My Life With Comic Books: Part # 4

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 Four


In my last column I explained about some important developments in my “religious” faith and I told you that in this installment I’d be telling you about meeting my future wife. Before I get to that part of my story I need to digress for a moment.
In 1969, my Aunt Joan won some money ($1140.00) on a California television show called “Dialing For Dollars”. With this money, she decided to drive across the country to visit her relatives on the east coast in 1970. She brought her three children with her. Bob and his twin sister Sylvia were my age and my cousin Steven was 11 years old. They stayed in the New England area for the whole summer and it was really the first chance I had to get to know my cousins. Even though he was much younger than I was, my cousin Steve was more like me than his siblings. He was skinny, had long hair, was outgoing and played chess. But he didn’t read comic books. I let him read some of my comics and it didn’t take long before he was hooked. I gave him a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #3 and a coverless copy of The Avengers #8 and his interest in comic books exploded from there.

For some unknown reason (I must have been on someone’s mailing list) I started receiving “The Buyers Guide Of Comic Fandom” a monthly newspaper featuring dozens of ads of comic books for sale from all over the country. Steven and I would eagerly look forward to each issue of TBG. When his family returned to California, Steven spent lots of money buying old back issues at used bookstores and junk shops. Although California had some of the earliest comic book specialty stores in the country prices were not very consistent because there was no accurate price guide yet. Many comic dealers would just use the established prices of major mail order dealers like Howard Rogofsky and Robert Bell. Cousin Steven paid way too much for a lot of his comics! But it didn’t matter, because he just HAD to get his hands on as many comic books as possible.

In 1971, Steven and the rest of his family moved from California to Massachusetts to live permanently. We spent a lot of time together playing chess, playing Smess (a strange game similar to chess), discussing comics and playing poker. My father had taught me how to play poker when I was quite young and I usually would beat Steven when we played. We didn’t play for money. We usually played for comic books. I remember once when I started the day by winning his copy of The Silver Surfer #1 (from the 1960’s) and continued winning until I had won everything Steven owned! I mean everything! His entire comic book collection, all of his toys, all of his clothes (except the clothes he was wearing)….everything he owned! What a triumph! The next day he won it all back. I was never really going to take his stuff, but it was fun anyway. Playing cards was always fun for Steven and me. In a future column you’ll see how important it became.

In high school I dated a few girls. I really liked some of them. But in 1972 I took a bus ride with our Bible study group to a Jesus rally in Keene New Hampshire. It was during the peak of the Jesus Movement in the United States. I had been dating a nice girl for about a year and a half, but nothing prepared me for meeting Marilyn. I was sitting on the floor of the purple painted “Gospel Bus” and Marilyn (or “Mal” as she was called) was sitting in the seat near me with her 21 year old boyfriend, Alan Jones. Even though she was sitting with her boyfriend, it didn’t stop her from talking with me. I was stunned. She was really pretty and kind of flirty. I was a nerdy hippie-looking guy with long hair.

I was traveling with my younger brother Jay, who was 18 months younger than I. Even as young kids, Jay and I were quite different. Jay had childhood illnesses like asthma and he needed an eye operation to correct a crossed eye. Jay was more physical. Jay had muscles and I was a skinny guy. I enjoyed more cerebral things like movies, books and chess. Jay was more of a checkers playing guy. Although I was outgoing, Jay was musically inclined and was one of the lead guitar players at the Coffee Shop (now called Freedom Farm). Jay and I had an unusual competitive relationship. By the end of the bus ride, Mal convinced me to drive my younger brother over to her house. It didn’t take me long to realize that she actually was more interested in me than my brother, Jay. I felt bad for my brother because I know he kind of liked Mal. But it took me about 15 minutes to get over it. I was attracted to Mal and it wasn’t long before we were “going steady”. Within four months we were “pre-engaged”. Five months after that, we actually were engaged to be married! Jay got over it and moved on to other girlfriends.

It was at this time that I realized that I couldn’t afford to pay for gas for my car (it was an outrageous 27 cents a gallon back then!), car insurance, dating, and comic books. Something had to go. I needed the car. I was in love with the girl. Comic books had to go. So for about a year I stopped buying comic books. Cold turkey. I had really enjoyed my comic books but like many teens, girls and cars become more important. I thought I was finished with comic books forever.

