The Legend of Pop Hollinger, First Comic Book Dealer

It is odd that many comic book collectors and traders have not heard of Pop Hollinger. This 47-year-old retired instructor by Concordia, Kansas was the primary seller who purchased and sold old books, pulp magazines, comics and comic books. Hollinger ran his store from 1939 at Concordia, during the profound economic downturn, to 1971.Whether tens of thousands of comic book traders now have or never heard of Pop Hollinger, they follow in his footsteps: selling, purchasing and trading them.

Mr. Hollinger began his company selling periodicals at a cellar under a supermarket shop. He offered most anything he possessed, such as classic paperback books published by Pocket Books for 25 cents each. Shortly , he grew his company, selling used pulps, paperbacks, magazines, and comic books. He specialized in comics that were rapidly becoming popular. Following a couple of decades, he conducted a lively company, even enlarging his company which comprised as many as 15 to 20 outlets around Concordia. Hollinger even found a mail order service for interested buyers throughout the nation. Promoting through email ordering produced Pop realize there was a need for back problems. For this purpose, he'd shop issues for future organization. For 20 or 30 cents a week a individual could get ten or five comics, respectively. This is an unbeatable deal when you can buy one in the local paper stand for 10 bucks.
1939 was a particular year for comic books, which included, for the first time, superheroes. No doubt he'd have possessed the very famous, for example: Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman), Detective Comics #27 (first appearance of Batman), Superman #1, Batman #1, Wonder Woman #1, All-Star, All-Flash, Timely Comics (potential Marvel Comics) and Fawcett Comics. All these"Golden Age" comics became"super" sellers. However there were also several different others available on the industry.
Hollinger used radically unorthodox procedures for preserving all his novels, since he knew children could easily rip them up, and several mothers threw out them in the garbage. Pop shortly found out comics didn't wear well under continuous purchasing, selling, and trading. He jumped the books with green or brown tape round the backbone and on the interior to keep them from being ripped apart. In addition, he understood that comics were created from pulp that brought bugs, so that he treated them with particular compounds that encircle them. He took out the first fundamentals, replacing them with fresh ones. Finally, he pushed them flat with a media of his own style that exerted a few hundred pounds of stress. Now's collector or trader could not use this technique of preservation since it might ruin the book's worth. Rather, traders and collectors carefully set the publications in Mylar bags and add a cardboard backing, so that they won't tear or bend. Nevertheless, Hollinger deserves credit for producing his own way of keeping them.
From 1942, there have been approximately 50 comic book publishers. Each publisher generated at least 30 distinct ones, which totaled to a number of distinct issues circulating a month! Thus, Pop felt the requirement to print a comic book catalogue. Comics came from all sorts of genres: science fiction, detective, fantasy, secret agent, comedy, love and several more. He possessed so a number of the very same troubles. Therefore, it's no wonder that he believed that selling comics might be rewarding. According to the eBay site, his company commercials said:"Old or employed comic books are worth cash. We cover from 1c to $1.00 each for particular aged comics... Be one of the very first in your area to accumulate old comic books " In this exact same advertisement, Pop asserted to"take a huge assortment of each comic book printed."
Regrettably, in 1952 Hollinger's source took a turn for the worst. A flood had come throughout his region of the country, flooded his shops, and destroyed tens of thousands most of his stock. Regrettably, the majority of them needed to be thrown out. To make things worse, in 1954 many comics which were printed before were remembered by the U.S. government because of unsuitable content for kids. However, Hollinger persevered with his small business.
Between 1961 before he shut his organization, ten decades later, Hollinger started selling new superhero comic books made largely by Marvel Comics. In November of 1961, Marvel released the first issue of this"Fantastic Four"- a bunch of new superheroes who became extremely common. Fantastic Four #1 began the"Marvel Age" of comics. Additional"Marvel Age" superheroes were shortly introduced: Spiderman, Ironman, Thor, the Hulk, Antman, and Captain America (brought back from World War 2). All comedian (not only Marvel) released from 1956 to 1969, became famous as the"Silver Age" of comics. These days, lots of the early problems printed by Marvel are worth nearly as much as the ones published in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Pop Hollinger was a rare businessman who'd foreseen the worth of comic books. Who knew the way he believed that comic books were of significance to be read and gathered, not read and thrown away? Nobody would have believed to begin such a response, particularly in the late 1930's during the Great Depression. As a matter of fact, it might have been"funny" to have begun a comic book dealership. Pop conquer the odds by beginning a company almost nobody would have ever believed. Should you ever encounter an older comic with either green or brownish tape across the backbone, you likely would have a timeless pulp stone possessed by the mythical trader himself.
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