My Life With Comic Books: Part # 15

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 15

It had been two and a half years since we’d moved away from our family and friends. We had lived in Nashville, Tennessee and Dayton, Ohio, worked with Gary Walker and learned how important it was to care about your customers, worked with Jay Maybruck and learned a lot about marketing and pricing strategies, traveled to dozens of places including Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego, New York, New Jersey, and met hundreds of interesting comic book creators and collectors. But we missed our family and friends.

While we lived in Tennessee, Mal’s Mom and Dad and her two youngest sisters came for a visit. This was something special because they had really never traveled outside of New England. Mal’s brother Richard and his wife Diane came to see us in Tennessee. Mal’s oldest sister, Ginny, and her husband Denis, and their three kids came to visit us when we lived in Tennessee and when we lived in Ohio. Two friends from Massachusetts, David Hathaway and Warren Weatherbee visited us in Tennessee. My young cousin Jud came for a week in Tennessee. My childhood buddy, Allan Traylor and his wife Debbie also visited us in Tennessee. My Dad visited us one day while he was in Ohio on business. We enjoyed these visits but it wasn’t enough.

Mal and I had been married for five years now and we wanted to settle down. We wanted to move closer to family. Most importantly, we were considering having children. Unfortunately, the prices of homes in Massachusetts had risen sharply. An average three- bedroom home now cost about $60,000.00.

Our friend, Warren Weatherbee, had been dabbling in real estate sales. He told us he knew of a house that could be bought really cheaply. While we were on a short trip to Massachusetts, we made an appointment to see the house but when we arrived we were told that we couldn’t see the inside. The outside of the house was a mess but the owners were only asking $16,000.00 for it. Warren assured us that the house could be fixed up so it would be livable.

When we got back to Ohio we made our decision. Without even seeing the inside of this small house, we made an offer of $15,000.00 cash for it. Since we knew the place was in rough condition, we didn’t need a home inspection and since we would be paying cash for it we wouldn’t be involved with the long process of obtaining a mortgage from a bank, and could complete the purchase very quickly. The owners accepted our offer. Warren took care of all of the details for us. Now we had to break the news to Jay!

When we told Jay that we wanted to move back to be with our family, I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but he supported our decision. Jay suggested that we’d remain partners if I could attend the five or six major comic book conventions each year. These shows were the most profitable part of our business and we both needed to be there. Jay would attend the smaller shows located near his home in Ohio and I’d either drive or fly to meet Jay at the big shows. This seemed like it would work for the both of us.

We hired a moving company in December of 1978 to bring most of our stuff up to Massachusetts, but we packed up our old van with my comic book collection, irreplaceable personal things like photographs, and our houseplants. We made it almost all of the way to our new home. We had pulled off of the highway to get gasoline at my friend, Ray Frank’s station, when the transmission died.

Ray Frank was an interesting guy. He had married one of Mal’s best friends from high school and we had become good friends and got together quite frequently. Ray was a great mechanic and an honest one. But he wasn’t cheap. His hourly rates were probably the highest in the area. He enjoyed playing the part of a grouchy, unpredictable, cranky guy, but I knew him differently. When Ray realized that I didn’t have the money to pay him to fix my transmission, he let me work at his gas station to pay it off. At the time, minimum wage was about $3.00 an hour. Ray gave me $6.00 an hour even though I was pretty useless at a gas station since I’m the most unmechanically inclined person I know. He also gave me a full set of snow tires as a gift. Many people just didn’t get to know him like I did.

Before we got up to our “new” home in Sterling, Massachusetts, a group of our friends, including Suisei Goguen and Debbie Traylor, decided to surprise us by cleaning up the inside of our run-down house. We heard that it was so bad that Suisei cried at the prospect of us living there. By the time we arrived it was still in rough condition, but it was clean. This house was about 100 years old and at one time it had been a railroad station. The house had a living room, dining room and kitchen, and one bathroom that had the toilet installed in the middle of the floor. The house had two bedrooms upstairs with no heat. The living room had no ceiling or sheetrock on the walls. The outside of the house was covered in old, broken asphalt shingles. It looked like a shack but it was all paid for and we were happy to be back.

Since we were planning to try to have a child, we realized it would be a good idea to get health insurance. Mal and I had gone three years or so without any insurance, but now we would have to be more “grown-up”. I didn’t think I could afford to buy insurance on my own, so we decided that I should get a job at a normal business that provided insurance as a benefit. This would work out because I really only needed to be available for five or six weekends each year to work the conventions with Jay, so I had plenty of time available for a “real” job. I got a job in the production control department of a company called Gen Rad in my old hometown of Bolton, Massachusetts. My job consisted of keeping a written record of the movement of materials in this large factory.