In June of 1973 Mal and I got married. We rented a small apartment in Marlboro Massachusetts and I packed up all of my childhood toys and comic books and stored them in the attic. We had planned to honeymoon in Montreal Canada. I don’t have any idea why we chose Canada. Maybe someone we knew suggested it to us and we had never been there before. We packed up our 1970 Volkswagon Squareback station wagon and drove to Montreal. We were there for about 30 hours and both agreed that we didn’t like Montreal, so we turned around and drove the 1500 miles to Florida. We had very little money…just the money we got at our wedding. Everything we had saved for the last year had gone for furniture , our apartment deposits, utilities and our car. We were both raised to be conservative with money. If we couldn’t pay cash for something, we wouldn’t buy it. We didn’t have any credit cards because we were only 18 years old and in 1973 you had to be 21 years old to get a credit card.

We headed to the recently opened Disney World with about $250.00. We had no hotel reservations because we had expected to be in Canada not Florida. Since it was peak tourist season, most of the hotels along the way were full. We ended up sleeping one night on the side of the highway in Virginia. One night we slept in the car in a hotel parking lot. We stopped and spent a full day swimming and playing on rafts at Daytona Beach and both got so sunburned that we were sick with sunstroke. We recovered in a couple of days and made it to Disney World. In 1973, all that Disney World had to offer was The Magic Kingdom. The theme park was only a few years old and we both were amazed at how clean and organized it was. We were impressed by the technology in the attractions and transportation system. We were hooked on Disney World. Over the next 29 years we would spend 27 separate vacations in Disney World! (but I’ll explain the effect Disney World had on our lives in a future column)

After our two-week honeymoon was over, we arrived home with an almost empty gas tank and no money left. Our bank account was down to $8.00. We knew we needed to replenish our savings account so I continued working at Data Terminal Systems making the first electronic cash registers in the United States. Mal also got a job there, which worked out great because we only had one car and could ride together. We tried to do things together that didn’t cost money. Luckily for us, there was an independently owned movie theater that had movies for a dollar on Tuesday night. We spent a lot of time visiting friends and family.
One day when we had nothing to do, Mal said she was curious about my old comic books. I was happy that she seemed interested in my old hobby. When I brought the many boxes of comics down from the attic and spread them out on the apartment floor Mal said “Gee, they’re not in very good condition.” You see, in the 1960’s and very early 1970’s, most comic book collectors didn’t care about the condition of the comic books. We just wanted them to read and re-read. Some of my comic books were missing the front cover and some were missing interior pages. As long as it didn’t affect the story, a missing advertisement or superhero pin-up was okay. As a matter of fact, I remember cutting up some comic books myself when I was a young kid.

Most of the comic books that I had bought new at the local variety stores in the mid-late 60’s were still in almost perfect condition. I was careful with my comics when I handled them. But the ones I had bought second hand or had traded for ranged from poor to fair condition. Mal looked disappointed. “These are the comic books you were so proud of?”, she asked. “Why didn’t you buy nice looking ones?” Hmmmm…she doesn’t think my comics are childish!

It didn’t take much convincing for me to start buying comic books again. I had seen an advertisement in The Comics Buyers Guide for a comic book “convention” at The Statler Hotel in Boston. When Mal and I arrived at this convention we were stunned at the incredible selection of comic books available from the 1930’s to the 1970’s! The very first dealer we met was Donald Phelps. He had a complete run of Batman comics from #20-35 (from the 1940’s) in beautiful condition. I spent a whole weeks paycheck at the first booth!

Next column: Meet the early comic business dealers and Mal convinces me to sell some of my comics!

