We recently introduced a new regular feature in Scoop: Origin Issue. The subject is a straightforward question, but one with many different answers: Why do you collect?

Here's how a few of our subjects have answered...

Vincent Zurzolo, Jr.
Vincent Zurzolo, Jr. is an Overstreet Advisor who serves as Chief Operating Officer of Metropolis Collectibles and its sister company, ComicConnect.

When J.C. Vaughn first contacted me about this new column I was very intrigued. For years, while at parties, people would ask me about how I got into comics, my answer to what I referred to as “The Origin Issue Question” developed over time. J.C. had a working title for the column but I quickly suggested Origin Issue which, I am happy to say, he liked and decided to use it.

 So far I have enjoyed reading other’s origin issues and hope to see more collectors and dealers alike get involved. Kudos to Scoop for finding the time to start this cool column!

Getting to the point, why do I collect? I fondly recall my childhood growing up in Rockaway Beach, New York. I had two older brothers, Sal and Jerry, who had their comic collection in the basement of our home. I remember racing down to the basement as a little boy and being greeted by that old musty comic smell and diving into the comics! I don’t even think I could read yet but I loved the art, cool costumes and the fight scenes. The first X-Men I read were Giant Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #95-100, my first Incredible Hulk issues #180-182 and a whole host of issues of Marvel Two-In-One and Marvel Team-Up. I recall a ratty copy of Iron Man #1 and Captain Marvel #1.

As I grew older I would get as much change together as I could find in the house and walk to Beach 129th Street, to two stores and to buy my comics. I remember a little old Chinese man at the luncheonette who was always very nice to me when I would go through the spinner rack and the people at Allen’s where I would buy comics and pick out a few candies for 2-5¢ a piece. Those were the good old days.

My passion for comics grew from these early experiences. Later on I would continue to collect and trade with my elementary school pals. When I was sixteen a friend asked me if I wanted to start buying and selling comics with him. I had no idea what I was doing but believe it or not we were buying comic collections every week. Our company was called VM Comics and we had buy ads in the Comics Buyer’s Guide in the mid-to-late ‘80s.

When I graduated college in 1993 I decided to deal in comics full time, and in 1999 Vincent’s Collectibles merged with Metropolis Collectibles and here I am. So in essence I collect because I love art and stories about good triumphing over evil… and I wanted to be like my big brothers! Thanks, Sal and Jerry!

Ted Hake
Ted Hake is the founder of Hake’s Americana & Collectibles, the pioneering auction house in the field of vintage character collectibles. He is also the author of numerous books including The Official Price Guide To Disney Collectibles, The Official Price Guide To Mickey Mouse Collectibles, and  The Official Price Guide To Pop Culture Memorabilia: 150 Years of Character Toys & Collectibles.

At age 66, after multiple decades of reflection and consideration, I’ve concluded my collecting impulse originates from two childhood events. The first, around age five or six, was when an antique dealer friend of my mother’s gave me a small gray box filled with World War I Liberty Loan, War Savings Stamps and York, PA community fund raising pin-back buttons. After that gift from another time, I’ve always liked history in particular and old things in general.

Secondly, at age eight a few years later in 1951, I was playing on the living room floor when for reasons unknown to me, then and now, my father asked if I had an interest in collecting coins. “Sure,” I said, more eager for his approval than the seductive appeal of U.S. coinage. Off we went that very night to a hole in the wall coin store run as a part-time enterprise by a co-worker acquaintance of my father’s. Within an hour, I was back on the living room floor as my parents and my favorite aunt Hilda showered me with any change they had to fill the holes in my blue Whitman virgin coin albums for pennies, nickels and dimes.

Thus began a long procession of collections including matchbooks, stamps, comic books, fossils, Indian artifacts, baseball cards and found objects from our local dump like a 1939 New York World’s Fair milk glass Virginia Dare vinegar bottle.

By high school, I tired of filling holes in blue albums and traded the totally known world of coins for the new world I discovered of totally undocumented presidential campaign buttons. A few years hence, post-collage, my fate became obvious. The best way to optimize my choices for personal collecting and to document our undocumented material popular culture was to found Hake’s Americana & Collectibles as a resource for all who enjoy collecting the artifacts of their own memories and our history as a nation.

