Redartz: Hello, Bronze Age Alumni! We have a treat today, a guest post from our esteemed friend Humanbelly, or HB as we know him. I've been considering a discussion of how we might set up our ideal comic / treasure room for protection and enjoyment; HB beat me to it! His narrative begins below; in Hulk-green type, of course. Many thanks, and a tip of the BitBA cap to you for your contribution; and now, take it away HB!
HB: Too Much Exposition Dept: So Teammates. . . Our
basement does indeed have a Comic Book Room. It is exists as
eternal proof that I am married to the Best Wife In The World. When we
were house-hunting in the spring of 2000, we came across this place's
open-house about an hour after an owner backed-out of the deal to sell us her
house in the same neighborhood, leaving our spirits crushed. Then we
happened across this home, which proved to be SO much better and suited to our
needs-- though more expensive. When we got to the mostly-unfinished
basement, there was this one finished room that had been claimed as a bedroom
by the previous owners' rather difficult teenage son. And out of nowhere
('cause the idea truly had never occurred to me) HBWife simply said, "This
could be your comic book room. . . "
There was a brief out-of-body experience where the astral forms of
Dr Strange and Professor X and Deadman clapped me on the back and gave me the
high-sign, and then I returned to the mortal plane and muttered a calculatedly
none-too-eager, "Well, sure-- that would be kind of nice, actually.
If you don't think we need it for anything more important. . . "--
and that's how we got a Comic Book Room!
Two things developed over the intervening years, though--
1) It very easily turned into a clutter-filled catch-all room--
especially for things like musical instruments and band equip't. It also
was my primary Christmas headquarters, and would get further trashed with every
holiday season frenzy. Keeping it in order always fell low on the
ol' priority list.
2) HUGE development: It's a basement. The room
already had a musty carpet, which I then covered over with the salvaged carpet
from our own old dining room (previous house). And I never once thought
about getting a de-humidifier. So there's been about 18 years' worth of
slowly accumulating dust/mold/mildew at work down there. The air has been
unpleasant for quite sometime, and last year I finally noticed that EVERYTHING
had a thin surface film of dust-like mold on it. Mind you, not the
comics themselves, as they're all safely boxed, but the tons of accumulated
"stuff" needed to be cleaned-- and in a few cases, pitched.
Beatles posters and some Z-grade cheap Marvel posters were done, period.
And so, that was this summer's early main project. Clear
EVERYTHING out. Get a de-humidifier running non-stop. Wipe
down/dis-infect/ clean every surface and every object. I pulled up and
threw out all of the carpet, and laid VCT tile (troweled adhesive, not
self-stick). Many beloved posters were salvaged, but had a bit of
staining, so those were mounted on backing boards, covered w/ salvaged
plexiglass (from my scene shop), and I fitted them with quick plain
frames. Then went about re-designing the room configuration into
something more welcoming AND more practical. There are a number of
finishing touches to attend to-- but it's already MUCH more the Comic Book Room
I'd imagined it to be, lo, those 18 happy years ago--!
Open the door, and there's a peek! Lighting at the
moment is cheap LED bulbs in the ceiling fixtures, so it does lend a bit of a
harsh, institutional tone to the photos. Better fixtures and shades
anticipated.
Looking at the west wall & telephone corner. SO
many old cartoon paperbacks, MAD pocket books, Andre Norton Sci-Fi from my
youth; beloved old collection sets; Books about comics, etc, etc, on the
shelves.
South wall. The couch was a LONG time ago used furniture
purchase. It contains a fold-out bed that should be banned by the Geneva
Convention as a potential crime against humanity. My youngest
sister-in-law was a huge trouper for a few years, and would try to use it as an
auxiliary 2nd guest room, and ultimately just slept on the couch itself (which
is amazingly comfortable, tbh). The black trunk-table has a wild anecdote
or two attached involving me and HBSon and a Boston commuter rail train. .
. Note the Marvel 25th Anniversary poster from 1986----
Southeast "Hulk" corner (some call it The Shrine, but
c'mon-- let's not go overboard. . . ) When first getting the room put
together, I did have a bit of an ebay-frenzy looking for cool items to fill it
up. The Hulk Doritos stand-up was a particularly happy find.
But this corner is dominated by sentimental attachment far more than
anything like collectibility. Probably 85% of the Hulk toys and trinkets
and "stuff" were given to me throughout my life by friends and family
and even just acquaintances who knew how fond I was of the character.
And so they continue to have a place of priority in my heart. . . and in
this little museum. ALSO-- it's great how mounting almost
anything under plexiglass and putting it in a frame lends it a sense of gravity
and legitimacy-- makes it "important"--! That
shredded piece of purple fabric, framed near the ceiling? It's my
first Hulk t-shirt. An iron-on transfer my Mom got me from a clothing
outlet when I was in 7th grade. I wore it to DEATH. Outgrew
it, and STILL wore it. It's perpetually ended up in the rags-box or
in the bottom of trunks and boxes. . .and I could never quiiiiite throw it
away. And am now delighted to give it a final position of prominence
until it finally does get tossed out by those who proceed me in this mortal
plane. (I've been reading up on some Shakespeare-- preparing for a
couple of auditions. . . )
And the north wall, where the storage shelves migrated to.
There are between 30 and 31 long-boxes there (some shorts mixed in)-- my
entire personal collection, as well as a small chunk of HBGirl's personal
childhood acquisitions that I'm holding onto for her. And then a
flippin' treasure trove of personal memories ranging from my own childhood (the
GI Joe "SuperTeam" that I created at one point-- note the capes!) to
my kids' (the 30 or so enthusiastically-used Toy Biz 10" Marvel
figures populating that center shelf, and the bound volumes of BLOOM COUNTY
that HBGirl adores--), to the lunch-boxes that EVERYONE used at one point or
another-- even a begrudging HBWife-- heh--.
And my thought to exit with-- While there are a number of
treasures tucked into corners and spots of the room that you don't see here
(FOOM poster; framed Avengers poster from the Bomber Jacket era; lots of
doodads on the upper shelves, etc), I've gotten to a happy point
in my life where I recognize that the value of all of these trinkets and this
stuff is definitely not monetary ('cause, heh, it's not worth a lot o' $$,
despite the volume---), but in the fact that it brings me a unique joy--
a zillion little bits of association with happy memories and friends and
family. Items that catch the fancy, and bring a smile. And
other things that represent the thrill of the hunt that comes with being any
kind of hobbyist/collector. It's a cocoon of perpetual nostalgia
that continues to move in tandem with the passage of time.
And now it's mold-free--- whew!!
HB