BONUS: The Industry of Comic Book Collectibles

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:01

Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of A History Recorded straight after our recently published episode, why Does America Love Comic Books? I'm joined now by the guest from that episode, Julian Chambliss, to discuss this a little bit more. Julian, thank you for sticking around.

Julian Chambliss: 00:01:17

Oh, I'm happy to be here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:19

Yeah, it was really great to chat to you for the last hour about this. And for anyone listening, do check out the main episode. It's in the feed now. But Julian, I didn't get a chance to actually ask you about you.

So when did you start reading comic books?

Julian Chambliss: 00:01:35

Well, you know, it is often told story. The first thing I remember reading is a comic book because of course, comics are great for youth and helping them encourage them to read.

So the first comic book I read was a Teen Titans comic book. And then I was reading the Flash. So for some reason I had DC Comics. I evolved into more of a Marvel kid.

But I started reading comics as a kid because they were there. Right. And people give kids comics. Right. And so I read those and really enjoyed them.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:10

Yeah. Was that just commonplace? Because I know like when I was growing up and I'm in the uk. It wasn't that common for kids to just have comic books.

Julian Chambliss: 00:02:20

Yeah, it was a lot easier to get comic books in the United States when I was younger. Originally. They were, as I think I mentioned before, it's a newsstand. Then you get the rise of the rec market, which is the comic book shop.

But you could still find comics in the little spinner racks in convenience stores and stuff. I got mine comic books from spinner racks. Some of those spinner racks were in convenience stores.

But, you know, a lot of spinner racks were in bookstore chains when I was a kid, because they still had bookstore chains when I was a kid because I'm an old man now, right. So I remember bookstore chains and they had like spinner racks and they had comics and racks. That's where I get my comics as a kid.

And I think, you know, my mom would buy me a comic because, remember as I said, they were cheap. They were when I was really young, 50 cents. They did double them up to 75 and then eventually a dollar and then bottle 25.

But for a buck you could get a couple of comic. And that's a great, that's a great present. You know, a great sort of prize for a young kid. I'm like, thank you. Right.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:32

Do you still have any now kind of rare editions of any comics that you got for an absolute steal, like years ago?

Julian Chambliss: 00:03:42

I still Have a giant size. And I mean giant. There was like, especially comics that were like huge. That guy. As a kid, I still have it. These sort of giant size things.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:54

Yeah.

Julian Chambliss: 00:03:54

But most of the comics I bought as a kid were not like super collectible. As I was a teenager reading the X Men and reading Avengers, they started doing crossovers.

I did buy, you know, crossover event, X Men event in the summer were a huge thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:16

Yeah.

Julian Chambliss: 00:04:16

But they print so many of those things. Right. So they're not huge. Not huge in value. Yeah, there's. There is a really complicated marketplace around comics. The stuff that I have now.

And I've given away thousands of comics because I, you know, I've been collecting comics for many years and actually when I moved here to my Michigan, I actually gave away a lot of comics because I didn't want to try to transport so many comics.

But the comics I have now are comics that I've bought as an adult because my research or just my interest in a particular character or a trends in comics and those are the things that are probably the most expensive things in my collection. I have held on the things that are meaningful to me for various reasons. But yeah, the comics I collected as a kid I threw away because I was a kid.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:18

Yeah, that's the problem. Right. You never think when you're a kid that this could be worth something.

In how many years if there was one comic that you wish you owned, what would it be?

Julian Chambliss: 00:05:36

Dell Comic dell publishing in: 1965

That's a western comic, right. Cowboys and Indian. And they only made like two issues because race. Right. So I had a chance years ago to interview the. The writer D.J.

anderson about it. He told me the story of how he came up with the idea.

And I've always wanted to get a copy of Lobo but they very hard to come by because they only published two issues and no one thought to collect. To collect them. There are actually the two issues are in our collection here at Michigan State University. But I'm always looking.

Whenever I go to a comic book convention, I'll go to one of the dealers and go, hey, do you have any Dell comics? To be like, yes, do you have Lobo? They're like, no.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:51

Well noted. If ever I miraculously stumble across a Lobo, I will, I'll bear you in mind. Julian.

Thank you so much for talking to me and educating me about comic books for the last hour or so. And to anyone listening to the podcast as well, if you haven't already, do listen to the full episode right now just below this one on the feed.

And remember, if you don't already follow the show rate, review us because it bumps us up the algorithms. And if you really love what we do, you can support us as well.

All the information to do that, as well as all the links to everything we've talked about and to Julian's work as well, will all be in the show notes for you to enjoy. So thank you all for listening and goodbye.