Comic Books (GSJ of July 7, 2000)

Off Hours – Richard Roe, Comic Book collector

“It’s amazing how the ridiculously mundane can infiltrate
culture – and even become iconic,” says collector Richard Roe.

By Mary Jo Curtis

Richard Roe readily confesses to being a kid at heart. A kid who’s always loved comic books.

The University Mail Services clerk shared his passion for comics during last month’s Staff Development Day, treating a group of his Brown colleagues to a detailed history of the industry, as well as a display from his extensive collection of 20^th century comic book publications.

Richard Roe He doesn’t need a special occasion to talk about comic books or his personal collection. Just ask a question or two, and he’ll trace the industry’s beginnings back to Thomas Nass and the infamous Boss Tweed, explain how Buster Brown moved from the comic pages to shoe advertisements, and roll off sales figures from popular 1930s comics.

According to Roe, comic books are a product and a reflection of American culture.

“It’s amazing how the ridiculously mundane can infiltrate culture – and even become iconic,” he said. “In fact, I can mark many of the milestones in my life by the comics I bought.”

He still recalls the day in 1954 when his father took him, at the age of four, to his neighborhood newsstand to pick out his first comic book. He chose a Disney comic that day, but his taste soon gave way to Casper, Superman and Batman, Archie and Richie Rich – and he saved them all.

“Everybody I knew read comics and collected them,” he recalled.

His mother threw out the box that held his first collection when he was 12, so he began again. This time he also bought horror, crime and detective comics and, occasionally, extra issues at 10 and 12 cents each. By the time he was 18, he’d accumulated about 1,000 comics, but that collection too was lost, borrowed and “read to death” by friends.

Shortly after his move to Providence in 1972, Roe began collecting in earnest. Like many other fans, he began dealing in comics as a means of increasing his own collection, which now included issues published long before he was born. He and a partner started a mail-order business and began working fan conventions, generating some $80,000 in sales annually. From 1974 to 1978, the two were the biggest comic book dealers in New England; their knowledge of the industry was the key to their success, according to Roe.

“We knew everything – and we sold everything,” he said, adding that he’s always been “intrigued by the business end” of comics. “You can’t imagine the amount of money that can go into this.”

Indeed, a mint condition copy of the first Superman comic published in 1939 is worth a cool $250,000. While Roe has personally never spent more than $100 for an individual comic, he and his business partner once paid $3,000 for a collection of rare comics, including a “messed up” copy of that initial Superman publication. They sold it for $800 and, bit by bit, sold the remainder of that prized collection for $120,000.

Eventually, he sold his business collection, but when he began visiting a comic book shop in Warwick in 1994, he was hooked again. Today his collection includes up to 1,500 well-known and obscure titles, from “Felix the Cat” and “Space Patrol” to “Teenage Temptations” and “The Saint Smashes the Communist Menace.”

It’s not all about the financial investment for Roe, however; his passion is largely inspired by the artists behind the cartoon panels. Pulling plastic-covered editions from his collection, he eagerly displays the work of the artists he most admires – people like Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who drew “Captain America,” Will Eisner (“The Spirit”) and Carl Banks (“Donald Duck”). Roe has dabbled in drawing himself and several years ago sold a comic to “Scary Monsters.” The story featured a character named Destiny the Mermaid Vampire and was based on “The Cabinet,” a 1920s German expressionist movie.

“Most of my stuff is unusual,” he said. “It’s outside reality, but fun.”

Roe takes particular pride in the issues he owns that were published by Everett “Busy” Arnold, a Brown graduate and football booster who launched Quality Comics in 1939. Arnold specialized in patriotic characters, such as “The Spirit,” “Plastic Man,” and – during World War II – “Uncle Sam.” He and Arnold apparently aren’t the only Bears with a fondness for the comic pages: The John Hay Library has “one of the largest collections of its sort in the country,” according to Roe.