Edgar Church Discovery Movie is Coming

[RockMyAmadeus]

Why a Doc on him?

 

The discovery of the Edgar Church collection in 1977 is a good inflection point at which to tell the history of comic book collecting, in general.

 

 

So the hobby was going one way before the discovery, and the exact opposite way after...?

[batman_fan]

Seems to me the only hope for a commercially successful film would be as a documentary and even in that realm I think it would fall a little flat unless youhave some sort of new angle. I would guess asking on here is NOT a good choice for market research. Most comic fans will say "great! Make that movie, I would love to see it" but the number of comicfans that would support the film is pretty limited and you really need the attendance of a much larger audience to have any success.

[The Troll King]

Why a Doc on him?

 

The discovery of the Edgar Church collection in 1977 is a good inflection point at which to tell the history of comic book collecting, in general.

 

It's not a documentary about Edgar, it's a narrative film about the hobby and the people who love comics. It's my attempt on a subject, that previous go-rounds like "Comic Book Villians" or "Comic Book Movie" did not fully satisfy.

 

The story is not about finding a closet full of comics, and cashing in. It's about what happens next. What is the context of the discovery? How did people react to it?

 

The highest possible aspiration of the film would be "The Social Network". That movie is not about technology. Rather, it's a story of people living their lives, against a specific backdrop. Thi just happens to be set in teh world of comics.

 

Watching people manage intention and obstacle is the foundation of ALL storytelling.

 

You titled this thread "Edgar Church Moving is Coming".

Is this a story about comic collecting or Edgar Church?

 

 

[Ares]

Why a Doc on him?

 

The discovery of the Edgar Church collection in 1977 is a good inflection point at which to tell the history of comic book collecting, in general.

 

It's not a documentary about Edgar, it's a narrative film about the hobby and the people who love comics. It's my attempt on a subject, that previous go-rounds like "Comic Book Villians" or "Comic Book Movie" did not fully satisfy.

 

The story is not about finding a closet full of comics, and cashing in. It's about what happens next. What is the context of the discovery? How did people react to it?

 

The highest possible aspiration of the film would be "The Social Network". That movie is not about technology. Rather, it's a story of people living their lives, against a specific backdrop. This just happens to be set in the world of comics.

 

Watching people manage intention and obstacle is the foundation of ALL storytelling.

(thumbs u

[Mike's Rack]

Another movie based on comic books, speculators better stock up on Church books...

 

 

 

 

Actually it sounds pretty interesting, a good way to bridge the collector generation gap. I was 1 in 1977 but I love golden age books.

[nearmint]

Hello, all.

 

My crew and I spent all day, Sunday, October 2nd filming, on location, at the Edgar Church house.

 

After a long process spent with the current owner, I secured permissions to spend the day filming in the basement and outside.

 

Our project is to create a short film, introducing the feature length screenplay I have written about this turning point in the history of comic book collecting.

 

I'm hoping to generate some buzz, so I thought I'd see what kind of response a simple post like this one might generate.

 

We'll be pulling together the footage over the next few weeks.

 

If/when this thread hits a few hundred page views, I'll be posting a still image or two.

 

If interest in the thread is strong enough, I may just post a picture of Edgar's office or even that mythical closet.

 

I hope you'll be excited to learn about this project. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, EXCEPT what's the address. I swore I'd never tell.

 

Kind regards.

 

DJ

 

So what's the plan? Take the short film on the festival circuit to solicit financing for the feature?

[Timely]

Here is a thread I started in the Golden Age section showing Edgar Church's art that he made from 1910's-1970's

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=4958675&fpart=1

[cheetah]

Here are some tidbits you might not know about Edgar Franklin Church:

 

He was born in Plainville, Connecticut on November 28, 1888 and died May 5, 1978 in Denver, Colorado.

 

His parents were born in Massachusetts. Their names were William and Alice (Wright).

 

He had two brothers, William and Frederic. Frederic died before he was two months old.

 

He was a veteran of World War I.

 

His SS# was 521-07-0308.

 

In 1910 he was an Elevator Pilot at the YMCA and lived at 2485 Hooker Street in Denver, Colorado.

 

He was a commercial artist for the phone company in 1930.

 

In 1930 lived at 2331 Julian, Denver, Colorado.

 

His first wife's name was Edith Ann Collins.

 

His second wife's name was Helen and she was born in Kansas.

 

His childrens' names were Richard and Doris.

 

Doris Elsie Richardson died on February 16, 2010 in Arizona. Her children's names were Barbara, Linda and Donna.

 

Richard died January 4, 1981 in Long Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

[Senormac]

Are you guys getting a royalty for all this "small film project" information

[nearmint]

Here are some tidbits you might not know about Edgar Franklin Church:

 

He was born in Plainville, Connecticut on November 28, 1888 and died May 5, 1978 in Denver, Colorado.

 

His parents were born in Massachusetts. Their names were William and Alice (Wright).

 

He had two brothers, William and Frederic. Frederic died before he was two months old.

 

He was a veteran of World War I.

 

His SS# was 521-07-0308.

 

In 1910 he was an Elevator Pilot at the YMCA and lived at 2485 Hooker Street in Denver, Colorado.

 

He was a commercial artist for the phone company in 1930.

 

In 1930 lived at 2331 Julian, Denver, Colorado.

 

His first wife's name was Edith Ann Collins.

 

His second wife's name was Helen and she was born in Kansas.

 

His childrens' names were Richard and Doris.

 

Doris Elsie Richardson died on February 16, 2010 in Arizona. Her children's names were Barbara, Linda and Donna.

 

Richard died January 4, 1981 in Long Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

I remember finding most of that info on ancestry.com years ago.

[oakman29]

Well end of documentary.

[Flee-Marquette]

Here are some tidbits you might not know about Edgar Franklin Church:

 

He was born in Plainville, Connecticut on November 28, 1888 and died May 5, 1978 in Denver, Colorado.

 

His parents were born in Massachusetts. Their names were William and Alice (Wright).

 

He had two brothers, William and Frederic. Frederic died before he was two months old.

 

He was a veteran of World War I.

 

His SS# was 521-07-0308.

 

In 1910 he was an Elevator Pilot at the YMCA and lived at 2485 Hooker Street in Denver, Colorado.

 

He was a commercial artist for the phone company in 1930.

 

In 1930 lived at 2331 Julian, Denver, Colorado.

 

His first wife's name was Edith Ann Collins.

 

His second wife's name was Helen and she was born in Kansas.

 

His childrens' names were Richard and Doris.

 

Doris Elsie Richardson died on February 16, 2010 in Arizona. Her children's names were Barbara, Linda and Donna.

 

Richard died January 4, 1981 in Long Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

I remember finding most of that info on ancestry.com years ago.

+1

I was also trying to find Doris. Did not know she had passed away.

[cheetah]

Her death certificate cited Alzheimer's.

 

Ancestry.com is a great place if you are lucky enough not to be searching for someone named Joe Smith. I was surprised I couldn't find more info on his WWI service. They've uploaded a large number of draft cards with signatures but I couldn't find his.

[Timely]

Here are some tidbits you might not know about Edgar Franklin Church:

 

He was born in Plainville, Connecticut on November 28, 1888 and died May 5, 1978 in Denver, Colorado.

 

His parents were born in Massachusetts. Their names were William and Alice (Wright).

 

He had two brothers, William and Frederic. Frederic died before he was two months old.

 

He was a veteran of World War I.

 

His SS# was 521-07-0308.

