Library-Bound Comic Collection

After a bit of a hiatus over the past year or so, I have recently taken back up with the process of having my comic book collection library-bound into fine hardcover volumes.  It is a long and ongoing process because not only am I binding some of my very oldest comics, but after a period in the middle part of the just past decade when I had changed into pretty much exclusively a "wait-for-trade" comics fan, with my discovery of comic binding I started buying mostly monthly issues again with the intention of having those bound, too.  Since, therefore, most of my bound volumes contain comics well outside the scope of this particular blog, mainly the late 1960s, maybe sometimes straying into the early 1970s, I mainly describe my library-bound comic book collection in my other blog.  Because, however, some of the volumes extend back into that period, I wanted to put a link to that entry here (click here).  I hope you enjoy reading about it.  Cheers!

Superman #215 and Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #91 (Apr 1969)

After far too long, I'm finally sitting down to inaugurate this blog. Like all the comics I will be writing about in this newer blog, I have vivid memories of these issues. But, after more than forty years, my memories were imperfect. In fact, I had conflated the two issues considered here into one, hence the double-issue post to begin with.

In my memory, there was a time when Superman married Lois Lane – actually, one of the many times that happened during the Silver Age of Comics, where “Imaginary Tales” of their marriage became practically a bimonthly staple. “Imaginary Tales” were the Silver-Age DC equivalent of their later “Elseworlds” semi-imprint, whose tag-line – “[H]eroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed, or might have existed, and others that can't, couldn't or shouldn't exist” – would serve here just as well. The particular story that stood out the most for me was the cover image of Superman and a raven-haired little girl, clad also in blue and red, mourning before a tombstone for Lois Lane; Lois being blinded and Superman crafting an engagement ring out of a nut when he proposed to her on the spot; a raven-haired teenaged girl continuing the super-heroic legacy of her father. I would think of these vivid images from time to time over the years. I'm not going to try to self-psychoanalyze as to why.

A few months ago, when I was putting together a back-issue order with an on-line vendor and was coming up a few dollars shy of the $50 order threshold to qualify for free shipping, something brought those images freshly to mind and moved me to explore the wonderful Time Machine at the website, Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics, which allows you to view the comics that were on the stands during any given month. Knowing only the general time frame, most likely the late 1960s-early 1970s, I stepped my way through the months until I hit paydirt in the DC Comics cover-dated April 1969. There was that well-remembered cover. A copy of the issue could be had from my vendor in decent condition for a decent price, just enough to push me over the $50, and I placed my order.

What th--!? Another new blog?

I've been thinking of this project for a while.  I often am brought to mind of some comic book that I read as a child that has, for whatever reason, "stuck" with me.  Recently I decided to go back and reread some of those more memorable issues from the hundreds that I read as a child in the late 1960s-early 1970s.  Some I have in more recently published collections, others I've had to seek out through Internet vendors.  My initial thought was to just introduce a series of posts in my main blog, Random Ramblings of an Absent-Minded Professor, but I've decided instead to create a separate, occasional blog specifically for them.

This post is mainly to stake out my little corner of the blogosphere to do this.

Cheers!