{"id":15033,"date":"2014-06-19T21:12:55","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T01:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=15033"},"modified":"2014-06-19T21:16:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T01:16:40","slug":"it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2014\/06\/19\/it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"It seemed like a good idea at the time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at eBay<\/a>, someone just picked up a bound volume of Incredible Hulk<\/em> 167-182 which had my name embossed on the cover in gold. (The cognoscenti among you will recognize that run as including the origin of Wolverine.) And he wondered … what’s up with that<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I’ve only been asked about this sort of thing once before, by someone who wanted to know whether receiving bound volumes of comics was a perk regularly given to Marvel Bullpenners in the ’70s. (As if!)<\/p>\n

\"ScottEdelmanBoundHulk167182\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So why does this artifact exist? The short answer is … it seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/p>\n

The longer answer is … blame Marv Wolfman and Len Wein.<\/p>\n

In the mid-\u201870s, quite a few comics professionals decided to get their comics collections professionally bound. It seemed like a way in which one could more easily access the comics to actually read<\/em> them. So—like Marv and Len before me—I boxed up whichever of my comics had uninterrupted 12- or 16-issue runs and sent them off to a bindery. <\/p>\n

Looking back on it now, it’s obvious we all damaged the individual issues, what with the stitching and trimming. But since, back then, I never dreamed there’d come a future in which I’d ever want to sell my comics, I didn\u2019t worry about lessening their value.<\/p>\n

Of course, I later burned out on the business, which resulted in me selling my entire collection except for a few key issues which had remained unbound because I didn\u2019t have a complete set going back to the beginning of Silver Age Marvel. (Since, as occurred with so many of us when young, my parents forced me to sell my comics for a pittance. For me, that took place during the 7th Grade.) Those key issues, such as Amazing Fantasy<\/em> 15, went into a safe deposit box and have since been sold.<\/p>\n

Strangely, the only volume I regret selling is Not Brand Ecch<\/em>. Luckily, the entire run is about to be reprinted<\/a>, so that loss (at least of the content, though not of my personal copies) can be easily repaired.<\/p>\n

I wonder who owns all the other dozens of bound volumes embossed with my name?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at eBay, someone just picked up a bound volume of Incredible Hulk 167-182 which had my name embossed on the cover in gold. (The cognoscenti among you will recognize that run as including the origin of Wolverine.) And he wondered … what’s up with that? I’ve only been asked about this sort of thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,171,50,60,20],"class_list":["post-15033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics","tag-hulk","tag-len-wein","tag-marv-wolfman","tag-marvel-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15033"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15059,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15033\/revisions\/15059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}