Heritage Auction Director John Petty was born on May 28, 1962 in Hagerstown, Maryland. But he didn't stay there. His father's job as a corporate writer and editor sent the family packing and nesting in cities like Wilmington, DE; Big Flats, NY; Admore, PA and Long Island. His earliest introduction to comics came in 1966, when at the age of four, the Batman TV show debuted. Between then and now, he somehow managed to squeeze in a BA in Voice from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio-which pretty much makes him one of the very few and the very proud who can claim the title of classically trained, opera-singing comics collector.

Scoop: When did you first notice comics and did you start collecting then?

Honestly, I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of comics. The BATMAN TV show debuted when I was four years old (1966), and I was hooked. My dad and I watched that show religiously every Wednesday and Thursday night. God help anyone who got in the way of my BATMAN time! At that age, the greatest compliment I could pay someone was to allow them to be Robin! Several years after that, I remember the MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY show, with all those great Gantry-Lawrence limited-animation cartoons. I remember that show was on opposite THE GALLOPING GOURMET, which was my mother's favorite show, so we used to tussle over who got control of the TV for that period of time.

I don't think the concept of "collecting" comics was anything anyone thought about at that time, but I do remember that comics, to a great extent, taught me to read. My parents didn't have anything against my brothers and I reading comics, but my mom had a rule: she would read a comic to us once and once only. After that, if we wanted to read them again, we were on our own. In hindsight, it was a very good rule, as we all learned to read very early and developed strong vocabularies at a very early age (one thing you can say about Stan Lee is that he never wrote down to his audience).

Scoop: What about comics made you into a reader/collector?

I've always been a voracious reader. I come by it honestly; my whole family is that way. My parents were both journalists, so they were always reading, and we grew up around books and magazines and comics. I guess my parents' thought was, initially, as long as we were reading something, that was good.

Even more than my brothers, I've always been drawn to the more fantasy-related stuff. Maybe it was growing up, or at least becoming media-aware, at the height of Batmania in the mid-1960s. You certainly couldn't escape superheroes then.

As far as being a collector, that also goes way back. I remember, when I was about five, a friend and I discovered a pile of old PLAYBOYS in a field. We didn't know what we were looking at (remember, this was a much more innocent time), but I did find, in one issue, that great Vargas pin-up of a topless Batgirl ("How do you like THIS dynamic Duo?") It was Batgirl, so I ripped it out and very proudly took it home and showed my mom. To Mom's credit, she didn't freak out, she just said, "That's very nice, John, but she looks cold without a shirt. How about we make her one?" Mom proceeded to make a "shirt" for Batgirl out of black felt and pasted it on the picture. I didn't care. All I knew was that I had a picture of Batgirl to hang in my room. The beginnings of an art collection.

Scoop: What was the first comic you remember buying?

The first comic I remember actually choosing for myself was LOIS LANE #54 (January, 1965), because it had a cool purple monster on the cover. I asked my Dad to buy it for me, and he balked, saying, "But that's a girl's comic book." He finally relented, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Scoop: How long from the time you first bought a comic until you considered yourself a collector?

I didn't really start "collecting" in any kind of organized way until I was about 12. That's when I started cataloging the comics I owned and searching for back issues, rather than just randomly buying and reading issues off the newsstands. But as I said, comics had been a part of my life forever before that point.

Scoop: What were your early favorites?

I was definitely a Marvel guy. IRON MAN was an early favorite, as was CAPTAIN AMERICA, especially the Kirby stuff. One of the issues I remember having and reading very clearly, and still one of my very favorites to this day, was CAPTAIN AMERICA #106 ("Cap Goes WILD!!", October, 1968), a great story about brotherhood, patriotism, loyalty, betrayal, and the triumph of good over evil. It's still amazing to me how much Stan and Jack managed to cram into a single issue. No one, before or since, has ever come close to doing what those two did.

Of course, we'll get to MISTER MIRACLE later.

Scoop: How did your collecting develop from that point?