 

In 1910 he was an Elevator Pilot at the YMCA and lived at 2485 Hooker Street in Denver, Colorado.

 

He was a commercial artist for the phone company in 1930.

 

In 1930 lived at 2331 Julian, Denver, Colorado.

 

His first wife's name was Edith Ann Collins.

 

His second wife's name was Helen and she was born in Kansas.

 

His childrens' names were Richard and Doris.

 

Doris Elsie Richardson died on February 16, 2010 in Arizona. Her children's names were Barbara, Linda and Donna.

 

Richard died January 4, 1981 in Long Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

I remember finding most of that info on ancestry.com years ago.

+1

I was also trying to find Doris. Did not know she had passed away.

 

Several attempts were made to contact her. She never replied to any mails or phone calls. We were guessing it was a sore topic she did not want to reopen.

[Timely]

Here is Chuck Rozanski's account of the events surrounding the Church collection.

 

After the phone call came in about the deal, I had to wait nearly a week

before I could connect with the sellers. This was a week of great

anticipation, as the description I had been given of the collection gave me

reason to believe that it was a wonderful group of late-1940's, and early

1950s, comics. Those books only listed for $2-$10 each in the 1976

Overstreet, but a large group of them could still easily add up to a very

valuable collection.

The day finally came for me to view the comics. I drove to the address I was

given, and was ushered into the basement. From the top of the stairs I could

see stacks of comics covering the floor. Each stack was approximately 75-100

comics deep, and the further I walked down the stairs, the more stacks I

could see! The titles I could see on top were predominately Dell westerns,

but I also saw an occasional EC issue, and a few older DC superhero titles.

Suffice it to say, by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was

very, very excited.

I started by looking through the stacks on the floor, and the more I looked,

the more I found to excite me. It rapidly became clear to me that there were

not only a great number of comics, but also that they were in wonderful

condition! The one odd characteristic about the collection was that the

newer (mid-1950's) comics averaged about "Fine" condition, while the older

(1940's) comics I was running across were seemingly unread. This seemed very

strange to me at the time, but I didn't question it.

Once I had gotten a pretty good gauge of what was on the floor (about 60

stacks), I asked how much was being sought for the collection. It was at

that point that it was made clear to me that it was not a question of how

much I was willing to pay, but rather if I was willing to take them "all." I

told the sellers that I was more than willing to take all the books, but

that we would have to either make payment arrangements, or that I could sell

the comics for them on consignment. Both of these proposals were immediately

rejected out of hand, even after I had shown the sellers collector prices

for old comics in an Overstreet that I had brought along. They were emphatic

that they wanted nothing to do with the sales process, and that they wanted

immediate payment. I explained to them that I had limited resources

available to me for an immediate purchase, and they said "just make us an

offer..."

Without going into the details of the exact amount I paid, I offered a price

per chicken box. For those of you who've never seen one, a chicken box is

used by the shippers of frozen poultry to ship their birds from the

slaughtering plant, to the grocery stores. The boxes are made of very heavy

gauge waxed paper, and come with a tight sealing lid. The boxes could be had

for free from grocery stores, and once they were well cleaned and

deodorized, they exactly fit two parallel rows of comics. In the days before

the invention of long whites, chicken boxes were a primary tool for all

comic retailers, and also for many collectors. A typical chicken box held

550 newer comics, or about 300 Golden Age comics. I used the chicken box as

a unit of measure because I knew I would have to carry the comics out of the

basement a box at a time, and I figured that if we just kept track of the

number of trips I made, we could then multiply the offer amount by the

number of boxes I'd hauled, in order to reach the final total.

The sellers accepted my first offer with only two conditions. They required

that my payment had to be in cash, and that I also had to clean out the

"closet." It was at that point that they walked me to a walk-in closet that

separated a back office from the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. When

they opened the door to the closet, I was astounded to see that it was

completely filled with ceiling-high stacks of even more old comics. There

were even comics stuffed all the way up into the floor joists! It was at

this point that I finally grasped that I had stumbled into an unbelievably

wonderful collection of old comics.

I've often been asked what when through my mind when I first realized that I

had stumbled across the greatest accumulation of Golden Age comics ever

discovered. Frankly, even after 25 years have gone by, it still gives me

chills to think about staring at that huge closet stacked to the rafters

with mint Golden Age comics. The deal had already been made at that point,

so there was no question of how much I was going to have to pay for the

books. The only question was just how good the collection would end up

being. I couldn't see but a very few of the covers of the comics in the

closet, but those that I saw ran the gamut of every 1940's super-hero title.

Clearly, this was going to be incredible!

Throughout the initial negotiations I had been excited, but had managed to

keep my euphoria in check. It wasn't hard, really, as the comics that were

piled on the basement floor were mostly under $10 each in the 1976 Guide,

and many were even under $5. Good stuff, but nothing to get crazy about. It

wasn't until the negotiations were over, and the surprise closet full of

Golden Age was opened, that I was finally overwhelmed with emotion. My mouth

became so dry that I asked for a glass of water. When it arrived, I was

staring at the closet, while leaning against the basement wall for support.

I couldn't take my eyes off that closet, and became so transfixed that when

I tried to take a drink from the glass, I ended up missing my mouth

entirely, and poured most of the glass of water right down the front of my

shirt. Fortunately, no water spilled on any of the comics.

Believe it or not, what was going through my mind as I was looking at the

closet was fear. Not just a fear that the deal would get screwed up somehow,

but also a realization that my life was about to radically change. It is one

thing to have slowly built up a small business over a period of many years,

and quite another to suddenly win the lottery. I could see very clearly that

discovering this collection was going to completely change my life, and that

nothing would ever again be the same. I was excited at that prospect, but

also very trepidatious. Radical change can be good, but it can also destroy

much of that which you hold most dear.

It was at this point that I made a vow to my inner God. I vowed that if I

could pull off buying this deal that I would use the proceeds to help build

the world of comics for the rest of my life. I hesitate to even mention this

vow, as more than once I have been ridiculed in the press for sounding so

idealistic and naive. Well, what my critics fail to understand is that I had

just gone through four years of living a counterculture lifestyle. Finding

this incredible collection was completely altering my destiny, and I was

determined that I would repay the fates for my good fortune. Vowing to help

the world of comics recover from the economic malaise of the early 1970's

seemed the right thing to promise at the time.

After I made my vow, it was time to haul comics up out of the basement. I

had parked in front of the house, but the basement exited to the rear door,

so I drove my old Chevy window van into the alley. It was at this point that

I got my first clue that not all was right with this deal. Piled by the

trash cans in the alley (in the snow!) was a stack of boxes about six feet

long, four feet wide, and four feet high. The boxes contained all manner of

clippings and artwork. There were old hardboard file boxes full of magazine

and pulp covers, tons of advertising art, and there were even large

cardboard posters from the 1920's and 1930's. Why would these crazy people

be throwing away all this great stuff? I was stunned to discover a huge

pile of artwork and magazine clippings lying in the snow. It was at this

point that I realized that the people I was dealing with had motivations

that I did not understand. Why would anyone throw away such cool and

valuable material?

In the end, the answer to that question will never actually be known. Before

the entire deal was over, I met with the heirs on nearly a dozen occasions.

