This is eleventh in a series of articles by Art Cloos in which Scoop looks at comic collecting from the point of view of the dealer. Whether they are part-time dealers at shows or the biggest of the top players in the world of back issues, comic book dealers have been an integral part of comic fandom and its history, and this is an area we believe is in need of further exploration.

Cloos has been a passionate comic collector since the age of 10. He and his wife and partner in collecting, Alice, have spent many a day at shows across the U.S. looking for that next big find for their collections. His first comic convention was a Phil Seuling con in 1974. His love of the hobby and his interest with both the history of comics and their creators and of comic fandom comes from his background as a history teacher.

Mike Wilbur
Interviewed by Art Cloos

Mike Wilbur has been involved with comics since early childhood. He has collected and sold them for some 30 plus years now. He recently celebrated his 20th year working for Diamond International Galleries. Among other things, he is Scoop’s resident expert on statue and mini-bust collecting in addition to his comics background. And for sister company Gemstone Publishing, he has for years handled the shipping for the annual release of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

Scoop: Mike, we know how busy you are and really appreciate your taking the time to sit down with us for this interview. With that in mind, let’s start by asking how did you discover comics as a kid?
Mike Wilbur (MW): My first exposure to comics was as a toddler in the local barber shop. When I went with my father for haircuts, there was always a big pile of comics to read. As I recall, pretty much all of them were Dells and Harveys. A lot of Dell Disneys, including what I now know were Carl Barks duck books, and a lot of Dell Four Color movie and TV titles.

My ultimate reading preferences were strongly influenced by an uncle, veteran WW II pilot and a career newspaperman, who gave me several volumes of the “scientific adventure” Tom Swift Junior books for Christmas when I was five years old. He also supplied me with numerous other books in the “boys’ adventure” genre during my early years. My broadening imagination was now no longer satisfied with kids’ humor comics.

Scoop: What was your first comic obsession?
MW: I had always enjoyed reading comics, but didn’t actually own any until sometime in 4th grade, around late 1962 or early 1963. A friend introduced me to super-hero comics and the idea of actually saving or “collecting” them. It wasn’t until I found super-hero comics that I developed any favorite characters or titles. My first exposure to “serious” comics was to DC, and I gravitated fairly quickly to Green Lantern, with Flash and Atom in second and third place. I think it was probably the more sci-fi angle of these characters that attracted me at first.

Scoop: So, you were a DC fan as a kid?
MW: I didn’t discover Marvel Comics until maybe late 1964, and my favorites there became Daredevil, Iron Man, Captain America, and Dr. Henry Pym then known as Giant Man. Note once again the scientific origins of Iron Man and Giant Man, as well as the science-related origins of both Cap’s and Daredevil’s powers, even though neither were “science-heroes” per se.

Scoop: Did you have one of those “I left comics for other interests” periods that so many of us had at one time or another?
MW: Well, my family moved in 1966, in the summer between 7th and 8th grades, to a rural area which had no stores of any kind within several miles, ruling out a quick bicycle trip down the street to buy new comics. I had to wait for the family’s bi-weekly excursion for grocery shopping, and I would haunt the comic rack in the shopping center’s drug store while my parents were in the supermarket. Then, in late 1967, the drug store abruptly stopped selling comics. My parents were not inclined to drive me several more miles out of their way in search of a new source of comics, so I was forced into “cold-turkey” withdrawal.

Scoop: So that was it for reading comics at that time?
MW: Yes, then a few years later, when I finally got my driver’s license, comics no longer mattered to me. Or so I thought.

Scoop: Aha. What brought you back to them?
MW: I was still an avid reader, just not of comic books. Then, in early 1973, a new book store opened nearby. They were part of a chain owned by a local newsstand distributor, and they carried a full line of reading material, including comic books. I passed by the spinner rack and, as fate would have it, the first thing I saw was the current issue of my old Marvel favorite, Daredevil. For nostalgia’s sake, I picked it up along with an assortment of paperbacks, and drove home. I sat down and read the latest adventure of my “old friend” and, as soon as I finished, I got back in my car, drove back to the bookstore, and bought copies of every Marvel and DC comic on the rack. And I’ve been hooked without further interruption ever since.

