1977 was a memorable year for my generation. The Yankees won the World Series. Star Wars, Close Encounters, Saturday Night Fever and Rocky made their cinematic marks. David Bowie, Brian Eno, the Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop and KISS rocked the world with seminal albums. The first Mac home computer appeared in stores, and Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Except for enjoying Star Wars in the theater, I was a bit too young to fully comprehend much of what happened as it unfolded.
With my youthful age and innocence allowing pop culture an easy pathway to my imagination, the seed was planted for me to discover the fantastic escape of comic books. My grandfather (henceforth known as Pop-Pop) had given my brother and I our first big batch of comics. As a five-year-old just learning to read, the action found in the pages of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and The Incredible Hulk provided a mild distraction.
This pile of comics sat, like a hidden treasure, somewhere in the basement for about four years. Although they were not a part of our regular play rotation - Star Wars figures and baseball cards took top priority - the rips, tears, markings and masking tape provided evidence of handling when rediscovered years later.
FF #182 (May, 1977) - part of the primordial pile
Autumn, 1982 - Comic Book Mania hits the Miller household. Something or someone (perhaps Stan Lee?), possesses me and Scott to bring every known comic book in the house upstairs and back into our lives. Pushing the gate shut at the top of the steps, I looked back, down into the basement/clubroom, taking in the symbolic downward spiral into madness.
Sitting on the carpet of the sunlit living room floor, we excitedly sorted through our comics. Although the thrill was mutual, it was separate; both of us being obsessive and insular, Scott and I were never good at sharing. Our arguing and whining brought Mom in from the kitchen.
After heatedly debating over who got to keep what comics in whose room, we became subject to the Mark of the Arbitrator; Mom (pregnant with our sister Rachel at the time) made the executive decision to brand each and every book with one of her son's names. Whoever made the most fuss over a certain issue got their name carefully written in blue ink on the inside cover, at the top. The name indicated permanent ownership under law of our mom (and, therefore, our dad and the both parents as a unit), and could not be disputed under any circumstances. Each of us got about half of the pile.
And thus began the insanity. Mom had no idea how high the stakes had raised, and could never have predicted how Pop-Pop would unwittingly untangle the peace settlement in the years to come. Pop-Pop's downtown Baltimore supermarket, Miracle Market, carried the typical newsstand variety of comic books. When he learned of our new obsession, he began bringing comics home to us every Friday, distributing them to us after dinner at his house. We never knew exactly what we'd get. The unpredictable nature of it made of his comic-distribution system that much more fun. Barely able to contain ourselves, we'd independently snoop around for a preview of what we might get. The wait ‘til after dinner was always excruciating.
Although we never deemed many of the comics Pop-Pop brought home to be mylar-worthy, we were happy to supplement our collections with them. The stories and artwork in these comics - Action Comics, Amethyst, Avengers, Batman, Conan the Barbarian, Daredevil, Defenders, Ghost Rider, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Jonah Hex, Justice League, Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man, Powerman and Iron Fist, Rom: Spaceknight, Secret Wars, Star Wars, Thor, What If?, Archie, Jughead and other random titles - helped to shape our developing comic book tastes. Grandma Dorothy, bless her heart, would ask us when we were gonna throw away those comic books, but never told her husband to stop bringing them to us.
Our respective collections grew each week. Eager to play her part in the spoiling of the grandchildren, Grandma Bunny (our dad's mother) would take us to 7-11 after our regular Saturday afternoon lunch. 'Sleven supplemented our Miracle Market batches with the best of what we could find on that squeaky, metal rack. If the Reisterstown Road location didn't have a particular issue, we'd guilt Grandma into driving us to the next closest 7-11 to find it. We were such manipulative little bastards. Predictably, 'Sleven's random nature became unbearable to us. Soon enough, we begged our dad to take us to the Baltimore-area specialty stores - Geppi's Comic World and Alternate Worlds.
Walking into Alternate Worlds was like entering another dimension; we had never seen anything quite like it. Bright, colorful comics in neat, sealed plastic bags covered the shop's near-mint white walls like expensive, coveted pieces of art. The shop's intoxicating scent of new carpet and old newsprint gave the place a clubroom vibe; all they needed was an air hockey table, an Atari 2600 and some snacks. For such a small store, it was neat, clean, and packed with every comic book we ever wished for. The Spider-Man mask replacing the UPC on the cover of 80's Marvel Direct Market comics we bought at Alternate Worlds (and Geppi's) made those comics more unique and collectible to us. I really do miss the Spidey head in the UPC box.
That colorful parade of rare and expensive books from decades preceding our existence was always a sense-shattering sight. Giant Size X-Men #1, the first appearance of the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men (Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Banshee and Colossus). Back issues of Hulk, FF, Spider-Man, Action Comics, and countless others eclipsed reality as we knew it; to learn how the X-Men stopped Dark Phoenix from destroying the universe seemed just as important as knowing how WWII ended. We could have lived there. Little things like food and education could wait until 'til we were caught up on decades of astonishing super hero tales.
Our dad being a former collector of baseball cards and stamps, he was understanding and generous enough to buy us dozens of (then reasonably priced) back issues of FF, Silver Surfer, X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and others. After a while, he just raised our allowances by a few bucks and we had to pay our own way. We would quickly learn that the costs of collecting - comic boxes, protective mylar bags, comics themselves – could really add up. We now had to save up our respective allowances to buy comics. At a then-sixty cents cover price, it wasn't impossible.
Sadly, our comic-collecting alliance quickly became a war. Going to the comic shop became a race from the car to the racks. We'd quietly unlock our car doors to get an extra couple of seconds on the other brother. Whoever grabbed the last copy of Spider-Man got to gloat and ignore the sore loser whispering curses at the other among the racks. Thankfully, Geppi's solved part of the problem with their subscription box service. But that created new problems.
Unlike Alternate Worlds, Geppi's was big and unfriendly, but it became our regular comic shop for a while. Geppi's Security Mall location held our subscription boxes and was a short drive from home. But it was all just too easy, and, soon enough, we were banned from the store. See, comic collecting was just one of our hobbies. Our other major pastime involved making and recording prank phone calls. Pretty soon, we found ourselves limited to only occasional trips to Alternate Worlds and very limited phone usage.
When looking through my collection now, I find issues of the X-Men and X-Factor from that time of banishment, branded with UPC's where the beloved Spidey head should be. This serves as a grim reminder how The Lord giveth, The Lord taketh away. Thankfully, this was only a temporary set back.
After a few months of employee turnover and some healing time, we were able to regain our subscription box privileges at Geppi’s. Years later, Steve Geppi would close his stores and open Geppi's Entertainment Museum in downtown Baltimore. His distribution company, Diamond Comic Distributors, has supplied comic book specialty retailers with funny-books and related merchandise since 1982.