Pretty haphazardly, as I recall. Again, I didn't really start "collecting" until about age 12. I remember going to the library with my dad at one point (I was probably about 7 or 8) and, while Dad did whatever he was doing, I found a copy of Jules Feiffer's THE GREAT COMIC-BOOK HEROES. That was it, I was lost. I didn't read his text pieces in that book at that time, but I remember reading the reprints of the great Golden Age material for the first time and realizing that comics were more than what I was seeing on the newsstands. This really was the beginning of my fascination with the history of the artform.

Scoop: Did you have other collecting habits, too? If so, what?

I absolutely have the collecting gene. If it's there, I'll collect it. Currently, aside from comics and comic art, I'm also actively collecting movie posters and lobby cards (I just completed lobby sets for both GIGANTIS THE FIRE MONSTER and KING KONG VS. GODZILLA), non-sports cards (just completed my original MARS ATTACKS set at this last Mid-Ohio Con. Let the upgrading begin!), and vintage Captain Actions (another childhood favorite). I've also, at one time or another, collected James Bond and Philo Vance first editions, animation art, autographs, antique pocket watches, Robin Hood books, DVDs, Royal Doulton figural jugs, comic-related statues and busts, toys, English horse brasses, Green Man stuff, and magic tricks and paraphernalia, among other things. I don't know what it is that separates collectors from non-collectors. My brothers don't seem to have this affliction, nor do my parents or my wife. None of them have anything that they actively "collect" like I do.

Scoop: How and why did you begin collecting other subjects?

Different reasons, I suppose. Opportunity mostly, I suspect. Movie posters and lobby cards had been something I'd dabbled in, but when I started at Heritage and met Grey Smith, he really stoked the fires of my interest and now I'm collecting movie material like crazy. The James Bond and Philo Vance firsts (which I've since sold) were available to me at a mystery bookstore on Long Island. I enjoyed reading them, and had an opportunity to start a collection, which I did. My maternal grandfather had been a big pocket watch collector, and when he died I inherited part of his collection, which I've added to sporadically over the years. If I'm not careful, I can certainly see myself starting a collection of ancient coins.

Each field of collecting has something inherently interesting about it. Movie posters are a touchstone to a certain period of Hollywood. Captain Action is pure nostalgia. Pocket watches, especially railroad watches, are a connection to a certain point in American history. Pursuing these has given me an opportunity to learn about all these different areas, which I find fascinating.

Scoop: How did your family react to collecting? Were they supportive? Disinterested?

My Dad always felt that comics were a waste of money. I remember discovering a store that sold back issue comics (this was about 1976, so it was way before "comic shops" as we know them today were born). I bought a copy of IRON MAN ANNUAL #1 (August, 1970) for which I paid the princely sum of 75 cents. My dad hit the roof that I would spend so much on a single comic book. I was grounded for a week "or until you learn the value of money!" Whenever Dad wanted to punish me, he forbade me from buying comics (of course, I'd still buy them and smuggle them into the house under my shirt).

Of course, after years of "What's all this money wasted on comics ever going to amount to?", my proudest moment, soon after getting the job at Heritage, was saying to my Dad, "Look at me now."

I don't mean to come off too harsh on my Dad. He's thrilled with my position at Heritage, reads through each of our catalogs, and has even come to several auctions. To be fair, none of us could have foreseen where "those worthless comic books" would take me.

My brothers were into comics to an extent growing up, but not as much as I was. We actually went through a period where we changed our names (we were tired of John, Dan and Doug). I was probably around 10 or 11, they were 4 or 5. I became Tony (Stark), Doug was Bruce (Wayne) and Dan was Steve (Rogers). Nobody else called us anything but our given names, but we were pretty serious about it among ourselves.

One of the coolest Christmas presents we ever got was the year my Dad (who was really into painting at the time), did paintings of panel enlargements of some of our favorite characters. He did a Gene Colan CAPTAIN MARVEL panel for me, a Sal Buscema VISION panel for Doug, and a Frank Robbins CAPTAIN AMERICA panel for Dan. I've still got all three of them, and they're still cool.

Scoop: Did any of your family members collect comics or other items? If so, what?

