In my spare time – when I’m not crafting this blog – I volunteer as an indexer for the Grand Comics Database (www.comics.org), which just celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The goal is to index comics publications from any country, in any language. Since it’s an unusual effort, I thought that I might interview myself to find out more. So here goes…
Q. Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us.
A. Not at all, I’m happy to be here. I was thrilled to get your call.
Q. I’m glad. So… I understand you yourself have had just about 2000 entries approved.
A. That’s right. First one approved on September 15, 2012. For the very unfortunately named “RaceWarrior,” which sounds just ghastly but is actually about futuristic auto racers.
Q. How long does it take you to do an entry?
A. Well, entries are not all created equal. For instance, if I correct a typo of a single letter, that counts as one entry. And when I did “A People’s History of American Empire,” by Howard Zinn – with 75 detailed sub-entries – that also counts as one.
Q. Huh. So, auto racing, American empire – this doesn’t sound like typical comic books.
A. True enough. I figured that Superman and Spider-Man have plenty of people looking after them, so I decided to concentrate on oddballs and obscuros… especially educational and promotional comics… that wouldn’t get so much attention.
Q. Any interesting examples?
A. Well, there’s one called “The Legend of the Allegheny Traveler,” in which a young man comes to western Pennsylvania in the early 1800s and grows up with the country. It’s a tourism piece, and it gave me the pleasure of immortalizing President James Buchanan as a comic book character.
“Angela’s Dream” came from our own New York State Department of Health. Angela has a baby, but she’s reluctant for either of them to get a test for HIV/AIDS. She dreams about taking good care of her baby, and finally realizes that that includes the test.
Those are both educational comics. But there are also promotional comics like “Major Inapak.” Inapak was a packaged chocolate drink, and they put out a science fiction comic to push their product. The Big Boy restaurant chain did the same, but much more successfully.
Q. Don’t I understand that there are also religious comics?
A. Oh, sure. There’s a series called “Treasure Chest” that was distributed in Catholic schools. Plus characters like Archie and Dennis the Menace have occasionally been licensed by religious groups.
Q. Archie’s still around, then.
A. He’ll be around after both of us are dead and gone. The longest continuously-running American comic book character is Superman. Then Batman. Then Archie. Wonder Woman comes after that. Archie’s been incredibly stable, too. Three of the five main characters – Archie, Jughead, and Betty – appear on the first pages of the first story, back in 1940. Reggie and Veronica are in place within a year.
Q. I think when most people think of comic books, they think of superheroes, or else funny stuff – Archie, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny.
A. Those are the mainstays of the business, at least here in America. But the FORM is just a vehicle, and can carry ANY kind of story. Art Speigelman, for instance, won a Pulitzer Prize for “Maus,” the book-length story of his father’s experience in Auschwitz. And he made the characters mice. It sounds almost blasphemous, but it works. Stunningly.
And I’ve been using the SUNY library system to gather some forgotten pioneering works published 85 years ago by Lynd Ward – book-length spiritual or philosophical stories told in wordless woodcuts.
Q. They tell me you’ve also indexed books and stories with local connections.
A. Yeah, that’s been fun. For instance back in the fifties and sixties Classics Illustrated did stories about Glenn Curtiss, Marcus Whitman, and the Corning Glass Works. I indexed all of those.
Then there’s the local creators. Dick Ayers, who passed away last year just after his 90th birthday, got his first paying art job while he was a student at Curtiss Memorial School in Hammondsport. John McPherson does the “Close to Home” syndicated column in newspapers – I indexed one of his collections. And Chris Sale, who grew up in Elmira, does webcomics. I’ve added him to the database and indexed some of his collections, too, such as “Men in Hats,” very modern, edgy stuff with social commentary.
Q. So I guess you go for serious stuff rather than, say, superheroes?
A. Are you kidding? I love those guys! One of the characters in the “Funky Winkerbean” comic strip describes reading comics during a difficult childhood, and he says, “The superheroes did what they do best. They saved me.” Amen to that, brother. They saved me too.
Q. Wow. That’s something.
A. And it’s true.
Q. So – this Grand Comics Database. It’s not just comic books, right?
A. Oh, no. All those Peanuts paperbacks, for instance – they go in there too. Anything published along the lines of comic books, comic strips, cartoons, graphic novels – anything like that goes in.
Q. And how much have you got now?
A. Over a million issues. More than half a million cover scans. Nearly a quarter-million complete descriptions, or indexes, of the issues. Plus documenting publishers, brands, artists, writers, story synopses, and more.
Q. So we could go on-line and look at half a million comic book covers?
A. Sure, spot the ones you remember. Some of them are x-rated, though, so be aware of that.
Q. And this is a world-wide, multi-lingual effort?
A. After English, we have more issues published in Spanish than any other. Then German, and on down through Finnish, Turkish, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, and many more. Even including Latin. The editor who usually checks my stuff is Dutch. I send him entries before work, and he’s reading them at the same time, after work.
Q. And it’s searchable?
A. It is indeed. You want a series, a character, a story, a publisher, an artist… there’s a search bar you can use.
Q. That’s really something. So what’s coming up in the world of comics?
A. Free Comic Book Day! First Saturday in May!
Q. People give away comic books?
A. Yep. The publishers and comic-book stores do this every year to introduce new series, and to welcome new readers. My son and I are going to Heroes Your Mom Threw Out, in Elmira Heights. Jared Aiosa there offers what he calls a handful of comics – four or five – for free. They’re dedicated issues, put out by the publishers for just this purpose.
Jared’s also having Mike Raicht there, creator of “The Stuff of Legend,” a multilevel series that’s at once touching, amusing, and challenging. I created the GCD record for the omnibus hardback.
Q. Well, maybe I’ll see you there.
A. I’ll be looking for you.
Q. One final question. The store’s called “Heroes Your Mom Threw Out.” Did your mom ever throw out any of your comic books?
A. Don’t get me started on that one.