Pictures: My Cousin Steve and his family
Mal in our rare 1970 Volkswagon Squareback car

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 3

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 Three


As a freshman in high school in 1968, I loved reading and collecting comic books! But girls were interesting too…and as you know, both of these “interests” can be expensive. With my habit of buying almost every comic book published by Marvel, DC, and Harvey, there was very little, if any, money left to spend on dating. So, in my sophomore year, I got a part time job after school at a local plastic factory. I would work from 3:00PM to 10:00PM. I was paid the generous rate of about $1.00 per hour! My work consisted of the following “I Love Lucy” type scenario:
I stood by a huge injection molding machine that shot molten plastic into a mold and every ten seconds, 24 paint brush handles would drop from the mold into a vat of water below to cool down. I had a large wooden paddle to pull these 24 paint brush handles down a canal and then I’d grab them out of the water, dry them off with a towel, inspect them, and pack them in boxes. Think about that. Every 10 seconds I had to “process” 24 separate paint brush handles! It’s almost impossible to keep this pace. In this factory, each employee was forced to take a five minute break once every hour. But the factory didn’t shut the machines off while we were on our break! When I’d get back to my machine, there would be 720 paint brush handles waiting for me to deal with! The paint brush handles would be piled up in the water vat about three feet deep! I’d have to increase my speed to near superhero levels just to try to catch up and then it was time for our forced break again! Even though I really needed the money from this job to pay for my comics and dating, I couldn’t take it…I quit after only three days.

I got a job cleaning out horse stalls for a local veterinarian for 80 cents an hour and did some summer work painting fences for our town recreation department. This enabled me to pursue both of my interests. Luckily, in my small town, a young couple, Paul and Barbara Weatherbee, had converted their old barn into a “coffee shop” because they recognized the need for a safe place for teenagers to get together. They would hire local rock bands to play music on a small make-shift stage and they served coffee, soda, and donuts. There was no admission charge for us, so it became THE place for teens in many surrounding towns to hang out, an especially cheap date for those of us on a very limited budget. At times there would be hundreds of kids there on a Friday night. With that many teenagers there was always the possibility of trouble …remember, this was the late1960’s…drugs, alcohol, rebellion, etc…and the police would be there frequently to head off anything serious.

Why would any young couple open up their property and expose themselves to extraordinary risks and local townspeople’s scorn with no potential of personal gain? They did it because they really cared about the lives of the teenagers in the area. They knew it was important to let the anti-establishment generation know that there were adults who cared about young people; and most importantly, to tell them that it was possible to have a personal “relationship” with God, the Creator of the universe. They would mingle with the huge crowds of teenagers and try to get to know as many as they could. They would invite the teens to come back and visit with them on another day so that they could share with them the love of God. Many kids responded to this couple’s outreach because as human beings, most of us are searching for truth and meaning in this life. I was one of these kids. Now…I’m sure you’re thinking…”what does all of this have to do with comic books?! Hopefully, if you keep reading this column, it will become clear how all of these things come together to form the story of the history of my comic book store. I’m not trying to “preach” to anyone right now…I’m just telling you what happened.

Do you remember the young neighbor who worked out a trade of comic books at the Boston hospital? Well, it was around this time that he finally succumbed to leukemia. He was my first close friend or relative to die. This was an awfully confusing time for me. How could a loving God allow a beautiful young child to die? I grew up Catholic and thought it made sense to seek an explanation from our priest , but all he could offer was a vague “Well, that’s a holy mystery.” I couldn’t accept that, so I went to talk to the couple with the barn. They spent time explaining the true nature of God. I realized that we are human beings whose “life in the flesh” is only part of our existence. Our spiritual life continues with the death of our body, just as God’s only Son was destined to die a physical death and be resurrected into a spiritual life. This all made sense to me. I continued visiting with the Weatherbee family and the dozens of other kids who would come for fun events and serious study of The Bible. It was here that I met my future wife, Mal. My life would be changed forever!

Next column: I meet my future partner and get started in the comic book business.

My Life With Comic Books: Part 2

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 has brought my store to its current place. 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 Two

I was a lucky comic book collector. In 1966 I had found a store owner that allowed me to open the bundle of new comic books every Tuesday afternoon, pull out the comics I wanted to buy, and display the remaining comic books on his magazine rack. I had first shot at almost every comic book published…well, at least first shot of any comic book that the distributor decided to send this little store. In those days, the retailer couldn’t order individual titles. They would take whatever titles the distributor dictated. This meant that comic book readers and collectors would frequently miss issues of their favorite titles…but there was nothing we could do about it. There were no comic book specialty stores yet. I bought one copy of every Marvel and DC superhero comic. I also continued buying most of the Harvey comic books, with my favorites being Spooky, Hot Stuff, and Stumbo …and oh..those 25 cent Harvey Giants…those were the best of the lot! I ignored the Charlton comics mostly because of the frequently ragged edged cutting process they used. It was odd that it bothered me though, because in those days, condition of our comic books was not an important factor. We just wanted to have every issue we could get our hands on!