Not really. My brother, Dan, is a professional guitarist in LA (he's played with LeeAnn Rimes, Kurt Smith, and others, and he and his wife just sold a song to Disney for the upcoming BAMBI II DVD), so he's always looking for cool guitars, but I don't think he'd say he's a collector. As I mentioned earlier, you have to go back to my maternal Grandfather for the last real collector in the family.

Scoop: Did you drift away from comics at any point (as some collectors do), or did you stick with them as you grew up? (And either way, why?)

Unlike most people, I stuck with comics all throughout Jr. high, high school and college. I've sold my collection several times, for one reason or another, but I never gave up comics. As to why, it just never occurred to me to do so. Besides, I always enjoyed reading them.

My first job, at 14, working in a small, privately-owned bookstore was probably a large part of the reason why (remind me to tell you about this place sometime. It was called "One of the 10 best bookstores on Long Island" by the New York Times, and if you're as much a bookstore lover as I am, which I suspect you are, you'll enjoy hearing about this place.)

So anyway, I start working at this place after school at 14. By 15, I'm doing most of the ordering, and by 16, I'm running the place over the summer when the owner goes on vacation. I literally did everything but write the checks and pay the bills. Anyway, the owner, a gal named Marsha, gave me a pretty free hand in ordering, so I made sure we had all the in-print DOC SAVAGE paperbacks, for example, and anything having to do with comics. We had all the Crown reprint volumes (Superman from the 30s to the 70s, etc), the Nostalgia Press oversized EC hardcover, SECRET ORIGINS OF DC SUPERHEROES hardcover, ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, etc. Additionally, the owner's son had been a big collector of comics in the 1960s, and she ended up selling his collection. I was able to buy whole runs of ADVENTURE (the Legion issues), WORLD'S FINEST, BRAVE AND THE BOLD, etc., (yes, he was a big DC guy), and the best part was Marsha would let me buy all this on credit and then deduct it from my pay. As you can imagine, there wasn't a lot of take-home involved with this job.

I kept this job all the way through high-school, and then sporadically throughout college (the owner's health problems didn't allow her to keep the store going much after that, but it was great while it lasted). Also, she was the first and only person I've ever known who lived on a houseboat.

Scoop: Do you have any good stories about the one that got away?

I remember going to a convention on Long Island in about 1986. I had just started collecting original art (a hobby that was definitely in its infancy at the time; I was buying JRJR Spider-Man covers for $100, pages for $5-10), and I was pleased to meet Bob Layton at this show. He had some great IRON MAN art from his first run on that title that he was selling, and I bought a bunch. He then showed me the cover of IRON MAN #150 (September, 1981) - that great cover with Iron Man facing off against Dr. Doom - and he wanted...wait for it... $150 for it. I couldn't imagine paying $150 for a single piece of art and I passed. I still regret that decision to this day.

Scoop: What were your favorites as you matured?

Like everyone else, I loved the Claremont/Byrne/Austin X-MEN and the Wolfman/Perez TEEN TITANS. I thought Bill Willingham's ELEMENTALS had a great deal of promise that seemed to fizzle out as time went on. I remember thinking that TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES was a cool first issue, but too full of in-jokes and topical references to really go anywhere. I really liked the Marvel "expansion" titles of the late 1970s, like NOVA, OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, and THE CHAMPIONS. I never really got into the war or western books. THE SANDMAN, PREACHER, early issues of HELLBLAZER, SWAMP THING were all favorites. I really miss PREACHER.

Scoop: What comics do you read now?

I still read a lot of what's currently published. Some favorites include: FABLES, KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE ILLUSTRATED, JSA, IRON MAN (now that John Miller is on the title. I came really close to dropping this book recently, just holding on through sheer nostalgia. John has done a great job, IMO, of making this character interesting again), X-STATIX, FANTASTIC FOUR, JLA/AVENGERS, GOTHAM CENTRAL are all favorites. I keep up with a lot of the Marvel books, like AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE ULTIMATES, some X-MEN titles and quite a few DC, including JUSTICE LEAGUE, GREEN ARROW, HAWKMAN, THE FLASH, etc., but most of these tend to vary in quality from month to month. I'm probably forgetting something really cool that I'll remember when we talk. I'm also a sucker for DC's Archives and Marvel's Masterworks. I buy just about all of these.

