I was interviewed last night by someone writing a book about the early days of comics fandom and how it led to the rise of the dedicated comic book shop. As part of that, one of the things I was asked to recount was how and where I used to buy my comics when I was growing up in Brooklyn.

I remembered Joe and Morty’s candy store on Aveue P, in which I was unable to decide whether to buy X-Men #1 or Avengers #1, as I only had 12 cents in my pocket and they’d both come out the same day. But I also remembered an article I wrote years later for my high school newspaper about My Friends bookstore, where I’d been induced by my parents to sell all my comics because they felt I owned too many of them.

In any case, because my interviewer wanted to see the piece, and I went to the trouble of scanning it for him, I figured I’d share it here as well. Basically, this is me looking back on around 1968 from the perspective of 1972.

I certainly hope I’ve become a better writer since then!

I don’t know whether you noticed what I just noticed. But I was wrong when I claimed there that selling 300 comic books for $5.00 netted me “exactly three-fifths of a cent per comic.” It was actually 1.667 cents per comic. And it took me more than forty years to notice.

And if you’re wondering why that story was published under a pseudonym … it’s because I already had another piece scheduled for that issue, and the editors didn’t want any byline running more than once. So I became Edward Lawrence Mann—that is, Ed L. Mann.

And since I’d already dug out the December 5, 1972 copy of Shorelines and happened to be in a scanning mood, here’s that other story—a commentary on the school bussing controversy then going on in Canarsie. (If you’d like background, check out this piece in the Chicago Tribune.)

As for the commentary below, I don’t think it would have been possible for 17-year-old me to have been more hyperbolic.

After this was published, it caused quite a stir at South Shore High School, which included one of my gym teachers calling me aside after he’d read it so he could defend the anti-integration protesters.

It was not a comfortable conversation. But I didn’t care. It had to be said. It had to be written. And whatever its infelicities, I’m as glad now as I was then that I wrote it.