Greetings! In every installment of this series, I’ll throw a spotlight on another era in American entertainment and comic character history through the memorabilia we have on exhibit at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Think of this column as your virtual tour, with every installment leading you to another one of our galleries. But first – just what is “curatoriality,” anyway? That’s not even a word! Well… it is now.
There’s a scene in Jaws where Roy Scheider asks Richard Dreyfuss about the theory of “territoriality,” the notion that certain animals exhibit behavior that serves to define and defend their territory. It occurred to me that as the curator of a museum devoted to pop culture, comic characters, and entertainment, it’s my responsibility to define and defend the integrity of our collection and the history it represents. Since there was no word suitable for conveying this idea, I had to invent one; hence, “curatoriality.” Thanks, Steven, Roy, and Richard (and Bruce the shark, too).
As for this column, there’s no better place to start than right at the beginning, and for us, that’s a gallery focused on one specific kind of collectible which not only provided the perfect medium for comic characters to capture our imaginations, but the foundation for the marketing and merchandising of those characters into virtually every other medium and over 340 different categories of memorabilia. It’s also a unique literary art form and one with which just about everyone reading this column is intimately familiar. I’m talking, of course, about comic books.
A STORY IN FOUR COLORS
While we feature a vast timeline of pop culture collectibles throughout the entire museum, we devoted a significant percentage of our exhibit space to a dedicated comic book library that chronicles the development of comics in this country from their earliest beginnings – including the influence of their pulp and Big Little Book cousins – to the latest examples from the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. But why comics? And why does he keep asking himself questions when he obviously already knows the answers? Well, for one thing, it makes writing these columns easier. Moving on…
There’s no need for me to explain to the readers of a newsletter devoted to the comic collecting community that the medium has played an enormous role in shaping our popular culture, but it is its central role in the development and popularization of the comic character as a marketing and merchandizing tool, as well as a conduit for sociopolitical communication, that dictated our decision to give the comic book its just due.
Whether they were selling war bonds in the 1940s, preaching against Communism in the 1950s, cautioning against drug use or exposing the racial divide in the 60s and 70s, comics celebrated our noblest ideals in the face of challenges both foreign and domestic. But at the same time, comics cast a critical eye on the American experience as well, reflecting our fears about atomic power, the threat of “The Other,” economic instability, crime, violence, and many other changes in our moral and ethical outlook. Through the funny animals, witty teenagers, and heroic adventurers that graced their pages, comics have always represented the best and worst of our culture, giving us a way of examining how all those opposing forces provided the catalyst for propelling us into an uncertain future.
Among the gems (ha ha) featured in this one-of-a-kind library are copies of Action Comics #1-2 with stamped markings indicating their use as court evidence during an infringement lawsuit; an array of EC Comics that throw a spotlight on the censorship crusade of the mid-1950s that nearly led to the industry’s downfall; independent comic stars like Cerebus and Grimjack that illustrate the experimental potential of the art form in the 1970s and 80s; and 1990s covers emblazoned with chrome, gold foil, and holograms from a time when publishers seemed to be competing for who could come up with the gaudiest cover gimmick.
As with all the galleries in our museum, it’s fun for me to watch the reactions of visitors and see their faces light up when they come across something from their own childhood, something that speaks to them personally, whether it’s a Lone Ranger Big Little Book or a copy of Warriors of Plasm #8… OK, maybe not that last one so much. But you know what I mean.
The story of comic books in America is big and bold enough to deserve its own special museum-within-a-museum, but once you’ve seen how comic characters thrived in their native medium, it’s time to take an even more expansive journey to see how comic books fit into a much bigger picture. And that’s something we’ll save for next time…
This article is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in the piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.