The people who worked in the office with me were very pleasant and I enjoyed working with them. The problem was, that almost every number I saw reminded me of a specific comic book issue! #247 was the “Adventure Comics” with the first appearance of “The Legion Of Superheroes.” #83 was the “Journey Into Mystery” comic book with the first appearance of “Thor.” #4 was the “Showcase Comics” issue that introduced “The Flash.” I had to keep telling myself that this job was important to us because we needed the health insurance. I had to stay here because Mal and I were now expecting a child!

Next chapter: …And we thought we were prepared!
Picture: Our run-down house in Sterling, Massachusetts before we fixed it up.

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 7

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part Seven

My wife agreed to run our new store on Monday through Friday and I’d run it on Saturday. Mal and her mother would go to Atlas News and Magazine Distributors and pick out the new weekly comic books for the store.

At this point, I need to tell you about Mal’s family. Mal’s mother, Madeline, was born in a very rural part of Howland, Maine in 1925. She was of Irish/Scottish/ English descent and she was one of nine children. In 1946 she married Richard Daher, a truck driver who was 100% Lebanese. This was quite a mix in those days. They moved to the tough city of Lawrence, Massachusetts to begin to start their own family. They had eight children: Virginia, Rose, Richard Jr, Priscilla, Marilyn (my Mal), Alan, Carol, and Madeline. Although Richard earned good money as a hard-working union truck driver, it’s expensive to raise eight children and so it took almost 27 years for them to save enough money for a down payment on their first home in the quaint community of Hudson, Massachusetts. By the time they moved there, the two oldest girls were married and living in Lawrence. Priscilla had died of a type of Meningitis when she was 13 months old.

I met Mal’s parents in 1972 when they were in their late forties. I’m sure I wasn’t the kind of guy they wanted their daughter to marry. Mal’s father was very conservative and I looked like a hippy with hair down past my shoulders. He was a union supporter and I believed that unions were destroying the productivity of the American worker. I would argue with him that the unions were corrupt and they didn’t really offer him any long-range protection. I believed that non-union companies would recognize valuable employees and that unions only rewarded the worst employees by eliminating merit based pay increases. Our biggest disagreements were usually about minorities. I believe that people should be given a chance to prove themselves, but he would lump people in groups based on their skin color. It was an odd thing, considering that he was born of immigrants. It was very much like the relationship of Archie Bunker and his son-in-law, Meathead from the TV show of “ All In The Family”. But even with all of our disagreements, there was never any yelling or screaming. He probably just considered me a stupid kid. But he never bad-mouthed me to my face. He was a really good father-in-law.

Mal’s mother was an interesting woman. She never bothered to get her drivers license. Except for a brief time, she didn’t work outside the home. She considered her job to be raising her children. She skimped and saved money as best as she could. The family didn’t go away on fancy vacations. A vacation for them would be a trip to visit a relative in Maine. Family was very important to her. Almost every Sunday, most of the family would gather together for a big family dinner. The family would also play card games and make jigsaw puzzles together. Very Norman Rockwell. One of Mal’s mother’s best character traits was that she never had a bad thing to say about her children or their spouses (even though some of us weren’t the greatest).

Mal and I lived close to her parents and we spent a lot of time with Mal’s mother. Mal would even pick her up to take her grocery shopping with us. She would follow Mal, pushing the shopping cart, and never complain about the boring grocery shopping. She just enjoyed being with one of her kids. We would frequently meet her and her husband for “coffee and…” at the local diner after supper. Other than their children, Mal’s parents had one major goal. They would sacrifice and save money so that when they retired at age 62, they could sell their house in Massachusetts, buy a little house in Maine, get a dog and a Cadillac and finally get to relax.

Mal’s parents gave up a lot to provide for their family. Having experienced the responsibilities of a large family, Mal decided that she wasn’t really interested in having kids of her own. She had babysat for her younger siblings for many years and was sick of it.