Scoop: This book store did more than bring you back to comics, correct?
MW: Yes, it was as a regular customer of this bookstore that I met fellow comic collector Joe Vereneault, and we eventually started attending comic shows together when the first one was held in our area in 1975.

Scoop: Do you remember what your first comic show was?
MW: The first show I went to was a local convention organized by a group of local Philadelphia-South Jersey comic dealers, who banded together under the name DVCC, or Delaware Valley Comics Consortium. Their approach was a themed convention, with a specific character or concept as the focal point.

Scoop: From what I have heard about them those early Philly shows were really something I wish I had been able to get to, at least one of them.
MW: Their first event, in the Fall of 1975 was the “Red Sonja Con”. Marvel’s Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne was special guest (in his signature wizard’s robes and hat), as his entourage of red-haired women in Red Sonja-style armored bikinis. One of the Sonjas was Wendy Pini, who later became famous as artist and co-creator of Elfquest. The next year’s theme was Howard the Duck (who was riding high in popularity at the time), and the year after that was “Women in Comics”. Along with a few mall shows sprinkled in between, this marked the end of the DVCC and of locally-originating Con promotion. 1978 brought “The Big Time” to the area when Phil Seuling followed up his annual 4th-of-July Con in NYC with a show in Philly the following weekend. Then came Creation Conventions, and they were there so often they pretty much burned out the area’s taste for big shows for years to come. There were no more big shows in town for over 10 years until Wizard first came to Philly in 2001.

Scoop: Yeah, I went to so many Creation shows in NYC back in the day I lost count. They were a lot of fun even though comics sales became less and less an important part of their dealer base as they moved towards Star Trek and science fiction themes in general.
MW: I see today’s big shows as being far more polished and organized than some of those 1970s ones which is better for the hobby overall but at the same time they reflect a loss of innocence that we had back then.

Those early conventions had a lot looser and more free-wheeling atmosphere, and a lot less of a business-like vibe. The dealers’ room was a lot less about “investment” and more about collecting for the pure enjoyment of it. Not to say there weren’t investment-minded collectors at the time. As a specific example, take the difference in Joe Vereneault’s strategy vs. my strategy in the dealers’ room. When we went to those early Cons as fans, we would both spend about the same amount of money on comics, but Joe would usually go home with maybe two books and I would go home with two armloads of books. It was a matter of quality vs. quantity. Joe wanted the best he could score with his cash, while I wanted to fill the most holes in the collection as I could.

Scoop: What made you move into comic dealing?
MW: It’s all Joe’s fault! In his quest for high-grade investment-quality books, he discovered the original Sparkle City Comics, and became a regular customer of theirs. Then, they asked him if he would be interested in helping them out at shows, which he agreed to do. When Sparkle City partner Paul Howley decided to “retire” in 1981 and settle down with a store and a family instead of living out of a suitcase on the convention trail, Joe took the opportunity to move up in the organization and replaced Paul as a partner. A couple of months later, Joe asked me if I would be interested in helping out at shows, essentially filling the position vacated when he became a partner. I worked my first Con on February 6, 1982, and I’ve been there ever since.

Scoop: Was it strange to be selling comics for a living?
MW: Actually, I’ve got two unrelated jobs in the comics business, but both originated at the same point, when I was hired by Joe Vereneault to work conventions for Sparkle City. Since this was a part-time weekend “as needed” position, I kept my weekday job painting cars in an auto body shop. Nearly 10 years later, shortly after Joe severed his partnership with Jay at Sparkle City, Jay offered me the opportunity to switch to full time working on his Inside Comics magazine project. A few months later, Jay abandoned the magazine and sold the company to Steve Geppi. I continued full time with the company under Steve’s ownership. After fulfilling previous show commitments for the rest of the year, the former Sparkle City (now known by the interim name of Comic Investments) stopped setting up at conventions. This made me available, with Steve’s blessing, to resume working shows with Joe at his new company JHV Associates, since there would no longer be a conflict of interest.