Each time I learned a bit more, but the more I understood the more questions

that were raised. I can't explain the how's and why's, but the primary

driving factor for the heirs when I first met them was that they wanted the

house up for sale immediately. They viewed Edgar Church's lifelong

collection of paper and artwork as being just so much junk and they wanted

it out of the house immediately. That was why the Realtor had asked me

during the original phone call if "I would be willing to haul these old

comics away..." It wasn't that they wanted money for the comics, but rather

that they wanted to sell the house as quickly as possible. They viewed the

comics as an impediment to their plans, and they were determined to get rid

of them in any way they could. The fact that I was willing to offer them

cash for comics they had planned to junk, delighted them to no end.

Once I started loading comics, it took me about two hours to fill my truck.

I had brought about a dozen boxes, but they were no where near enough. In

the end, I loaded about 10,000 comics into my van on the first day. Those

books filled the floor of the van up to the back of the driver’s seat, and

made my old leaf springs sag to near breaking. Unfortunately, this didn't

get me very far into the wonderful closet. To meet the heir’s expectations,

I had to pack up the comics on the basement floor first. That was really

painful, as those books were from the 1950's, and were relatively

inexpensive. To my great frustration, those newer books took up the vast

majority of the space in the van. The older comics in the closet just

wouldn't fit.

I don't remember most of those two hours I spent loading, as it was

nerve-wracking work. I had no help, as the heirs disappeared upstairs with

the Realtor after we made the deal. Hauling the books out of the basement,

and back into the alley to my van, was my responsibility. Despite it being a

cold and snowy January day, I was completely drenched with sweat by the time

I finished. Not only was it hard work, but I was terrified that I would

damage some of the books. After I ran out of boxes, I had to just pile them

in the van in big unsupported stacks. Knowing that I would be turning

corners, and driving on the freeway on the way home, made me be as careful

as possible, but I knew it was inevitable that a few books would sustain

some minor nicks. To offset this problem, I piled 1950's comics (most of

which Edgar Church purchased used) around the few 1940's comics I managed to

get from the closet. For the most part, this technique worked well.

What really drove me crazy about this day is that I had to leave most of the

best books behind. My van would only hold slightly over half the collection,

and the heirs declined to let me make two trips that day. They explained

that they had other plans for the rest of the weekend, so we would just have

to wait to get together again until the following Saturday. That meant that

I had to wait a full week to come back for the contents of the closet! I was

in absolute agony at that thought. I had no choice, however, as my van was

completely full.

What made leaving the closet full of comics behind particularly hard was

that I had just started to hit the good stuff. When I was stacking the

comics I pulled from the rafters into the van I saw RED RAVEN #1, one of the

rarest Marvel comics ever published. It was printed in 1940, and looked as

though it had never been opened. Clearly, if a book of that vintage was in

the closet, then there was no end to the possibilities. There were still

about 8,000 books left to load, but I had to wait a week to come back for

them. Suffice it to say, that was a week in which I slept very little.

After loading my old van full to capacity with old comics, I had to make a

difficult decision. All through the time I had been loading my van I had

been walking past the huge pile of artwork and magazine clippings that the

heirs had put to be hauled away by the trash men. I didn't know the heirs

very well at that point, so I was loath to broach the subject of whether I

could take any of the material from the trash. In the end, I saved a few

items (including some of Edgar Church's original artwork), and left the rest

for the trash men. That decision haunts me to this day. I suppose I could

have come back the next day (Sunday) and salvaged the rest, but I didn't

have permission to be there on that day, and I was not going to screw up the

comics deal by doing something that would potentially offend the heirs. It

was a very tough call.

Once I had the books unloaded in my apartment, my mind turned to the 8,000

books I had left behind. I had a deal to buy them at the same low price, but

I was out of money! I had withdrawn the money from the bank that was

supposed to go to Emil the next week for our new comics in order to raise

the cash with which I had purchased the first load of the collection. Now I

was completely flat broke. What was I going to do?

The heirs had other commitments for the following week, so they could not

meet with me until the next Saturday. While the thought of having to wait

that long to haul the rest of the books away was nerve-wracking, it did give

me a chance to figure out a way to raise the cash with which to purchase the

second half of Edgar Church's collection from his heirs.

The solution to my cash flow problem turned out to be my best customer at

the Boulder store. He and I were good friends, sharing a mutual passion for

Dell comics of the 1940's and early 1950's. He was (is) a computer

programmer, and was pulling down a very good salary in 1977. He and his wife

drove over to our apartment the next day, and I made him a proposition. If

he would cash in one of his bank CD's from his savings, I would let him

purchase a portion of the comics for 40% of 1976 Overstreet! He took one

quick look at the collection, and immediately agreed to my plan. That was

one of the smartest moves he ever made in his life, as he ended up with a

return that I estimate was over 20X his original investment! For those of

you who care about these things, my friend picked primarily funny animal

comics in exchange for his CD. Steve Geppi bought them from him in about

1986.

With my friend's cash in hand, I was able to restore the money I had

stripped from our checking account to pay for the first batch of books, and

I had barely enough left to pay for the second load. At this point my

greatest concern was whether the heirs would really show up on the following

Saturday. While I'm sure these folks appreciated the cash I was giving them,

they were far more focused on getting the house quickly emptied. My greatest

fear was not that they would change their minds about the monetary terms of

our agreement, but rather that they simply decided to throw all the books

away. It was clear to me, both from their attitude that they expressed to me

verbally about the comics, and their sending off to the dump Mr. Church's

artwork and clipping files, that these people considered everything of paper

in the house to be nothing more than "trash."

One interesting sidebar to this story is that I was not the first comic book

dealer that the heirs contacted about the Edgar Church collection. In 1977,

I was not the largest comic dealer in Denver. Another gentleman had started

a comics store in downtown Denver while I was still exclusively a college

student, and had grown his store into a 6,000 square foot paperback and

comic book store, located at the intersection of two of Denver's busiest

streets. He had a large ad in the Yellow Pages, so the Realtor who

eventually contacted me, called him first. This other dealer (who remains my

friend to this day) declined to view the collection, because he "didn't make

house calls." He told the Realtor that he would look at the books and make

an offer, but only if they drove them to his store. Under no circumstances

would he go to their place. That was part of the reason why the heirs were

so delighted when I agreed to come to the house. They told me that after

being discouraged by the other dealer's refusal to come to make a bid on the

comics, that they had seriously considered throwing all the books away. It

was only because the cubic volume of books was so large that it would have

required several extra trash hauls that they waited for my arrival.

When Saturday morning finally came around I drove back to Edgar Church's

house. To my delight, the heirs were there waiting for me, and the basement

was just as I had left it. I immediately started hauling comics from the

walk-in closet, and became more and more excited as I hit the back stacks.

You see, the comics were stacked (roughly) in chronological order, with the

oldest books being in the back stacks. By the time I hit the third (back)

row of books I was exclusively into comics from pre-1942, and I had already

seen several key #1 issues. During the week I had been waiting to return, I

had dreams that the rest of the collection would continue the progression

back into time that I had observed when I loaded the first batch of books,

but this was beyond my wildest dreams! As near as I could tell, this was the

best collection of comics ever discovered in the history of comic book

collecting.

When I finished loading the comics, I asked the heirs what was going to be

done with all the miscellaneous paper that I had glimpsed lying in other

parts of the basement. They told me they were planning to haul another huge

stack out for the trash men that day, and planned to keep hauling some out

each week, until it was all gone. Upon hearing that awful news, I resolved

that while I had let the first batch of Edgar Church's files go to the dump,

there was no way I was going to let any more be destroyed!