I also came from a large family. My parents had six kids: Me, Jay, Sharon, David, Jeffrey, and Rick., in that order. Being the oldest kid made me feel special. I got to experience things first. I could read before my siblings. I could stay up later. I’d always be their first kid. My father frequently worked more than one job at a time to provide for us. They bought their first house in Newton Massachusetts and eventually moved us out into the “country” of Bolton, Massachusetts so that we wouldn’t be “ruined” by growing up in the big city. Even though it meant a much longer commute each day to work, my parents did what they thought would be best for us kids. My Dad was an electrical engineer. My mother stayed home to take care of us. She didn’t work outside the home until we were all in school. She always had “balanced” meals prepared for us (including desserts!) and we rarely (if ever) ate out. We just couldn’t afford it.

My most vivid memory of my Mom is of her constant occupation in the kitchen. It seemed as if she was always stuck in there! Occasionally, we would gather in the kitchen to play “Tripoly” or some other family card game and mom would join in, but usually it would be Dad and all of the kids playing some outdoor game like soldiers at war, or building a stick fort, or having “acorn fights” that would usually end up with someone getting hurt. Dad would also make up games like “stock market” to teach us math skills while we were having fun. I never heard my parents talk about retirement.

Now, back to our store. While I worked at the computer company, Mal would drive about 45 minutes each way to run the comic book store. The commute was never easy for her because the traffic was horrible and it was always dark when she would be driving home. Mal is blind in one eye and it’s hard to drive in the dark. Although Mal had picked up some stuff while working at the comic book conventions with me, she really didn’t know too much about comic books. Comic book collectors usually like to talk about comic books. Some collectors are obsessive about it. Mal really couldn’t discuss comics because she didn’t read any. It would annoy her when the customers kept rambling on and on as if the comic book characters were real. She began to feel trapped in this small store. Remember, we didn’t even have a telephone so that she could call a “normal” person. She began to hate comics and would actually hope that no one would come in to the store.

Sales were slow during the week, but when I’d come in on Saturday, sales were great! I loved to talk about comics with collectors! I as one of them! I loved owning a comic book store and we were making a profit. I thought everything was going great. But Mal just felt trapped. After about six months she couldn’t stand it anymore. Not only was she done with the store, but she was done with me! I was unaware that there was even any problem because I was so busy pursuing my own dream that I didn’t see (or I ignored) her unhappiness. She went back to live with her parents and I closed the store.

Next chapter: AAARRRRGGGG! Let’s get out of here!
Picture: Mal's Mom and Dad

My Life With Comics: Part #1

A brief introduction:
My name is Paul Howley, owner of the Eisner Award winning pop culture collector’s store known as “ That’s Entertainment ” in Worcester, Massachusetts. My store has been around for over twenty years and it’s been a long and interesting combination of events and people that have brought my store to its current place. I am not a talented writer, so please try to overlook my lack of writing ability. It is not my intent to boast or brag about my store or my life…I just want to tell you my story.

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS:THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP: Part One

I was born in 1955 and my comic book life began in 1959 when an old friend of the family gave me my first comic book. It was a “Batman” comic! I don’t remember which issue it was, but it started my life long interest (some might say obsession) in comic books. I remember walking from my home in Belmont, Massachusetts to the local “spa” to plunk down my ten cents for “Felix The Cat”, “Hot Stuff The Little Devil”, “Casper”, “Little Lotta”, “Little Dot”, “Dick Tracy”, and the occasional superhero comic. By 1961 I had amassed a collection of almost 500 comic books. In 1961, that was a huge collection! I only knew of one other kid that had a larger collection and he was nicknamed “The Comic King”. (years later, I bought his comic book collection!) I would buy as many comic books as I could afford. Condition didn’t matter to me…at one local variety store they sold comics with the covers torn off for only five cents each so I bought a bagful of early Marvel comics and cool “Batman” and “Superman” related titles every chance I got. Each week on the way home from church I would buy a comic, a soda, and a candy bar with the quarter my father would give and still have a nickel left over! You see, comics were still ten cents and soda and candy bars were five cents each in 1961. In 1961, comic books were seemingly sold everywhere…supermarkets, drugstores, corner variety stores, and of course, at local newsstands. But in the early 1960’s my family moved from the big city of Newton, Massachusetts out to the country town of Bolton, Massachusetts. I went from finding comics everywhere to a town that had no comic books. This little town didn’t even have a store of any kind. The center of the town had a blinking yellow traffic light and that’s all. I had to be content with rereading my existing comic books for excitement. At some point in 1964 I was allowed to ride my bicycle about two miles away to a nearby town that had two stores with small selections of comic books for sale, but now comics were twelve cents each and neither store sold comics without the covers for five cents! What was I going to do? I couldn’t afford to spend twelve cents each for my comic book “fix”! I decided to start asking my school friends to sell me their old comic books and most of them were thrilled to be able to get some cash for the comics they no longer wanted. By 1965 my collection had doubled in size to over 1000 comics. But it wasn’t long before my friends were out of comics to sell to me. What was I going to do now?

