile is all Avengers. The Archie Comics pile is all Archie Comics (the only bit I haven't finished cataloging quite yet). I bought the collection primarily on the strength of the number of Avengers comics in it, though, of all the runs in the box, that was the one that produced the most duplicates. It was, in fact, the stuff that I initially dismissed as "filler" that turned out to be the gold amongst the dross (yep, I'm looking squarely at that enhanced cover Silver Sable #1 from the 90s).
Up in the top left corner there is a pile of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, both initial and deluxe editions. I love these encyclopedias, so it was a nice treat to get them. I'm also in the process of tracking down duplicate issues of each one so I can remove the covers and use them as posters. There were a few doubles in that pile, but mostly it was new stuff. The large pile of Archie comics is mostly mid to late 80s. Betty and Veronica's fashion sense was, in a word, atrocious in that era. I remember living through those fashions, both the first time and in the ill-advised 80s revival that seemed to take the world by storm a few years back.
Next to the Archies is the pile of comics I was most surprised by. It's an almost complete run of Marvel Two-In-One, Marvel's solo title for The Thing, from #80 to #100. I had little to no interest in this run, written predominantly by Tom DeFalco, who I immediately associate with the deplorable Clone Saga. But, as my impetus for the 40 Years of Comics Project had it, I shouldn't automatically assume that a comic is bad having not read it. I did read a few of these issues (once I'm done with Age of Ultron, I'm going to devote a few weeks to the stuff in this collection), and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. In particular, issue #86, and the story "Time Runs Like Sand," now ranks as one of my favourite comics ever. I'll re-read it and blog it next week some time.
There was also some late-era Fantastic Four v.1 in the box, which, again, I had little interest in, until I realized that it encompasses the majority of Walt Simonson's run on the title that I have been meaning to read for quite a few years now. So I'll chalk that up as a win too.
Before I talk about the other piles, I'll note that there were, as you can see, a number of individual issues of various comics. The ones I've read (Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Sable) were pretty unremarkable, which is probably why whoever bought these in the first place didn't get any more.
I've already noted the Avengers comics as being the most important, at least from a collecting viewpoint, in the lot. Most of the pile of Superboy were duplicates, and in truly terrible shape. That version of the character was never one I had that much interest in, though the "Zero Hour" tie-in issue does feature the old, pre-Crisis Superboy, so that should be interesting. One thing I will note about the Avengers comics is that they included full runs of both Walt Simonson and John Byrne's tenures as writers on the title, both quite short, but probably pretty good.
The last little bit is that pile of Marvel Age comics, a good 30 of them in sequential order. This might seem a low point to end the assessment of the collection on, until one realizes that, by and large, these are comics that have never been reprinted. That is, of course, because the series functioned as a news magazine, and only included the occasional sequential strip (Fred Hembeck's center pages notwithstanding). What they do contain, however, is a chronological recounting of the events of each year of Marvel Comics narratives in the "Marvel Age" feature at the end of each issue. The earliest one I have starts in 1973, more than a decade after the "Age" begins. The articles are fantastic for the fact that rather than recounting publication history, they actually tell the fictional histories of the characters. I envision this as a scanning-and-sharing/cataloging project for the future. There's also occasional exclusive comics (like the Kirby/Stern piece that graces Marvel Age Annual #2, or the Shadowline summary from Annual #4) and the aforementioned Hembeck work, which I'm assuming has been reprinted somewhere, but maybe hasn't. Add to this the occasional article about the workings of the company, faux Daily Bugles, and such, and it's actually a pretty great find. Not one that I ever would have gone out of my way for, but pretty great nonetheless.
And that's it. As I said, I don't buy collections like this very often, due to both space and financial constraints, but I felt like treating myself on the weekend, and it turned out to be more of a treat than I'd expected. Look for some examples of what was in the collection over the next couple of weeks of the 40 Years project.
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