After almost 40 years of collecting comics I finally decided, in the summer of 2011, that it was about time I gave my parents their cellar back (especially as I left home in 1985!)
I found it surprisingly easy to let go of my treasured trove of '4 color' delights*.
What I hadn't bargained on was the small box full of un-sellables that was returned to me.
What I hadn't bargained on was the small box full of un-sellables that was returned to me.
This included water & rodent damaged Romita Spideys, Trimpe Shogun Warriors, bronze age Marvels minus their 'value stamps', silver age Batmans with random panel clipping and a whole load of other folded, soiled, torn and tatty articles.
inspecting the left-overs with Angela Edwards
Not really wanting to have these dregs now representing the bulk of my collection I had to come up with some suitable method of disposal and thus I elected to sacrifice them at scalpel point, to distill from them the essence of that which attracted me to them in the first place.
With collage as my medium I strove produce a homeopathic comic book concentrate.
Using an old Flash Gordon novel (beautiful cover by Melvyn, abysmal text) as my canvas I montaged together a scrapbook now and forevermore to be know as FLASH COSMIC SAVAGE!
It was this process of sacrificing my treasures and the resulting contemplation of what exactly made me treasure them in the first place that let me to the concept for this blog and exhibition.
Funnily it wasn't even the stories that excited me so much as the trade dress (the corner boxes and blurbs) & the adverts that I really wanted to save. It seems that here, for me at least, was where the mystery and magic really lay.
Special thanks and praise must be given to Karl at Orbital Comics for making all this possible by not only buying my collection but also offering up a venue for the resulting exhibition.
*OK I cheated a bit, It wasn't a total sacrifice I still have a pretty decent stash of Kirby classics & some choice underground comix.
I called it the wrong name before Flash Cosmic Savage rules!! One of my top eye melting moments of 2011!!
ReplyDeleteAdded Gordon before, but I see that it has been eclipsed by Cosmic.
Ha hah! I am the eye melter!! my top compliment of the year. cheers sir.
ReplyDeleteThat is an amazing artifact! And definitely worthy of eye melting status! Will it be on display in Orbital?
ReplyDeleteWe will probably have the object itself in a display case, sadly it's a bit fragile for general perusal. However there will be a ltd edition art book on sale featuring the best bits, more details about that coming soon;)
ReplyDelete