For reasons I was never able to clearly understand, the heirs had an extreme

antipathy toward anything paper that Mr. Church had accumulated during his

lifetime. One theory I have about their dislike of his files is that the

cost of all the comics and magazines that Mr. Church purchased during the

1920-1955 period put a severe drain on the family finances. Mr. Church

collected every super-hero, adventure and horror comic printed along with

quite a few non-super-hero comics, vast numbers of pulp magazines and even a

large quantity of magazines with line-art covers. The cost of all those

purchases, plus the fact that his files ended up filling darn near the

entire basement, must have been quite an annoyance to the rest of his

family.

Mr. Church's reason for collecting all these comics and magazines was that

he needed them for "reference" for his commercial art career. During the

period from about 1925-1953 he was on the staff of Mountain Bell, the phone

company for the Rocky Mountain region. He worked in the advertising

department, designing and drawing ads for the first commercial directories

(later to be known as the Yellow Pages). He had started his career as a

freelance artist in about 1912, and had his own studio prior to going to

work at the phone company full time. Judging by the huge collection of his

artwork that I managed to save, Mr. Church continued to produce freelance

artwork all through the 1920's and 1930's. He was an accomplished artist,

with the ability to mimic almost any style. It clearly helped him to have a

vast clipping file from which to borrow ideas. It was part of his enormous

collection of line art magazine covers, interior artwork, and advertising

pages that the heirs had thrown away during my first visit to the house.

At this point I need to draw an important distinction between Mr. Church's

attitude toward his reference files, and his comics. The reference files

were made up entirely of clippings and covers from line art magazines, and

pulps. Mr. Church was ruthless with these magazines, chopping them into bits

with gusto. The pieces he wanted to keep were then put into legal storage

boxes shaped to look like books. These boxes had hinged lids that opened,

and each was about 5 inches deep. Mr. Church had labeled each of his storage

boxes, so he could quickly go to his bookshelf and easily pull down

categories such as "Maxfield Parrish," "Dogs," or "Bridal." To this day, I

have this vision of him sitting in his basement during the Great Depression,

listening to old-time radio, and happily cutting up his magazines. My best

estimate is that he filled about 300-400 boxes with clippings during his

years of effort.

His comics (at least all the ones he purchased from 1938-1947), on the other

hand, were in a room that had been padlocked for years. I think I eventually

found one comic (out of 18,000) that had some notes in the margins. Other

than that single book, he kept his comics in perfect condition. It was clear

to me from the fact that the heirs had to break the padlock off of the

closet that his children were never allowed to touch his comics. That, too,

may have led to some antagonism on their part toward his comic collection. I

think it's safe to surmise that Mr. Church viewed his comics as his own

private passion, and wanted to share them with no one. Is it any wonder that

his heirs didn't show any fondness for them?

An interesting sidebar to this story is that Mr. Church was apparently the

first person in the history of comics to have his issues reserved for him!

He had one copy of every comic printed put aside for him by his local

newsstand starting with ACTION COMICS #1 (that book is even marked very

lightly in pencil with his name!) in 1938. Prior to 1938 he purchased all

his comics from a half-price magazine store. As near as I could tell, his

comics subscriptions were active from 1938-1953, when he retired from

Mountain Bell. He then purchased comics used for about another five years,

before giving up entirely. It was based upon my inspection of those

1953-1958 used comics by which I made my original bid for the collection.

Returning to the topic of Mr. Church's clipping files, after I loaded the

second half of the comics from the closet, I spent half an hour convincing

the family that they shouldn't throw the remaining files away. I explained

that I thought that I could mat and frame many of the magazine covers, and

sell them through my store. As such, I was willing to give them a

considerable sum of money if they would save the files for me for two weeks.

The sum I offered must have been enough, as the heirs reluctantly agreed to

hold off on throwing the files away.

My next problem was where to get the money to pay for the clipping files. I

had tapped out all my money, and my best friend's money, buying just the

comics. The only way I could raise any more money was to sell some more

books. I was determined, however, to not give away any more of those great

comics at below 1976 Overstreet Guide. The solution I came up with was for

Nanette and I to fly to a two-day comic show in Houston the following

weekend. My theory was that if we took a suitcase full of those incredible

Golden Age comics that we had to make a ton of money. Well, this was a case

in which not everything always works out as you planned.

When I flew with my future wife, Nanette, to Houston in February of 1977, we

took with us a full suitcase of some of the most beautiful Golden Age comics

that the industry had ever seen. My goal was to sell enough of the comics so

that we could cover our operating costs, and also to have enough cash to pay

the Church heirs for the part of his reference library that they hadn't yet

thrown away.

To my amazement, the Saturday of that show was a complete bust. This was not

a big convention, but it still had an attendance of upwards of 500 fans. We

were selling the Church books at 1976 Overstreet, and I think I recall that

we grossed about $200 that Saturday. That was a disaster, as it didn't even

cover the cost of our airfares. Blessedly, on Sunday, a wonderful gentleman

by the name of Burrell Rowe came to the convention. Burrell had heard from a

friend that we had great Golden Age comics for sale at the show, and he had

to come and see if the rumor was true. Once he saw our books, he picked out

a large stack, and justified our entire trip. It's a darn good thing that he

did, as our sales to the other attendees of the convention were just as bad

on Sunday, as they had been on Saturday.

To give you some background on Burrell, he was (is) a prominent Houston

attorney, and a senior partner in a law firm that specialized in selling

municipal bonds. At a time when the comic hobby was primarily populated with

young people of very modest means, Burrell brought both maturity, and

working capital, to the hobby. His passion was for Golden Age comics, and he

was a collector/dealer for about 10 years. Sadly, Burrell was too fine a

gentleman for this hobby, and eventually quit in disgust after one too many

bad experiences. In 1977, however, he was in his prime, and he was the

second source of working capital for me to keep purchasing from the Church

heirs.

With the money I obtained from Burrell, I returned to Edgar Church's house,

and paid the heirs for his reference library/clippings file. I once again

filled my van to the ceiling with paper, this time consisting of all manner

of line art drawings, magazine covers, and advertising pieces. There was

certainly nowhere near the value in these items that there had been in the

comics, but overpaying the heirs for the reference library certainly seemed

like the right thing to do after I had managed to get such a great deal on

the comics.

What intrigued me the most about the reference library was that it also

contained scattered throughout the antique legal file boxes/books, hundreds

of pieces of Edgar Church's art. Some of the pieces were originals, while

other were actual advertising items printed from Church's originals. I was

determined that I would buy all of the paperwork in Church's house, so that

no more of his artwork would go to the dump. I didn't know what I would do

with all his artwork, but it just seemed insane to me that the heirs were so

hell-bent on throwing everything of Mr. Church's away.

After I finished loading most of the file books from the main room of the

basement, the heirs asked me if I had any interest in old magazines. When I

assured them that I did, they led me to a room in the far end of the

basement. This room was set up much like a pantry, with shelves lining the

walls. What was shocking to me about this room was that it only contained

one shelf unit of old pulp magazines. All the other shelves were completely

bare! Given that the entire rest of the basement was packed to the ceiling

with all manner of paper, this was totally abnormal.

The magazines that were in the room were primarily WEIRD TALES and SPICY

DETECTIVE pulps. I had seen covers for other pulp magazines in some of the

books of clippings I had salvaged, but these were the first whole magazines

I had seen in the basement. I told the heirs that I wasn't really an expert

in pulps, but that I had some friends in Boulder who sold them regularly. I

promised I would come back the following week with my friends, and that they

would offer them a substantial amount for the pulp magazines.