Scoop: So, that is how you came to work with Joe?
MW: Pretty much. We both ended up at the same destination via different routes. The toughest thing with the convention job was learning the workings of retail sales and dealing with customers, especially the troublesome or “high maintenance” ones. I’ve always been more of a facilitator and behind-the-scenes type, not the “front man.” Dealing with the public was always outside my comfort zone, but I’ve gotten accustomed to it after 30 years on the job. My main issue now in dealing with the public is a tendency to get drawn into comic history or trivia conversations with customers or simple information seekers at conventions, which can distract from focusing on the actual sales aspect of the job. I try to be conscious of this and avoid getting drawn in, but I’m not always successful.

Scoop: It’s very different from working for Diamond International Galleries, I am sure.
MW: Yes, when working at the office, this is not usually an issue because few people have access to the “inner sanctum” where I do most of my work for Diamond International Galleries and its interconnected sister companies such as Gemstone Publishing, Hake’s Americana, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, and of course the Scoop e-newsletter. For this job, the learning curve was a bit easier since the job was essentially tailored around me and my particular areas of knowledge and expertise. New layers of responsibility just gravitated to me over the years as my position evolved.

Incidentally, I’m hitting two landmark anniversaries in the business this year. February 6 marked 30 years since I started with Sparkle City, and July 1 marked 20 years since I became part of the Diamond organization.

Scoop: So you have seen a lot of changes in the collecting world since you started?
MW: Yes, for a start there are a lot more professional collectors. There are still some wide-eyed “newbies” showing up from time-to-time, but most of our dealings seem to be with seasoned collectors. Thirty years ago, the majority of convention customers could still have been considered “rookies.”

Scoop: Everyone brings something different to the table when they take on a new role. What do you think was your contribution to the selling of vintage comics?
MW: As I noted earlier, I’m more of a behind-the-scenes guy. I’ve been there for the excavation of collections, digging through basements, unearthing buried treasure, hauling countless truckloads of boxes. As far as sales, I’ve been able to educate some buyers on the significance of particular books they’ve considered buying to help them make a more informed decision, or to point them in a better defined direction of what they’re looking for.

Scoop: How do you see the hobby today?
MW: The dominance of the “professional” collectors and the attending shift to a “real business” model in the industry has resulted in a sort of “loss of innocence,” and a loss of the “sense of wonder” that conventions (and comic books in general) once had. It does give me a nostalgic feeling when I see someone obviously attending their first convention, to see the wide-eyed stare and the incredulous reaction to the whole experience. We were all that guy at some point in the past, and it’s kind of a shame to have lost that feeling. Too much about the business and not enough about the sheer fun and joy comics were originally meant to inspire. “You want to read it? But that will degrade the condition and kill the resale value!” It’s become less of a hobby and more of a business. Conventions have become the comic industry equivalent of the Stock Exchange.

Scoop: Mike that is so true. I have a student who is in the discovery phase of reading comics. He is so totally into learning all he can about them both past and present. DC’s New 52 is his Golden Age of comics and he so wants to go to his first big time show. He could care less about condition as long as he gets to read his books and ultimately that is how it should be. What advice would you have for someone starting in the business of selling today?
MW: Be very tenacious, very patient, and have very, very deep pockets, because that’s the only way you will be able to build an inventory and make any inroads into the business. You won’t get far these days just backing the station wagon up to the door of the hotel meeting room and setting up beat-up cardboard boxes to sell well-read copies of old funny books. There is a place for that, but you’d better not give up your day job if that’s your business plan.

Scoop: Some dealers are content though just selling part time that way but you are right if you are going to do it full time you definitely need a plan to make it work. And of course with all that technology out there the way we read comics and comic strips are slowly changing. How do you think digital will affect the hobby?
MW: There will always be people who want the tactile sensation of holding a physical book in their hands for a variety of legitimate reasons. Maybe it’s the idea of getting an actual physical object in exchange for the money they spend, or the smell of the ink and the paper, or just the idea that you can flip the pages back and forth to any random point you like without having to fondle some electronic device as an intermediary.

Scoop: Mike, we really appreciate your finding the time to sit for this talk. Thanks lots. See you at the next show.