I began writing and drawing my own comic books featuring a superhero known as “Insect Man” and I would pass them around to my classmates. A group of kids would play superheroes during recess and I was “Insect Man”. A buddy was “The Masked Mosquito” and some kids were content to be villains. I included them all in the “Insect Man” comic books.

For my birthday, my Dad drove me all the way to the “big” city of Marlboro Massachusetts to an actual newsstand called “ Delaney’s” and he gave me two dollars to buy any comic books I wanted! At twelve cents each, this was a dream come true! This newsstand was amazing to me as a young kid…there was an entire magazine rack filled with comic books! Keep in mind, this was before comic book specialty shops…today’s collectors are fortunate to be able to get every comic book they want in one location! I bought some of my favorite titles and some comics that I had never tried before. It was a super birthday gift, but soon I was looking for more comics to read.

Then I discovered something that profoundly changed my comic book life. I saw a classified advertisement in a comic book from a man who had “back issues” of comic books available for sale. I sent off my twenty-five cents for his catalog of comic books and was eagerly anticipating being able to buy lots of old issues for a penny or two each. Imagine my shock when I got the catalog and saw that this guy was charging higher than the original cover price for old comics! The cheapest comic book for sale in his catalog was fifty cents! Some of the old comic from the 1930’s and 1940’s were as high as $90.00 for a single comic book! My father thought the decimal points must have been in the wrong place…can you imagine Batman #1 from 1939 was almost $60.00? Marvel Comics #1 was $90.00…Action Comics #1 was $70.00…Spider-Man #1 was $6.00…Fantastic Four #1 was $10.00…This was outrageous! This catalog guy must be crazy to think that people would pay that kind of money for old worthless comic books. So I sent away for a catalog from a different comic book dealer. Hmmmmm…he’s charging big money too! Maybe there are other people in the world who want these comics and are willing to pay a premium to get them. It took a little convincing, but my father eventually allowed me to start buying older comics from these dealers. I bought lots of early Marvel comics including Daredevil #1, X-Men #1, Avengers #1, early Fantastic Four, early Spider-Man, etc, but my father “drew the line” when I wanted to send the $60.00 for Batman #1. “That was ridiculous,” my Dad told me. (many years later I ended up paying $250.00 for a Batman #1)

In 1966 I went to the big city of Worcester, Massachusetts with a friend because we heard that there was a bookstore that also bought and sold old comic books. So I packed up some of my 1950’s DC comics and brought them to this bookstore. The owner gave me five cents each in trade towards Marvel comics from 1964-1966 at 50 cents each. Looking back, it wasn’t a very good deal, but it helped me fill in some of the issues I was missing in my collection of Marvel’s.

When I was eleven years old I got an idea…I wrote directly to Marvel Comics and asked them if they had any back issues available for sale. To my delight, they sent me a list of comic books available …actually it was stranger than that…the list was actually a list of the comic books that were NOT available. They said that any comic book they had published since 1961 that was not on this list could be purchased for twelve cents each plus a small postage fee. I sent them as much money as I could to fill in lots of missing issues in my Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense collections. Within a year or two, Marvel discontinued this service.

I continued to ride my bike to the next town to buy my regular weekly comic books but I was frequently disappointed to find out that I missed the newest issue of Spider-Man or Fantastic Four. I asked the storeowner what I needed to do to be sure that I wouldn’t miss another issue. He told me that the new comic and magazine shipments were delivered every Tuesday morning. If I wanted to be sure to get the comics I wanted I would have to be at his store early Tuesday morning. Since I had to be in school, I suggested to him that if he left the wire-bound bundle of comic books and magazines behind his counter, I would come there on Tuesday after school, would check his invoice, and neatly display his comics and magazines on the rack for him, saving him some time. This would let me have the first pick of the comic books I wanted. He thought it was a great idea. For the next four years I did this for him and quite a few times I was able to buy the one copy of a comic book that the store got. This storeowner always treated me with respect and kindness even though I was just a young kid with only a few dollars to spend each week. This kindness and respect would influence my business decisions in later years.

Next column: My comic buying becomes an addiction.