I then asked them why the rest of that very copious room was completely

empty. The heirs hemmed and hawed, and told me they didn't know. It didn't

take me long to reach the conclusion, however, that the room had once been

full, and that someone had emptied it. I had already seen the empty shelves

in the main basement room from where the huge batch of reference files that

I saw set out for the trash men (on my first visit) had been extracted, so

those couldn't have been in the contents of that second room. My best guess

is that whatever was in that second room was sent off to the dump before I

made my first visit.

In the many discussions I've had with people about the contents of that

second room, the general conclusion that we've reached is that the room

contained Church's collection of humor comics. We've extrapolated this

conclusion from the fact that there are some very unusual holes in the runs

of super-hero comics that were in the walk-in closet from which I obtained

the Golden Age. At the same time, there were tantalizing samplings of humor

comics, such as LOONEY TUNES #1, ANIMAL COMICS #1, and all the LITTLE LULU

Four Color issues, mixed in with the super-hero comics. If Church was buying

all the comics being printed, where were all the humor comics? Wouldn't it

make sense that if Church was roughly sorting his super-hero/adventure

comics into one room, while his humor books went into the second that a few

books would get put into the wrong closet? That would explain why a few of

the super-hero comics were missing from otherwise complete runs, and why a

few humor comics were mixed in with the super-heroes. Sadly, I think the

most likely scenario is that all the humor comics were sent to the dump

prior to my arrival. If that was the case, then the collection of Golden Age

that everyone acknowledges as the best ever discovered in the history of the

hobby, was actually half destroyed prior to my arrival.

The week I after I saved many of the Edgar Church reference files from the

trash men, I played host to Burrell Rowe and Bruce Hamilton. Burrell and I

had met at the Houston convention I attended two weeks prior, and Bruce was

a comics/art dealer with whom I had been doing business for several years.

Burrell had contacted Bruce about the great comics he had purchased from me

at the Houston convention, and the two of them made arrangements to come to

our apartment in Boulder, Colorado to view the Church collection.

It goes without saying that the two of them were blown away when they

entered the apartment. The comics were still piled in 3 foot high stacks,

and were mostly unsorted. By this time, I had rented a couple of large

safety deposit boxes at my local bank for the more noteworthy issues I had

found, but there were still many stacks of books that I hadn't yet had a

chance to explore. If I remember correctly, one major book (WHIZ #2?) was

discovered by either Bruce, or Burrell, in the middle of a stack in our

spare bedroom.

At the time of their visit, I was still working to arrange more money to

give to the Church heirs. As a result, I let Bruce and Burrell pick out a

limited number of books at a discount from the prices listed in the 1976

Overstreet Price Guide. Bruce picked primarily DC's, while Burrell picked

out as many EC's as we could find (Church bought many of his EC's used), and

some of the oversize late 1930's comics, such as early JUMBO and MASTER

comics. The two of them also expressed to me at that time that they would be

willing to purchase the entire collection, if I was interested in selling

everything at wholesale.

I declined their offer for two reasons. The first was that I had made the

decision (years before finding the collection) that I wanted to spend the

rest of my life retailing comics. If selling comics was my chosen

profession, what point was there in wholesaling this incredible find to

other dealers? My second reason for not selling everything to Bruce and

Burrell at wholesale was that I recognized, right from the beginning, that

many of the key issues from this collection were unique in their wonderful

condition. I believed that those comics could easily justify a premium over

current Guide prices.

This was clearly evident to me because the Overstreet, in 1976, was still

set up in a very peculiar fashion. Up until 1977, Overstreet listed comics

in "Mint" at only double "Good." The ratio was 1.0 for Good, 1.5 for Fine,

and 2.0 for Mint. This was the same standard that had been in effect since

the very first edition of the Guide. I had long had a problem with this

pricing standard because, as a teen, I had some experience in both the coin

and stamp collecting fields, where far wider spreads existing in pricing. In

coins, for example, it was not unusual for a VF/NM to be twenty times as

valuable as a Good. Given that Overstreet had not yet implemented spreads

that reflected the true scarcity of higher quality old books, I decided that

wholesaling these unique issues under the industry pricing standards of 1976

was ill-advised. Even when Overstreet changed the ratio in April, 1977 to

1.0 for Good, 2.0 for Fine, and 3.0 for Mint, I still thought the pricing

spreads didn't reflect the actual scarcity of Golden Age comics in very high

grades.

After Bruce and Burrell departed, I returned to Edgar Church's house. On

this trip I brought with me some friends from Boulder who specialized in

pulp magazines. They made a deal with the Church heirs for the magazines in

the mysteriously empty room that I mentioned earlier in this story. In a

shocking development, however, the middle books in the 7 foot tall, by 4

foot wide, shelving unit were ruined! The spines of all these pulp magazines

were all bright and colorful, but there was a pipe running over the top of

the bookshelf that led to an outside spigot. At some time in the distant

past, this pipe had sprung a pinhole leak, and over the years the drops of

water from the leak had run down the wall and lodged in the pulps. When we

tried to pull them off of the shelves, all the issues in the middle of the

individual shelves were bonded together into a huge mass of black fungus!

All I could think about when I saw those books that had been destroyed was

that I was so thankful that this disaster hadn't happened to all the

wonderful Golden Age comics.

My friends, the pulp dealers, were very dismayed at this unforeseen damage,

but they still obtained about 200 NM/M WEIRD TALES, SPICY MYSTERY, and SPICY

DETECTIVE pulps. The heirs got another nice payment for this batch of

magazines. On this trip I also paid them additional funds for the remaining

reference files from the main room of the basement. Once those were all

loaded, the heirs asked me if I would be interested in the contents of Edgar

Church's office.

When I first walked into Edgar Church's office, it felt very strange. While

I had been purchasing items he had accumulated during his lifetime for the

previous month, this was the first time that I actually felt that I was

entering space that he had personally occupied. The office was filled with

all sorts of memorabilia that you would associate with an artist, such as a

little ceramic skull with a "bobbing" lower jaw, and one of the chrome metal

female figures that once graced the hood of a vintage Rolls Royce

automobile. While these dozens of little items of bric-a-brac were fun, what

really interested me were several folios of B&W original art by Mr. Church,

and a couple dozen small color paintings. Once again, the heirs expressed an

almost complete indifference to what happened to Mr. Church's effects, so I

offered them a substantial sum, and purchased the entire contents of the

office, except for the furniture.

What made this an exceptionally surreal experience was that I now knew that

Edgar Church was still alive! I can't remember any more exactly during which

visit that I was told the story, but his heirs told me that Mr. Church was

suffering from a very debilitating illness (I think it was either

Alzheimer's or a stroke) that had left him unable to care for himself. His

wife had been his primary caregiver, but she was by that time also in her

mid-eighties. When she fell in the house and broke her hip, their worst

fears were realized. I gathered that she was alone at the time of her

accident, and that it took quite some time for her to get assistance after

her fall. To keep this from happening again, the family made the decision to

find a nursing home for the two of them.

I've purchased items from hundreds, if not thousands, of estates during my

career, but finding out that Mr. Church was still alive made me feel very

different about this deal. Especially since his heirs were exhibiting such

indifference as to the dispensation of his effects. I don't know about

anyone else, but when my mother passed away nearly two years ago, I felt a

very strong responsibility to preserve a tangible part of her life. I'm

still slowly going through her personal effects and paperwork, saving

everything which might have an interest to future generations of our family.

The Church heirs seemed to have no such thoughts, as I was forced to rescue

even some family photographs from being thrown away.