Tom Heintjes
Tom Heintjes is a noted comics historian and , Publisher of Hogan’s Alley.

Why do I collect? Wow, that’s like being asked “Why do you breathe?” Because I have to—I’ve never known another way to live. When I was a boy, I was a complete Marvel zombie, and I had no greater hero than Spider-Man. So of course, I set out to assemble a complete collection. I did pretty well until I the holes in my Spidey collection extended into the earliest issues. Even in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, when back issues were a great deal cheaper than they are now, I couldn’t afford them. So I started buying reprints and eventually “completed” my collection, even if they weren’t all the original comic books. I didn’t care—I just wanted to read the material! Sure, I missed the letters, ads and Stan’s Soapbox (all of which I loved) from the originals, but life is full of compromises, right? Besides, I never minded reprints; to me, reading the Warren reprints of The Spirit was just as satisfying as the Sunday sections (and a lot more affordable).

I’ll be honest: As an industry observer, I’ve come to believe that the fetishization of back issues—entombing them in plastic and such—is not healthy for the art form. It commodifies the book and renders it merely a financial asset. Once a year, I go through my collection and cull out a small stack of issues that I can’t believe I ever had in the first place—Dazzler #11, anyone?—and I give them out with candy on Halloween. (I figure there’s a chance I’ll hook a young person on our medium. And if I don’t, my wife likes having more space in the house, so everyone wins.) And I love the smell of the old books as I go through them; it takes me back to lying on my bed decades ago and being completely enthralled by the notions of the Negative Zone and astral projection.

And now, what a wonderful time to be a comics fan! All the reprints of great, classic material in all genres…who could have ever imagined a volume of Hot Stuff stories, the same ones I devoured as a beginning comics reader? (Yes, Casper was the ghost, presumably, of a dead boy, but Hot Stuff was the ghost of a boy who died and went to hell! It blew the minds of me and my brother.) Reprints of Dell’s Nancy comic books! Golden Age! Silver Age! And don’t even get me started on all the collections of newspaper strips…it’s a cartoon cornucopia, the likes of which I never could have dreamed of when I began collecting.

So now I don’t collect back issues any more. My collecting interests have become more eclectic, and now I’m in pursuit of a complete set of the Peanuts ceramic figurines. The only one I’m lacking is Schroeder, and I understand that getting Schroeder and his piano is the Holy Grail of this collection. So they’re out there waiting for me, somewhere. And when I find them, I can only hope I can afford them. If I can’t, I’ll try to remember that there were lots of back issues I couldn’t afford when I was a kid, and it all turned out all right.

Andrew Smith
Andrew "Captain Comics" Smith is a Designer and Copy Editor for The Commercial Appeal, a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, and a Contributing Editor for the Comics Buyer's Guide. You can find him online at Captain Comics or CBGXtra.com.

Why I collect comics is probably tied into my "secret origin."

When I was just the Li'l Cap’n, before I was in school, I discovered my older brother's stash of comics. I was amazed and thrilled by these four-color wonders, even though I couldn't yet read a lick. But these books gave me ample motivation to correct that. I wanted to know what these guys were saying!

For some reason, I was especially attracted to Fantastic Four, by Stan and Jack. Maybe because the flaming red guy and rocky orange guy (so colorful!) kept shouting the same thing over and over. I’d ask my brother what was being said, examine the letters, and start to put two and two together. By the time I went to school I was already reading far above a first-grade level, which delighted my teacher. (She was less delighted, though, at my propensity to shout “It’s clobberin’ time” during reading circle, instead of “See Jack run.”)

I imagine the thrill of discovery, love of adventure stories, and anxiety about “to be continued!” were all hard-wired into my DNA at that time. To this day I’m still fascinated by our four-color gems, and can’t wait to see what happens next month!

If you’d like to share your origin issue, drop us a line with “Origin Issue” in the subject line. We’re looking for a maximum of 200 words addressing why you collect (and it doesn’t have to be comic books).