The Johnny Bacardi Show

When I read Tom Spurgeon's list of "The 50 Things That Every Comics Collection Truly Needs" yesterday morning, I thought it would be ideal for memery, and sure enough, several folks have done that very thing already. So what the hell, here's mine:

Leave Plain = Things I don't have
Make Bold = Things I do have
Italics = I have some but probably not enough
Underline = I'll take your word for it, Tom.

1. Something From The ACME Novelty Library (actually, I have one issue. I kept thinking I'd buy more, but the cost and the scarcity of the back issues to that date kept me from doing so. I do admire Ware's work from a distance, which is just the way he likes it, I'm sure)

2. A Complete Run Of Arcade

3. Any Number Of Mini-Comics (I have a handful; a couple that I did myself even!)

4. At Least One Pogo Book From The 1950s

5. A Barnaby Collection (I used to read Barnaby as a child, mostly via the auspices of the Scholastic Book Club. They were wonderful, but strangely I have no real desire to revisit them.)

6. Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary (I've read excerpts, but have never owned this)

7. As Many Issues of RAW as You Can Place Your Hands On

8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics (My wife bought the digests regularly back in the 80's; and I'd buy the occasional Archie comic when I was a kid, so I think that counts)

9. A Suite of Modern Literary Graphic Novels (Don't know if I'd call it a "suite" exactly, but I do have Blankets, Ghost World (serialized in Eightball) and I'm sure others that qualify.)

10. Several Tintin Albums (I don't own any collections, but I faithfully read his adventures in Children's Digest as a child)

11. A Smattering Of Treasury Editions Or Similarly Oversized Books (I have a smattering- Superman vs Muhammad Ali, a Conan with an adaptation of "Red Nails" by Barry Smith, a couple of others that elude me right now)

12. Several Significant Runs of Alternative Comic Book Series

13. A Few Early Comic Strip Collections To Your Taste (I wish I had several of these, but my spending on these things is limited. I'd be all over the Little Nemo, Popeye, Dick Tracy, Krazy Kat and maybe even Gasoline Alley if this were not the case)

14. Several "Indy Comics" From Their Heyday

15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books

16. At Least One Comic That Failed to Finish The Way It Planned To (God bless Tom for citing Thriller here)

17. Some Osamu Tezuka

18. The Entire Run Of At Least One Manga Series

19. One Or Two 1970s Doonesbury Collections (I have read this strip faithfully for years in the newspaper; surely that counts for something)

20. At Least One Saul Steinberg Hardcover (A subject for further research)

21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped (I know I've done this before, with political cartoons, but I don't know what happened to them)

22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can't Explain To Anyone Else (Remember Scarlett from the other day?)

23. At Least One Woodcut Novel (Woodcuts are often beautiful, but this is the first time in my experience that the words "woodcut" and "novel" have been placed together in any sort of context)

24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand (I have the first two Fantagraphics collections, and I still hope to get some more someday. Plus, I've been reading the dailies for 40 years; that oughtta count)

25. Maus

26. A Significant Sample of R. Crumb's Sketchbooks (Love to have some)

27. The original edition of Sick, Sick, Sick.

28. The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics (Love to have it)

29. Several copies of MAD (I don't have many of the ones I owned as a kid anymore, but I still do have a couple)

30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books (I used to have more, but I sold a lot of 'em, a story I've told ad nauseum. Kept my Demons, and I do have the first couple of Omnibi. Omnibuses. Whatever.)

31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books (Again, not as many as I useta have, but I do have at least a few.)

32. A You're-Too-High-To-Tell Amount of Underground Comix (I kept my Freak Bros., but let go of my Zaps and Checkered Demons. I miss them.)

33. Some Calvin and Hobbes (I have a couple of the collections, plus I never missed it in the paper)

34. Some Love and Rockets

35. The Marvel Benefit Issue Of Coober Skeber (I did like that cover, FWIW)

36. A Few Comics Not In Your Native Tongue (Do Chris Claremont-scripted X-books count?)

37. A Nice Stack of Jack Chick Comics (I have a few lying around; for a while there I made it a point to pick them up and keep them when I'd spy one lying on a counter or in a store or such. After a while, I got tired of having the stupid, hateful things around, though.)

38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody's Kid (I have several; I try to hand some down to my grandson once in a while, esp. comps)

39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics

40. A Comic You Made Yourself (Here's one, and here's another)

41. A Few Comics About Comics

42. A Run Of Yummy Fur

43. Some Frank Miller Comics (Not as many as I useta have, tho; I wish I still had my Daredevil run, and others, mostly pre-Ronin)

44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books

45. A Few Great Comics Short Stories (Especially if the stories contained in various Warren magazines count, like Goodwin and Adams' "Thrill Kill")

46. A Tijuana Bible (I've had one or two pass through my hands in times past, but alas, I own none at present)

47. Some Weirdo

48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres (Don't know if I'd call it an array, but I have some)

49. An Editorial Cartoonist's Collection or Two (LOVE to have an Oliphant collection, or Toles)

50. A Few Collections From New Yorker Cartoonists (Love to have; I always get a chuckle from New Yorker cartoons)


Aaaand that's it! Tom added:

And Now You Can Play: What suggestion would you add to the list? For every suggestion you add, tell me which requirement you'd take off the list, so that the number stays at 50. Answers added to the bottom of this posting as they come in.

Which would require a lot more thought than I'm able to give it right now. Maybe in a separate post someday...