Around this time I ran out of places to put my comic books so my father installed shelves along one wall in my bedroom. He even put a lock on my bedroom door so that my four little brothers and my one sister wouldn’t be tempted to touch my collection. I carefully sorted my comics and stacked them carefully on my new shelves. In those days, there were no price guides around to use as references, but a comic book dealer named Robert Bell would send you a “checklist” of Marvel Comics and a free plastic storage bag if you sent him 25 cents. This was a great way to know which comics we were still missing.

In the 1960’s, many barber shops had comic books around to amuse the kids while we waited for our turn to get our haircut. I talked my barber into letting me trade him some comics I no longer wanted for his copy of The Fantastic Four Annual #3 featuring the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Around this same time, a young neighbor needed treatment at a big hospital in Boston. One day while my little friend was waiting to see his doctor, he saw a large pile of early Marvel comics that someone had donated including Fantastic Four #8-12, some early Spider-Man, and lots more. Even though he was only about 6 years old, he knew that these were comic books that I’d want to have! He convinced the nurse to let him take the comics and bring double the amount of comic books back the next time he came in. The nurse figured that the hospital would end up with twice as many comic books for the kids to read so it was okay with her….and it was certainly fine with me! I supplied the comic books for my friend to trade and I turned a bunch of comic books that I had already read many times into comics I had never read. A “win-win” situation.

In 1968 I started high school. The small town we lived in could not support a high school on their own, so two other towns joined our small town to form a regional high school. This meant that the kids from our town would suddenly be in school with hundreds of “new” kids…which translated for me into new sources of comic books! I asked many of my new schoolmates if they had any old comic books. Many of them were thrilled to just give them to me! They figured they were now in high school…way too cool to be reading comic books. I gladly accepted their charity. Some of the other kids sold me their old comics…sometimes for 25-50 cents each. I didn’t get any really old comics in this way, but it helped to fill in missing issues on my “checklist”. But it wasn’t too long before my new supply of comic books was exhausted. Now what? As luck would have it, one Tuesday afternoon while I was sorting the new comics at my favorite corner store, I introduced myself to a kid who was also looking through the comics. We talked for a while about our favorite comics and favorite storylines. When I finally asked his name, he gave me some long, almost unpronounceable, foreign sounding name, but he said “you can just call me Garber”. We became good comic book friends. He introduced me to some other kids with interest in comic books and we’d occasionally get together to play spy games (we were all fascinated by James Bond and the TV show of The Man From UNCLE). By late 1968, I could tell that Garber was losing interest in comics, so I offered to buy some of his older comic books from him. He had sent away for a dealer’s list of comics for sale (it was Howard Rogofsky’s list…at that point in time…the highest priced dealer we had run across) and he decided he’d be willing to part with some of his older comic books for about half of what Rogofsky was asking. I was still only 13 years old and on a very limited budget, but I bought as much as I could afford. I bought a fair condition copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 for about $20.00…I bought Marvel Tales Annual #1 (a nice thick comic!) for about $4.00 and many more. But I ran out of money. That Christmas I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my Mom had found my “checklist” and had gone to visit Garber! She bought me a beautiful copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #8 for $8.00, a Strange Tales Annual #1 for $5.00 and a few others for a total of about $20.00…it may not seem like much now, but it was one of the best Christmas gifts I’d ever gotten. We were always treated to cool Christmas gifts as kids…I got lots of Man From Uncle items, Marx Playsets, Aurora monster model kits, GI Joes, and of course, Captain Action…but this gift of nice old comic books was the most personal gift of all. This took a lot of effort on my Mom’s part. You couldn’t just go to a department store and find old comic books!

Next column: Comic books versus GIRLS!

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.