As a kid growing up in the ’60s, comic books were a way for Mike Boyd to get away from it all.
“I’m not an only child, but I might as well have been. My three brothers were all …
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As a kid growing up in the ’60s, comic books were a way for Mike Boyd to get away from it all.
“I’m not an only child, but I might as well have been. My three brothers were all at least 10 years older than me, and I grew up right outside Pittsburgh. I was born in ’64, so I was pretty small in the early ’70s, and I’ve always been fascinated by TV and movies and storytelling,” he said.
“My grandfather was a great storyteller. He thought he was a novelist himself. He would write books and print them on a printing press out of his basement. And one time to occupy me, he bought me a bag of comic books. I’ve had a comic-reading obsession through my whole life. I’ve never stopped reading comics. I’ve pretty much been reading straight through from about 1971 or so.”
Now living in Dover, Mr. Boyd is a retired English teacher, having taught at Lake Forest High School for 33 years. But he hasn’t lost his passion for comic books.
He’ll give a presentation, titled “History of American Comic Books,” during Dover Comic Con on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Biggs Museum of American Art.
“There was a psychologist who did a study — and I’m using air quotes when I say study — but he interviewed somebody who was in prison who said that they read comics when they were a child. And so he then dragged a connection to juvenile delinquency from comics,” Mr. Boyd said.
“And so during the ’50s, comics got a bad rap — a pretty undeserved bad rap, in all honesty — (and) I remember my brother saying, ‘You know you’re going to poison your mind.’ I’m not a dumb person. I have a degree of literature. I taught (Advanced Placement) literature. I’ve read the classics. I’ve read Shakespeare. But I still love my comics.”
He said he collects many types of comic books.
“I’m a Marvel guy. Probably two-thirds of my collection are Marvel books, but I really collect anything,” he said.
“I do have a lot of DC stuff. I do have a lot of independent stuff. One of my favorite books right now as an independent is called ‘Stray Dogs,’ that I really enjoy. It’s a wide variety. Same for movies. I like a lot of different stuff.”
He says his most valuable book, from 2012, is called “Ultimate Fallout.” It’s the first appearance of Miles Morales as the new Spider-Man.
“It’s going between $800 and $1,000 pretty regularly. I have a ‘Tomb of Dracula’ No. 1 that’s worth about $600. So those are my two babies, probably. I do have a really neat book from 1941 that I adore. It’s the fifth issue of ‘Disney’s Comics and Stories.’ It’s the first appearance of Goofy in a comic book,” he said.
Comic books are now a big business. In fact, Mr. Boyd said he’s never seen them more popular and more valuable.
“They said during what they call the Golden Age, which was the 1940s, that every comic was expected to be read by at least eight people. There was an understanding that you would read it, you’d fold it up, stick it in your pocket and hand it off to somebody else,” he said.
“That’s why anything from that time period, if it’s in any kind of condition at all, is worth huge amounts of money because nobody ever dreamed that they would become collectible or worth it. They were simply child’s entertainment.”
He has given the talk about the history of U.S. comic books a few times before, particularly at previous Dover Comic Cons.
“It was sort of a natural evolution from teaching. I had kids at school who were interested in comics, and you’d see one with a comic book and go, ‘Hey, that’s a good book. I read that,’ and they’d look at you like you’re insane. The more you talked to them, you knew you knew a lot of things they did. I’ve always been really fascinated how things happened,” he said.
Mr. Boyd said the first known instances of comic books were the brainchild of a man named Max Gaines.
“He was a publisher. Back in the early ’30s in New York, he was sitting one day at the train station, and he was watching people get the newspaper, and they would read the comic section and throw the newspaper away. He watched it over and over and over, and he thought, ‘Well, why don’t we just take all those (comic strips) and bind them together?’ So he produced a book called ‘Famous Funnies,’ probably without any copyright,” Mr. Boyd said.
“They basically copied the funny pages and sold them pretty quickly. They later figured out, rather than paying rights to the owners, they could simply get people to write and draw their own comics. And the next thing you know, you had a cutthroat business of people vying for the 10 cents, which is what they would have cost then.”
Although comic books are thriving now, Mr. Boyd said that wasn’t always so.
