C E
Member Since April 2006 2502 Artworks | Watched by 84
CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material
If I wasn't born to be a collector, I certainly became one at a very early age. I can distinctly remember when and where each area of great interest first came about. My first of many Steiff stuffed animals, the large size of Disney's Perry the squirrel, was sitting in a window of a San Francisco drug store on a family vacation just before I started kindergarten in 1960. While I would now and then convince my mother to buy me comic books at our local market from an even earlier date, I actually began actually collecting comics one day during Christmas vacation in 1963. My first Golden Age comic, a Batman #21 for $5, came in Feb 1966 as a result of my first visit to Collectors [note, no apostrophe] Book Store at its original location in Hollywood, CA. I bought my first piece of original comic art, a page from Justice League of America #21 for $7, in an elevator of the U.S. Grant Hotel during the first San Diego Comic Book Convention [ComiCon] in August 1970. While my first comic strip original was a 1954 Peanuts daily for $90 in October 1974, I actually decided to form a collection of comic strips during a conversation with Howard Lowery while driving on the 405 Freeway in October 1990. I bought my first animation cel, of Peter Pan, for $125, at Collectors Book Store in December 1979, and my first Disney publicity drawing, from Mickey's Man Friday ($85) from the same store in July of that year. And my first English watercolor was bought at auction at Sotheby's Belgravia in London for £240 on 7 Feb 1978.
I stopped colecting stuffed animals long ago, but I still have all of my Steiffs, including all three sizes of Perry. I continued to collect comic books on a massive scale until 1999, but I sold most of the important ones over the years to buy animation art and English watercolors. The JLA page is gone, but it was replaced by many other comic book originals. My first Peanuts strip was also sold, as was the Peter Pan Cel, but they really aren't missed. And I still have the publicity drawing and the watercolor, which says a lot about my evolving priorities as a collector over the past 60 years. Since I'm getting up in years, I've decided to begin sharing many previously untold anecdotes regarding pieces in my collection, which might be of interest or even some use to those who haven't been at all of this for quite so many years. I'll withhold the actual names of others who have been involved with my acquisitions, to protect the guilty parties. Galleres with commentaries are marked with an *
Sketchbook (6)