Scoop: Compare what excited you about comics as a kid to what excites you about them now. Is it the same thing?

I think it is the same thing. To me, comics are our shared, modern mythology, the stories we tell about gods and monsters around the campfires. The ancient Greeks and Romans told stories about Zeus and Hercules and Diana and Aphrodite. We tell stories about Batman and Superman and Luke Skywalker and James Bond. The only difference is in the details, as far as I'm concerned. Heroic fantasy has been with us since the dawn of man, and it shows no signs of going away. There's something inherently thrilling about people with "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men." We've all fantasized about being able to fly or turn invisible or bend iron bars. Comics are wish-fulfillment, one one level.

On another level, comics are, or can be, very moralistic tales that provide us with role models that we can look up to. This is an argument that's harder to make in these days of "grim and gritty" heroes, but Superman still stands for "truth, justice and the American Way." Batman is still a force for uncompromising justice. Wonder Woman is a force for tolerance and equality. The Fantastic Four still represent the best that families can be. Spider-Man is still about power and responsibility (even in the movies). Not to make too much of this point, but I think it's interesting that the characters that have survived the longest and made the greatest impact on modern society have been those heroes that express this higher sensibility. Does that make sense?

Scoop: What are the prizes of your collection?

Tough question. Which kid do you love the most? If you were to hold a gun to my head, I'd probably pick the splash page to MISTER MIRACLE #18 as my favorite. It shows MM, Oberon and Barda getting MM ready for an escape. It's a cool Kirby splash, and one that I'm proud to own.

Scoop: You have a large collection of Mister Miracle sketches by numerous artists...When did Mister Miracle become one of your favorite characters and why?

I remember very distinctly buying MISTER MIRACLE #1 off the stands in 1971 (I was nine years old). Initially attracted by the cool, garish, over-the-top Kirby cover, I was immediately drawn into the whole riff of a "Super Escape Artist". I think there was also a one-page text piece on Houdini in one of those early issues. I was highly intrigued by the character, and always sought out other appearances by MM as I grew up. In fact, I was so taken with the character that I actually made my living for three years as a magician and escape artist. I worked the Tri-State area as "John Ravenstone", and have actually performed Houdini's Upside-Down Straight Jacket Escape. And I owe it all to Jack Kirby, and, indirectly, to Jim Steranko. One of my biggest regrets is that I never got the chance to meet Jack and tell him how greatly he had influenced my life.

Scoop: Whose sketch is the most Kirby-like?

Actually, what I like about the collection is that each sketch represents the artist's own vision, rather than being a clone or copy of "The King". A lot of artists have asked, "So do you want a Kirby Mister Miracle", to which I've replied, "No, I want YOUR Mister Miracle."

Scoop: Whose is the funniest?

Fred Hembeck's cover recreation of MISTER MIRACLE #1 would be right up there, as would Brendan and Brian Fraim's "unpublished" MM cover, showing Our Hero vs. Robot Monster.

The first time I met Adam Hughes at a convention, I asked him for a MM sketch. He said, "Can I do anything with it I want?", to which I said, "Sure." I went away and about an hour later came back to Adam's table. He handed me a sketch of a wooden crate, sealed shut, bound with chains. He said, "In five minutes, this will be Mister Miracle."

Scoop: Who took it in a direction you didn't expect?

There are a couple of sketches that my friend Jim Pitts got from some of his underground comics artist friends that can't be shown in a family publication, but are cool and wonderful nonetheless. Certainly a different take...

Reggie Byers went above and beyond in a sketch request. What started out as a simple black-and-white character sketch became a full-color MM, bound in chains on a plank over the water about to break with missiles heading towards him and...Reggie got all caught up in it, and finished by signing it, "I had fun!"

Dan DeCarlo, being the incredible gentleman he always was, did a great take on MM swinging above the city on a rope with a gun in his hand. He admitted he had no idea who MM was, but he was game to try. Dan was a great guy and is sorely missed.