What motivated this bizarre behavior on the part of the Church heirs? I have

no idea. However, the thought of Edgar Church lying in his deathbed (he

passed away about two months later), while much of what he had accumulated

during his lifetime was being thrown away, upset me very much. As a

consequence, I went out of my way to gather every scrap of his life that I

could salvage, with the thought that I could possibly someday tell his tale.

When my good friend Jim Payne called me, his proposition was simple. He

wanted to trade his store, plus approximately 100,000 comics he had

accumulated over the previous 10 years, for a portion of the Edgar Church

collection. Had this offer come from anyone besides Jim Payne, I would have

told them to get lost. But my sense of obligation to Jim for all his

kindness to me when I was first getting started ran very deep, so I met with

him at a local Denny's, and we worked out the deal on a napkin. I gave him

his pick of approximately 10% of the entire Edgar Church collection, in

exchange for his store and comics.

Since I made that trade, I've had any number of people who knew the details

of the deal ask me if I regretted giving up all those rare books for so

little in return. My answer has always been an unequivocal No! Helping Jim

Payne gracefully retire from the comics business was one of the best things

I ever did in my life. Not only did my decision fulfill part of my pledge to

do something positive with Edgar Church's comics, but it also eventually led

to what I feel was the single most important contribution I was able make to

the world of comics.

Jim had managed to accumulate 100,000 back issues during his ten years in

the business. Most were relatively recent books, but that was OK with me.

You see, I had been a mail order comic book dealer when I was in high

school, and I wanted to get back into that part of the business. To be

successful at mail order, however, you have to have a very large inventory.

Jim's 100,000 back issues, combined with the 150,000 I already owned, gave

me a good starting stock.

The one problem with me going into the mail order business was that I had

not been very good at it during my teens. I accumulated merchandise in large

quantities, and constructed successful ads, but I was very slow to ship

items. Knowing that personal weakness, I was determined to do the job right

this time. My problem was solved when I heard from an ex-staffer that

Richard Alf was looking to sell his mail order business. Alf was based in

San Diego, and aside from his very nice retail store, had been running

classified ads in Marvel comics for the previous four years. During those

years he had perfected a systematized mailing program that guaranteed the

ability to ship and mail efficiently. To make a long story short, I bought

his system in the Spring of 1978.

To tie this back to the story of the Edgar Church collection, I was still

determined to use the revenues I was generating from the Edgar Church books

to do whatever I could to help the comic book world grow. The late 1970's

were a very tough time for comics. The DC implosion happened during that

period, and even Marvel Comics teetered on the edge of shutdown after a

disastrous foray into mainstream magazine publishing (remember PIZZAZZ?).

Clearly, something had to be done to revitalize the sales of new comics or

the entire industry was potentially doomed.

I started by working to break Phil Sueling's monopoly on the sale of new

comics into the Direct Market. While I was in Manhattan negotiating with

Marvel management about distribution issues I also asked them as to whether

they would let me purchase advertising space in which to actually list the

prices of back issue comics. I pointed out to them that while comic book

collecting was a growing hobby (6% of the market in 1980), 94% of their

consumers were still purchasing their books from newsstands and convenience

stores. What if I could show those readers the value of their comic

collections in the collector's market, without them first having to send

away for a catalog. Wouldn't that greatly stimulate sales?

Well, I halfway won that battle. Jim Galton (then President of Marvel) liked

my idea. Others on his staff were less convinced (they had just received the

results of consumer surveys which indicated that readers were turned off by

classified ads...), so Galton offered me a deal. If I would pay $21,000, up

front in cash, he would sell me the center two pages of all Marvel comics

for a period of nine weeks.

At this point I called up Richard Alf for his opinion. Richard had told me

about the very positive results he had to a small test ad that listed actual

comics for sale, instead of the traditional "Send for Our Catalog." After

speaking to Richard, I made the decision that I was going forward with the

deal Mr. Galton had offered me. In order to raise the $21,000, however, I

had to sell most of the "Key" books from the Edgar Church collection. I

don't remember all the issues I had to sell in order to finance that first

ad, but BATMAN #1, WHIZ #2, and ALL STAR #1 were among the bigger

casualties. I took a briefcase full of comics to Steve Geppi's house two

months before the ad was to run, and sold them to Steve on his basement pool

table. Steve was acting as an agent for John Snyder, then an Under-Secretary

in the Commerce Department, and the largest buyer of key issues in the

entire field of comics collecting. When the deal was done, I had enough for

that first ad in Marvel, but almost all the key #1 issues were now gone from

the collection.

Do I regret selling all those key books for so very little? Absolutely not!

Even though the BATMAN #1 (alone) would bring at least $250,000.00 these

days, I'm still very happy that I raised the money for that first

double-page Marvel ad. Not only was it a financial success ($108,000 in

gross sales in 100 days), but I have heard from an astounding number of

people that seeing that ad was their first clue that organized comics

collecting even existed. It has been very gratifying to hear from so many

people that I got them started in the hobby. More importantly, in the years

after I ran that ad comics collecting grew like crazy. By 1984, the Direct

Market was 20% of the business, and by 1987 it had topped 60%. Certainly the

growth in the distribution base contributed significantly to the overall

growth of the comics market, but I believe my ads (I ran about 40 between

1980-1987) also helped stimulate demand. All this came about only because I

found that closet full of Edgar Church's comics, so I believe all of us owe

him a greater debt of gratitude than might otherwise be obvious. Certainly

his books changed the world of Golden Age comics forever, but I think they

may also have changed the world of new comics publishing by quite a bit. I

have to believe that Edgar Church would have liked that.

About six weeks after I had saved the collection from imminent destruction,

I drove 20 hours to attend a CasualCon, in Anaheim, CA. While CasualCon was

only a one-day show, I had heard from several friends that it was an

excellent marketplace for old comics. So, Nanette and I loaded up our old

1969 Chevy window van with about 2,000 of the Edgar Church comics, and drove

all night to Anaheim.

Before the room even opened, however, we had a very surreal experience. I

wheeled our boxes full of Golden Age into the hallway reserved for dealer's

entry, and waited in line with about 30 other dealers for the room to open.

Most of the dealers attending the show were from the Southern California

area, and they were quite surprised to see us so far from home. When they

inquired why we drove so far for a one-day show, I told them about the

Church collection. What happened next was incredible. Dealers clustered

around our boxes, and a feeding frenzy began. Within the span of 30 minutes,

we sold $4,200 in comics! By the time the room opened, practically every

dealer had purchased books from us.

While this should have set the stage for a great day, it actually caused

just the opposite. Instead of the convention being a success, it turned into

an incredibly dull affair. We sold about $500 more in comics to retail

consumers, but that was it. In surveying the dealer's room, I quickly picked

up on the fact that overall economic activity in the room was totally

constrained. I asked some questions, and came to the startling realization

that I had removed all the working capital out of that dealer's room. By

taking all the cash the dealers had brought with them before the room even

opened, I caused a mini economic recession!

To explain, at the time of this convention, I was also attending classes in

the Business School at the University of Colorado. My major was finance, and

I had just finished one course on micro economics and another on The Federal

Reserve and Monetary Policy. Applying what I had learned in my classes, I

could readily see that by introducing a product that was unique in the

marketplace (very high-grade Golden Age), I had upset everyone's

equilibrium. In particular, by pricing my beautiful books at straight

Overstreet, I created an immediate perceived reduction in value of all the

lesser-grade Golden Age books in the room. Why buy comics in Fine from the

dealer at the table next to you, when you can buy stunning NM/M copies from

Chuck, for only slightly more?