“Things kind of started to slide in the mid-’90s. Marvel almost went out of business in the mid-’90s. I don’t know if people realize how bad things were. They had filed for bankruptcy. And then, the movies kind of turned things around. When the Marvel Universe started in 2008 with ‘Iron Man,’ money started to flow in and with the purchase from Disney, they are a multibillion-dollar corporation now,” he said.
“Marvel right now is using what I like to call a spaghetti approach. They are just publishing book after book after book and just throwing it out and seeing what people buy. DC is trying to be a little more streamlined, just putting a lot of limited series out and seeing what people buy. But there are other companies like Boom and Image that are thriving — companies that honestly weren’t even on the map a few years ago.”
Also at the Biggs, at 406 Federal St., staff and alumni from the Delaware College of Art and Design will be answering questions about their college and teen programs. They’ll also give guests the supplies to create their own animated flipbooks. All day, Biggs Kids can also create their own superhero “bracers” or cuffs, plus shoulder dragons.
Dover Comic Con runs all day, with vendors and activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., plus an afternoon concert from 4-5:30 by the band Middle 8. There will be tons of photo ops, indoors and outdoors, as well as nearly 100 vendors, artists and artisans, authors, a cosplay competition, fan groups, pop-culture cars, food trucks and activities.
The event is presented by the Delaware State News with the support of many local businesses, the Dover Public Library, the city of Dover and 2021 signature sponsor, the Dover Federal Credit Union.
The avenues downtown will feature dozens of vendors for every geek passion: original art, comic books, T-shirts, cosplay and steampunk accessories, action figures, miniatures, event merchandise from Silver City Mugs and more.
Character guests will include everyone from superheroes to merfolk and pro wrestlers from TKO Productions/DCW. Sharing the spotlight will be the Batmobile, a DeLorean and a “Jurassic Park” Jeep.
Food trucks will offer street treats, including tacos, barbecue, breakfast sandwiches, pasta, sausages, shaved ice, funnel cakes and deep-fried deliciousness.
Anime takes center stage at the library, where the Delaware Anime Society will host a scavenger hunt, sell Japanese snacks, offer giveaways and show six hours of back-to-back television shows.
Also at the library: expert-level face-painting (Christy Shaffer), photo ops with your favorite princess (Pursuit for Peace Princesses), along with Star Wars good guys and bad guys (Rebel Legion’s Ghost Base and the 501st Legion’s First State Garrison).
Attendees are invited to dress up, whether wearing a favorite fan shirt or pin or creating an entire original costume.
The free costume contests sponsored by Red Bandana are open to all ages on The Green at State Street:
Ladybug set for Milford
Speaking of fun festivals, it was announced Thursday that the Ladybug Music Festival will return to Milford on Oct. 2 from 2-7 p.m. More details to come.
‘Invasion’ at museum
A new exhibit opened this week at the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village in Dover.
“Invasion of the Invertebrates” centers on a collection of various species of invertebrates (mainly insects and crustaceans) on temporary loan to the museum by Dennis Hall of Georgetown.
Mr. Hall moved to Delaware from New York, where he worked as keeper of the Reptile House at the Staten Island Zoo, a career spanning 33 years.
Featured among his extensive collection of once-living invertebrates are insects native to Delaware (and those from all over the world), including the Eastern hercules beetle (the largest member of the beetle family found in Delaware) and the cicada killer (the largest wasp).
The exhibit will be in place through October.
Museum admission fees apply: $5 for adults (18 and over); $3 for youth (ages 6-17); free for children 5 and younger.
For more information, go online.
Tower of Power
Next week brings Tower of Power to Freeman, Thursday at 7 p.m.
For more than 50 years, Tower of Power has delivered funk and soul music.
“We were originally a soul band called The Motowns,” recalled band leader Emilio Castillo. “Rocco was the bass player, I was there, and my brother was the drummer. I met ‘Doc’ Kupka back in 1968 and gave him an audition.
“He came in the band, and we eventually changed our name to the Tower of Power. From there, as they say, the rest is history.”
As it relates to touring, it’s “time to shake off the rust, hit the road and kick up some dust,” he said.
For tickets, go online.
Now showing
New in theaters this weekend is Ryan Reynolds in the video game fantasy film, “Free Guy”; the Aretha Franklin biopic, “Respect”; and the horror sequel, “Don’t Breathe 2.”
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