I met Batton Lash at a convention in Dallas several years ago, and, being a big SUPERNATURAL LAW fan, I asked him to do a Mister Miracle sketch for me. He demurred, saying he really wasn't set up to do sketches right then, but if I'd give him my address, he'd do something when he got home and send it to me. I assumed this was Batton's very polite way of turning me down, but I gave him my address and thought no more about it. Several weeks later, I get a package in the mail from Mr. Lash. It's a full-sized, cover-quality illustration, with logos and everything, featuring Mister Miracle and Wolff and Byrd. It's a marvelous piece, and I'm still blown away that Batton would go to all that trouble for me. If you've ever met him at a show, you know that he's the very definition of a true gentleman.

Scoop: What's your favorite sketch?

Aside from the pieces I've talked about above, I'd have to mention several others:

a.. Pat Broderick did a great full-figure Mister Miracle for me at Heroes Con last year that is just superb. It's a crime this man isn't getting more work.
b.. Mike Grell did a beautiful watercolor commission for me about a year ago. Stunning and subtle, Mike was really "on" for this one.
c.. Matt Wagner did a beautiful full-figure portrait in colored pencils at WonderCon several years ago.
d.. Gary Gianni was nice enough to do a pen-and-ink sketch of Mister Miracle in chains hanging upside-down over a huge monster. Like the best of Gary's work, this one has the quality of a fine woodcut. It's really different and really stunning.
e.. Joe Linsner did a beautiful piece for me that has a very delicate, almost a feminine quality to it. Joe is a big Kirby fan, and said he really enjoyed the opportunity to draw this character.
f.. Sergio Aragones, of course, is always great, and his big-nosed MM is a classic.
g.. I met Rudy Nebres at a Big Apple show about a year ago, and commissioned him to do a MM for me. What I got was a full-color, mixed media portrait that has to be seen to be believed. Rudy has truly gotten even better since doing his classic Warren work in the 1970s.
If push came to shove, however, probably my favorite piece at the moment is my newest acquisition, the MM v. Robot Monster cover by the Fraims. You'll have to see this one.

Of course, the big hole in this collection, aside from an original Kirby sketch (somewhat assuaged by the published Kirby pages I have), is a Mister Miracle sketch by Jim Steranko, the inspiration for the character. I've never met Jim, and never had the opportunity to ask him for a piece like this, but maybe someday... Anyway, that's just a few highlights. I can get you copies of whatever you'd like, whether you want them for publication or just for yourself. I'm always happy to share.

Scoop: You also collect Robot Monster themed art. What types of pieces do you have and do you collect any other themes?

Robot Monster, star of my very favorite 1950s sci-fi flick, is a relatively new theme, and one that I'm very happy with. Like Mister Miracle, it has the advantage of being a theme that is not often requested ("You want me to draw Wolverine AGAIN#@*($&^#*(@!!!"), so I get some very fresh, very interesting results. I'm looking forward to adding to this one during the upcoming convention season. So far, I've gotten some great piece by guys like Steve Lieber, Dave Aikens, Leonard Kirk, Mark Wheatley, Steve Conley, Tom Mandrake and others. It's a small collection right now, but I think it has a lot of potential.

Another "theme" that's been very interesting is this: My brother and his wife had their first baby, a little girl named Isabel, a year ago last Thanksgiving. Being the doting uncle, I decided that every kid should have a copy of THE WIZARD OF OZ, so I bought her a facsimile of the first edition. It has lots of blank pages in it, on the backs of chapter/title pages, etc. I've taken it around to conventions for over a year now, asking people to do Wizard of Oz-themed sketches in it, and the results have been remarkable. Everyone from P. Craig Russell to George Perez to Terry Austin to Tommy Castillo to Scott Kurtz to the Fraim Brothers...everyone I've approached about this has been really accessible and really supportive and has done phenomenal work. It's going to be really hard to give this one away, but my hope is that this is something Isabel will treasure all her life. Hey, you can't start these kids collecting original art too early, right?

I also realized recently, that, without really trying, I had put together a pretty cool collection of IRON MAN pages and sketches.

Scoop: You also collect Windsor McCay related art. What is it about Windsor McCay that you find interesting?