What I learned from this experience was to not price the comics from the

Church collection at Overstreet. Not only was the demand there that

justified higher prices, but I was also not doing anyone who already owned

large quantities of Golden Age comics any favors by selling those great

books too cheaply. In fact, I firmly believe that I could have crashed the

entire Golden Age market nation-wide in 1977 if I had sold all the Church

comics at Overstreet during that one year. This is an opinion shared by many

others who were in the field during those formative years. Only by making

the decision to sell the Church comics at the "outrageous" multiples of 1.5X

- 2X Overstreet did I slow the sales enough to where the books were

integrated into the Golden Age community without devaluing the rest of the

comics in the market. I was absolutely ripped apart in the fan press by the

"purists" in the collecting community for selling the Church books at above

Guide prices (especially after the rumors started circulating about how

inexpensively I had purchased the collection), but I darn well knew the

policy I had chosen was the right one for the long term viability of the

Golden Age market. I was only 21 years old at the time, so it was hard to

put up with all the vicious public criticism I engendered by my pricing

decision, but I'm firmly convinced to this day that I did absolutely the

right thing for the financial health of the back issue comics market. The

fact that everyone who purchased books from me in those early days (even at

my "inflated" prices) made a fortune on their investment, seems to bear out

the ultimate wisdom of my decision to price at small multiples above Guide.

On the 20-hour drive back to Colorado from the one-day convention we

attended in Anaheim in March of 1977, I gave a great deal of thought to what

I was going to do next to market the comics from Edgar Church's collection.

Clearly, our participation in that show had caused significant economic

turmoil, as the Church books ended up being just about the only Golden Age

comics that sold that day. That was great for us, but it made the show a

disaster for the dealer/collector attendees who were selling Golden Age

issues in lower grades.

The factor that aggravated this situation was Bob Overstreet's very narrow

pricing spread between the grades in his price guide. While it seems

ludicrous by today's standards, the 1976/77 Overstreet (that was the guide

that was in effect when I purchased the collection in January, 1977) had

Golden Age comics in "Mint" priced at only double the "Good" price. By 1977,

even Bob had come to recognize that this spread (which had been adopted for

his first guide in 1970) was too narrow to reflect the true scarcity of very

old comics in high grades, and changed the standard to "Mint" being triple

the "Good" price in the 1977/78 guide. While this change was an improvement,

I strongly felt that the demand for my high grade books was more in line

with two other collectibles fields with which I was familiar, coins and

stamps. In both of those hobbies older items in very high grades often

commanded a premium of ten to twenty times that similar items in common

grades. While I didn't believe at the time that spreads of that magnitude

were possible in comics (I certainly was proved wrong about that later

on...), I did believe that "Mint" should be at least 5X "Good." I also

believed that any comic published prior to 1960 was worth a minimum of $5 in

NM/M.

During the spring of 1977, we worked feverishly on trying to compiling a

catalog of the Church collection. Our job was made a bit easier by the fact

that approximately 20% of the books had either been sold by that point, or

traded to Jim Payne for his store. That still left us with about 14,000

different issues to individually grade and list, which took an enormous

number of man-hours. Then came the task of typing up the pages (on an old

manual typewriter, and laying them out on boards that fit the dimensions of

THE BUYER'S GUIDE. By the time we finished, the entire catalog came to a

stunning 52 full-size tabloid pages. Each page consisted of four typewritten

8 1/2 X 11 sheets, so the total list of comics was quite huge.

Before we started the listing, I had called Alan Light, who was then the

owner/publisher of THE BUYER'S GUIDE (later to become COMIC'S BUYER'S

GUIDE), and struck a deal with him to run our catalog at $40/page. When I

sent the catalog to him in mid-May, however, he was shocked at the final

number of pages. He had earlier agreed to give me 30-day billing on the

advertising cost, but when he saw that he would need to add three additional

signatures into that week's issue to accommodate our catalog he changed his

mind, and demanded cash up front.

That put me in a real bind, as I had used every cent we had getting the

catalog created. Given the enormity of the listings, it was easily evident

to me that we could have paid Alan his money within a week of publication.

He wouldn't listen to my arguments, however, despite having the listings in

his hands, so I had to go back to my friend Burrell Rowe to raise the money

for printing.

I mention this episode primarily because it illustrates an aspect to finding

the collection that most people don't realize. While from today's

perspective the collection seems like an unbelievable bonanza, I found that

ramping up our operations to handle the logistics of selling the collection

was a very expensive endeavor. Every time I turned around I had to sell

books wholesale in order to cover costs. What made this particularly painful

was that there was only one copy of each issue. Once it sold, it was gone,

forever. In overall, I estimate that I had to sell nearly a third of the

books in the collection just to cover the sales and administrative expenses

of bringing the collection to market. Most folks don't figure in those costs

when calculating the enormous windfall profit we supposedly reaped from

selling the collection.

After Burrell gave me the money to satisfy Alan's last-minute demands, the

catalog was finally published. As can be imagined, it caused an immediate

sensation throughout the comic book world. No one had ever seen such a large

listing of comics from the Golden Age, and the fact that they were mostly in

very high grades, simply astonished people. On the down side, the fact that

I had priced all the books at between 1.5X and 2X Mint Overstreet caused an

even greater reaction. While all the dealers/collectors who already owned

large quantities of lower-grade Golden Age issues breathed a sigh of relief

that I didn't flood the market with low-priced, high grade issues, others

were not nearly so positively impressed. It worked out that I received just

about as many rebukes for my pricing criteria, as we received orders.

I am mentioning this antipathy from the collecting community once again

because it dominated my life for many years after 1977. I find it incredibly

ironic that so many people ask me today if I regret selling all those great

Edgar Church books for a tiny fraction of their present worth. Gosh, if they

could only have been in my shoes in 1977. Getting hate mail from fellow

comic book fans all whom you thought were your friends is no fun. I knew

what I was doing was the right thing for the market, but sticking to my

beliefs came with a heavy personal price. It felt terrible to be ostracized

by the very community of comic fans that I had worked so hard to make an

integral part of my life.

Making that bitter pill a little easier to swallow was the success of the

first catalog. It didn't generate huge sales, maybe $15,000 in total, but it

set the stage for many future sales. Many collectors were afraid to order

from us directly (there had been a couple of big comic book mail order

frauds in recent memory), but they asked their local dealers to look into

picking up books for them. This led to a lively wholesale business for us,

where we typically sold to other dealers at 1.33X NM Overstreet. Those

dealers, in turn, sold the books at prices ranging from 2X to 3X Overstreet.

It was a pretty comfortable arrangement for everyone involved.

One question I am frequently asked is whether I have any regrets about the

fact that I sold 99% of the books from Edgar Church's collection long before

they attained the lofty values that they command today. Well, that's not a

simple question to answer. As a passionate comics fan, it pained me very

much every time I had to say good-bye to one of those beautiful comics. On

the other hand, I knew that those comics, in and of themselves, were just

colored pieces of paper if I kept them all for myself. The real magic of the

Mile High collection was in the potential that they represented for moving

the entire world of comics collecting to a new level of interest. By selling

the books, I helped create a demand for Golden Age comics that had never

previously existed. That demand for older books led to increased excitement

in the Silver Age and new comic markets. Had I have kept the Edgar Church

books under lock and key, I would have squandered their wonderful positive

energy, and in my eyes, that would have been as big a sin as the heirs

sending them off to the landfill. Only by selling the books to other

collectors and dealers could I let them manifest their potential for

creating goodness within the world of comics.