It's not so much that I collect McCay art, as that I want to collect McCay art.
McCay was definitely ahead of his time. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that McCay is definitely ahead of OUR time. One of the few comic strip artists to truly transcend his genre and to be accepted fully as "fine art", McCay brought a wonderful surrealism to his work that few, if any, artists have matched. George Herriman, of KRAZY KAT fame, is the only comic strip artist I'd put in McCay's class.

McCay combined a wonderful, delicate line, a gentle sense of humor, and an uncanny awareness of his era to create a strip that is, at once, a reflection of its period and, at the same time, truly timeless. Fully a product of early 20th-century America, with its own foibles, its period politics, and its unique social structure, McCay tapped into the timeless, and eternal, quality of dreams, something with which every human, from any time period, can relate to, in order to create a strip that still speaks to us, even 100 years later. An amazing achievement, and one that very few creators, in any medium, have managed to match.

Scoop: What do you think of the pre-Golden Age comics and comic strips?

As you might guess, based on the answer above, I love them. I really became fascinated with this treasure-trove of material the first time I read Jim Steranko's HISTORY OF COMICS Vol. 1 in about 1974. I bought it in a bookstore that was half bookstore, half head shop, and devoured it. It's a seminal work, and one that I still enjoy rereading. I still get a thrill when I see a book that I first saw in Steranko's HISTORY.

To me, there's a rawness and an immediacy to the Golden Age books that's mostly missing from today's comics. Yes, today's books are better drawn (usually) and better written (mostly), but there was an urgency about the Golden Age books that gave them a raw, passionate energy that still comes through the pages. Take Carl Burgos' HUMAN TORCH, for example, or Bill Everett's SUBMARINER or Charles Biro's DAREDEVIL (one of my favorites). you can just see these guys pouring everything they had (however much that may or may not have been) onto the page. They weren't in it for the money, they weren't in it for the fame. They were in it to tell stories and feed their families. Consequently, while the Golden Age material may be somewhat rough around the edges, it's still pretty thrilling.

Also, they had real villains to fight. I mean, they don't come much worse than Nazis. Political correctness be damned, it was pretty cool to see the Torch set fire to Hitler and his goons, right?

Scoop: Do you see this area of "the early years" as having interest for collectors, historians, and investors of all ages?

Among a certain group of collectors, certainly. Unfortunately, Marvel and DC aren't doing enough, IMO, to preserve their heritage. Yes, DC is publishing the Archives pretty aggressively (for an admittedly select group who can afford $50 hardcovers), but Marvel doesn't seem to even realize there were comics before 1961. It used to be common for Golden Age stories to be reprinted, but not anymore. I'd love to see a MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS MASTERWORKS, but I'm not holding my breath. Additionally, the only hope we have at all is for reprintings of the big name, popular stuff, like Cap or the Torch or Sub-Mariner. What do you think the chances are of seeing a collection of Paul Gustavson's ANGEL or even Kirby's VISION strips, for example? And let's not even get into the great stuff from publishers other than DC or TIMELY. I'd pay big for a collection of early Lev Gleason DAREDEVILs or Lou Fine's DOLLMAN or the RAY. Especially with the popularity of slabbing (which I have nothing against, but it makes reading the books tough), I'd hate to see all this great material forgotten about, but I fear that will be its fate, to a great extent.

Historians will always have an academic interest in this material, especially with its ties to WWII, and investors will look to books that bring a high return, but that's very different from appreciating these books for what they are.

Scoop: Where do you see the future of your collecting heading?

Good question. One of the things I'm doing now is having a number of my reading copies bound into hardcovers. I've found a guy in Omaha who works with a little Mom-and-Pop bindery and is doing great work. Check out his website at http://www.dpbanks.com to see what I mean. The first volume I had done, of course, was the 25 issues in the first series of MISTER MIRACLE (18 Kirby issues plus 19-25 by Rogers, Golden, etc.). Since then, I've done individual volumes of OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, the Beast's run in AMAZING ADVENTURES, Marvel's DOC SAVAGE, five volumes of Marvel's CAPTAIN MARVEL, two volumes of DC's Golden Age MILLENNIUM EDITIONS, and two volumes of THE INVADERS. I've currently got three volumes of IRON MAN (#1-60) with him, and one volume of Kirby's NEW GODS. The books, bound in black buckram with gold type, look great, and they're so much easier to read than individual issues. I'm really looking forward to having more issues done.

As to the rest, I certainly see my MISTER MIRACLE collection growing. Beyond that, who knows what's around the corner?

Scoop: Since taking your job as Director of Heritage Comics Auctions you have seen a number of amazing comics, original art, posters and memorabilia. You have been involved in numerous major sales including the Stan Lee File Copies, the Mile High Target Comics, and the G.I. Joe Prototype. Are there any items or experiences from this job that stand out the most?

Another excellent question. Certainly, this is a dream job for someone like me. The opportunity to meet and get to know guys like Stan Lee, Don Levine, Julie Schwartz, Larry Lieber, Al Feldstein and others, in more than just a brief meeting at a show, has been thrilling. These are guys whose work I've admired and treasured all my life, and now I'm actually getting emails from them!

The first time I met Stan was a bit nerve-wracking. I grew up with Stan's work, and, in a very real sense, he was greatly responsible for my love of reading and my lifelong fascination with language. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Stan was one of those guys I had always pretty much put on a pedestal and looked up to.

It can be very dangerous to meet people you've long admired, as they often don't live up to your expectations. I knew Stan from what he had written and from appearances and interviews I had seen. He always came across as pleasant and fun, but for all I knew, he was a real jerk in real life.

The first time I met Stan was when I flew out to look over his File Copy collection and to see if he had anything worth auctioning. Remember, this was right before SPIDER-MAN came out, and Stan was being besieged by interviewers from all over the world. He was incredibly busy, so I got to work going through boxes and cataloging, hoping I'd get a chance to say hello at some point.

Soon after, Stan came into the storeroom and introduced himself. He apologized for being so busy, and said, "But c'mon, I'll take you to lunch." I'm happy to say that Stan was the most generous, friendly, gracious person you could ever hope to meet. He was not only everything I expected him to be, but everything I hoped he'd be. Since then, I've gotten to know him a little bit, and my respect for him has grown immeasurably.

Meeting Don Levine, and visiting him at his home in Rhode Island was a thrill. I grew up playing with GI Joe, as you probably did, and here I was, talking to the guy who created the action figure! The first time I got to see and hold the prototype was a real thrill as well. This was the piece that started it all, and I got to hold it in my hands! I know that sounds pretty geeky and overly fanboy, but that figure is a piece of America's cultural history. Many will see that piece, but few have gotten to hold it.

Certainly all the media that I've done for Heritage has been exciting, and a real education. I'll admit, it's a thrill when friends and family from across the country call or write and say, "I saw you on..." The coolest, though, was when we offered the Nicolas Cage collection and friends from Australia contacted me and said they had seen me on Australian TV! That was a real thrill.

Scoop: Where do you see the future of the comic and character memorabilia market heading?

I have to agree with John Snyder in that I think this is really just the beginning of a very wild ride. I think that CGC has been incredibly instrumental in opening up this hobby to a whole new market, and I think we've only seen the beginning of where this is headed. Anyone with any sense of history can see that comics are following the same growth path that coins took when PCGS came onto the scene. It's a very exciting time to be in this, and I think we've only seen the beginning of where this is going. Yes, there will always be prophets of doom, and there will always be market corrections and fluctuations, but I think this industry has nowhere to go but up.

One of the things I've noticed over the last few years is that success breeds success. When we get good prices for material, more material seems to come out of the woodwork. I can't tell you how many times I've been contacted by people who say, "I've been collecting art for 30 years, and now that I see the prices you're getting, I figure it's time to sell." Pieces are coming out that we never knew existed, and we're very fortunate to be in a position where a lot of it is coming through us. One of the great things about this job is that every day is like Christmas around here. We're constantly getting packages full of great material. It's hard not to just sit around all day ooh-ing and ahh-ing over everything.

Something I think is going to take on even greater significance over the next few years is the advent of the CGC Registry. This has had a tremendous influence in the coin field, and I think once comic collectors realize what it is, they're going to go nuts for it. I've got a set registered now, and I can see how it's changed the way I'm collecting. It's a very strong tool, and one I think is going to have a tremendous impact.