Another question I am frequently asked is whether I have had any further

contact with the Church heirs. My last visit to Edgar Church's house was in

late April of 1977, three months after the comics deal was concluded.

Despite their earlier haste, the Church heirs had not succeeded in selling

the house by that time, and kept calling me with more collectibles to buy.

In total, I believe I made six, or seven, additional trips to the house.

During the last trip, I purchased a few dozen posters they had found in the

attic. To help (in a small way) compensate them for the incredible bargain I

received in buying the comics, I paid them about double for the posters what

I would have paid anyone else. This was the same ratio I had employed when

calculating what to pay them for the items in Edgar's office, and for the

portion of his clippings files that I prevented from being thrown away.

Those extra payments didn't come close to compensating the heirs for the

value of the old comics, but since their original plan was to just throw

everything away, I know they got far more out of Edgar Church's paper

accumulations than they ever expected. After that last trip to the house, I

never heard from them again.

Like most of the rest of America, I saw the Spider-Man movie years ago. From

the days of my early teens, Spider-Man had always been my favorite

superhero, perhaps, in part, because my youth was just as miserable as Peter

Parker's. The scene in the film that really resonated with me, however, was

the episode in the lunchroom where Peter (and his classmates) first realizes

that he's gained powers beyond that of the rest of his peers. As weird as it

may sound, I felt that same way in 1977, when overnight, I went from being a

scrawny 98-lb financial weakling, to the owner of the most valuable comic

book collection in America. When I first found the collection, I was so

happy about my discovery that I told everyone I knew all about it. I gave

away comics from the collection freely to current and former staff members,

and I generally tried to be very open about what I had found. Boy howdy, was

I ever naive. Just as Peter Parker went from being despised, to being

feared, in just that single lunchroom episode, I found myself suddenly

categorized as being "wealthy."

While having a reputation for being wealthy may not seem such a bad thing,

it actually has enormous negative social repercussions. For example, most of

my friends/peers from my struggling days drifted away. My relationships with

some of original my staff members also turned sour, as I was hit with

unrealistic wage demands because "I could afford it..." Most galling of all,

I found myself being accosted, sometimes even attacked in public, by people

I didn't even know for either buying the collection too cheaply, or selling

the books for too much. I found these charges to be incredibly ironic, as

the perception of my "wealth" far exceeded the reality. Truth be told, after

selling costs and taxes, the Church books contributed less than $1,000 per

week into the Mile High Comics cash flow. While that is a significant amount

for a private individual, it is a very meager amount of growth capital for a

struggling young company. I did my best to invest that money wisely, but by

1987, it was essentially all gone. All I was left with were the Red Raven

#1, all the issues of The Spirit from Quality and Fiction House, and about

100 mixed issues that had piqued my personal interest. Oh, and 100% of the

stock in Mile High Comics, Inc.

I mention that last item with great pride, because I poured money into the

Mile High Comic book store bottomless pit long after everyone else I knew

had given up. While it may seem obvious today that building a company with

the largest operating database of comics in the world is a no-brainer for

making money, it sure seemed like a fool's errand during the dark days of

the late 1980's, and early 1990's, when we lived with seemingly perpetual

negative cash flow. Building our database and operating system was

ridiculously expensive, so much so that we came within 45 days of insolvency

during an exceptionally bleak period at the end of 1996.

With the introduction of the Internet in 1997, however, all of my

investments of the previous 20 years were validated. As incredible as it may

sound, I realized not that long ago that if I were now given the chance to

trade my stock in Mile High Comics for the return of all the Edgar Church

comics, I would keep my stock in Mile High Comics. While Edgar Church's

comics were his legacy, Mile High Comics will be mine. Church's comics might

still have greater value on paper, but Mile High is my creation, and it

grows stronger every day. We've now shipped over $70,000,000 in orders to

about 400,000 comic fans around the world. We've helped those fans build

their collections, and simultaneously helped the comics industry by

providing critical sales volume during even the darkest days. Upon

reflection, after 25 years I guess I've finally found peace. I'll still be

known to most people in the comic book world as the guy who found that great

collection, but that's now an attribution I can accept with equanimity.

Edgar Church helped me achieve my childhood dream and I've decided that

don't mind one bit sharing the credit with him. That's why I finally wrote

the columns you've just read. Thank you all very much for letting me share

my story with you. I hope you found my trip down memory lane as enjoyable as

I did.

[Timely]

Her death certificate cited Alzheimer's.

 

Ancestry.com is a great place if you are lucky enough not to be searching for someone named Joe Smith. I was surprised I couldn't find more info on his WWI service. They've uploaded a large number of draft cards with signatures but I couldn't find his.

 

I knew a guy named Joe Smith, a friend of my fathers. He was an artist who did work on many classic movie posters such as Ben Hur and Jaws. He worked for Disney for a while too. He did some Star Wars portrait cards (I believe for Topps) in the 90's. Great guy!

[cheetah]

Here are some tidbits you might not know about Edgar Franklin Church:

 

He was born in Plainville, Connecticut on November 28, 1888 and died May 5, 1978 in Denver, Colorado.

 

His parents were born in Massachusetts. Their names were William and Alice (Wright).

 

He had two brothers, William and Frederic. Frederic died before he was two months old.

 

He was a veteran of World War I.

 

His SS# was 521-07-0308.

 

In 1910 he was an Elevator Pilot at the YMCA and lived at 2485 Hooker Street in Denver, Colorado.

 

He was a commercial artist for the phone company in 1930.

 

In 1930 lived at 2331 Julian, Denver, Colorado.

 

His first wife's name was Edith Ann Collins.

 

His second wife's name was Helen and she was born in Kansas.

 

His childrens' names were Richard and Doris.

 

Doris Elsie Richardson died on February 16, 2010 in Arizona. Her children's names were Barbara, Linda and Donna.

 

Richard died January 4, 1981 in Long Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

I remember finding most of that info on ancestry.com years ago.

+1

I was also trying to find Doris. Did not know she had passed away.

 

Several attempts were made to contact her. She never replied to any mails or phone calls. We were guessing it was a sore topic she did not want to reopen.

 

She might not have answered because she had Alzheimer's.

[thehumantorch]

Why a Doc on him?

 

The discovery of the Edgar Church collection in 1977 is a good inflection point at which to tell the history of comic book collecting, in general.

 

It's not a documentary about Edgar, it's a narrative film about the hobby and the people who love comics. It's my attempt on a subject, that previous go-rounds like "Comic Book Villians" or "Comic Book Movie" did not fully satisfy.

 

The story is not about finding a closet full of comics, and cashing in. It's about what happens next. What is the context of the discovery? How did people react to it?

 

The highest possible aspiration of the film would be "The Social Network". That movie is not about technology. Rather, it's a story of people living their lives, against a specific backdrop. This just happens to be set in the world of comics.

 

Watching people manage intention and obstacle is the foundation of ALL storytelling.

 

Welcome to the boards DJ. Looking forward to the documentary

[dpj303-migration]

Thank you.

 

At the top of this thread, I've added a picture of the stairwell that lead to King Tut's basement.

[dpj303-migration]

 

So what's the plan? Take the short film on the festival circuit to solicit financing for the feature?

 

www.Kickstarter.com. We'll see how effective crowd sourcing the funding is. It's a long shot for the amount we'll need, but no harm in trying. It's all or nothing. Either we reach the goal or nobody gets charged.