Anyone who\u2019s met Har\u00adlan can easily see him as a 9-year-old comic fan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nA great number of people have collections of this, that, and the other. But few have gone to the lengths that Harlan Ellison has in collecting and displaying his thises, thats, the others\u2014and a few more things besides.<\/p>\n
Ellison is a world-renowned author and critic, and has adapted a number of his short stories into comic book form under the title Harlan Ellison\u2019s Dream Corridor <\/i>from Dark Horse\u2014though he is probably best-known as the author of the original screenplay on which the award-winning Star Trek <\/i>episode \u201cThe City on the Edge of Forever\u201d was based. His collection of stuff, for want of a better word, has become the focal point of his L.A. home, which he has built up over the last 30 years to house his diverse possessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look on my house as, in some ways, Shangri-La, or even the Hearst Mansion,\u201d Harlan explains. His various collections include rare glassworks by Lalique, a vast array of original paintings, a comic book collection that he estimates at $3 million to $4 million in value, and thousands of pewter \ufb01gurines. But he balks slightly at the use of the word \u201ccollector,\u201d and stresses that he is certainly not a \u201cfanatic collector.\u201d For instance, he explains, \u201cI have the \ufb01rst comic I ever got. It was back in 1939 in Shelby, N.C., and it was a [New York<\/i>] World\u2019s Fair <\/i>comic [from] 1939, with Superman and Batman and Zatara. That\u2019s now worth about $4000 or $5000. If I were to be missing that comic book from my collection, I would not pay $5000 for it, because it was 15 cents when it was new.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellison explained some of the attitude behind his accumulations. \u201cPart of my philosophy of life is that I judge success by only one standard: If you can achieve in mature adult terms the dreams you had as a child, you\u2019re a success. So, say if you wanted to be a cowboy, and you wind up owning a ranch, you\u2019re a success. When I was young, I always wanted to have a house \ufb01lled with secret passages and rooms.\u201d And Harlan has succeeded in creating the house of his boyhood dreams. One of his rooms, accessed via a secret passage, is a temperature- and humidity-controlled archive with \ufb02oor-to-ceiling bookcases that contain his entire comic collection. \u201cThey\u2019re all bagged,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not in such a way that I can\u2019t read them. I\u2019ll go down there from time to time and pull out a comic from 1943 and sit down on the \ufb02oor like a 9-year-old and read it. I think collecting things that you cannot touch and play with is counterproductive. It\u2019s an alien kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also among his many items, Harlan owns some one-of-a-kinds. \u201cFor instance,\u201d he begins, in a rapid-\ufb01re reminiscence, \u201cthe great comic artist Jack Kirby once gave me a pen. It\u2019s the pen with which he \ufb01rst drew the Silver Surfer, and he autographed it for me. It was in my drawer, and I picked it up one day and was looking at it, and it\u2019s just a Crowquill pen with Jack Kirby\u2019s signature on it. And it struck me that I was the only one who knew what it was. It\u2019s a wonderful pop cultural artifact, but if I were to croak tomorrow, somebody would \ufb01nd this crummy chewed-up pen and probably throw it in the garbage.\u201d So Ellison had the sculptor Barclay Shaw create an Art Nouveau mounting for the pen, along with a brass plate explaining what it is.<\/p>\n
Harlan continues to verbally catalog his possessions, which include more than 25,000 record albums, and over a quarter of a million books. But despite the enormous value of many of these items, that\u2019s not what collecting is about for Ellison. \u201cI collect things that will enrich and pleasure me. People buy stuff for investment, but I don\u2019t. I buy things because I want them. I\u2019ve had people from museums offer me $200,000 for selected pieces, but I wouldn\u2019t get rid of any of this stuff. There isn\u2019t one thing in my house that I would sell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though they work their magic far behind the scenes of the comic book business, comic book writers are often some of the most interesting and unusual people in the business of creating comic books. In addition to conceiving the adventures of our favorite heroes and heroines each month, they have some unexpected hobbies and pastimes. From slight of hand to unusual collections, here\u2019s a look at just a few. Comic book writers share their favorite pastimes (COMBO #27) By Alex Amado \u2022 Art by Bill Jankowski Mark Waid, Prestidigitator Mark Waid, author of last summer\u2019s smash Kingdom Come, is a truly multi-talented individual. In addition to his writing skills, which can be seen every month in DC\u2019s Impulse, he has numerous other skills. He is, for instance, an amateur magician. According to Mark, he\u2019s been interested in the art of legerdemain since he was a kid. \u201cI\u2019ve always been into all forms of entertainment,\u201d he says. \u201cAnything that gets me up on a stage is cool.\u201d Among his earliest in\ufb02uences, he cites The Amazing Kreskin. \u201cAt the tender age of 8,\u201d Mark admits, \u201cI believed in [Kreskin] with all my heart. What a maroon.\u201d Still, the no-longer-credulous Waid has taken to magic like a materializing dove to the sleeve of a tux. Waid hasn\u2019t actually performed magic in front of an audience since he was in college, but he can be caught showing off the occasional slight of hand at a few comic conventions every year. His favorite type of trick? \u201cI like any kind of card trick, be\u00adcause everybody\u2019s got a deck of cards sitting around. I don\u2019t like stuff where you have to pull out of your pocket a steel tube and a live pigeon. It\u2019s just not natural,\u201d he explains. Asked about the greatest feat of magic he ever performed, Waid deadpans: \u201cBringing my career back from utter extinction in 1989.\u201d James Hudnall, Movie Maven James Hudnall, writer of The Unauthorized Biography of Lex Luthor, as well as his current, just-moved-to-Image book, Espers, is a movie buff. A big-time movie buff. According to Jim, he has more than 500 \ufb01lms on VHS and laserdisc, as well as a quality entertainment setup on which to view them. \u201cI have a wide range of \ufb01lms. I like all kinds of stuff, but I especially like classic \ufb01lms, \ufb01lm noir, and Hong Kong movies,\u201d he says. Some of Hudnall\u2019s favorites are The Killing, Oklahoma!, The Wild Bunch, Sullivan\u2019s Travels, The Third Man [dig that crazy zither music!\u2014ed.], and Vertigo. The collection also ties in with his profession as a writer. \u201cI\u2019m much more in\ufb02uenced in my writing by \ufb01lms and novels than I am by other comics. Basically, there are a lot of things in \ufb01lm that can inspire me. Also, if I\u2019m stuck on a problem, going and doing something completely unrelated\u2014like watching a good \ufb01lm\u2014gives me the inspiration to work it out.\u201d Hudnall has been collecting \ufb01lms since 1981, which is about when home video recorders made their way to the consumer market. He took one wrong turn early on, however: \u201cI started out with a Betamax machine. I still have it. It\u2019s not hooked up now; it\u2019s just sitting there.\u201d Looking at a \ufb01lm collection from the quality side, James says that laserdisc has both types of video beat hands down. James Robinson, Toth Authority Another avid collector is James Robinson, who pens DC\u2019s Starman, as well as Leave it to Chance, a joint creation with Paul Smith, published by Image Comics\u2019 Homage imprint. Robinson\u2019s particular passion is the work of seminal comics and animation artist Alex Toth, who is perhaps best-known today for his design work on Hanna-Barbera\u2019s Space Ghost. Robinson has been accumulating Toth\u2019s printed works and his originals for over 15 years. \u201cI remember when I was a kid, I didn\u2019t like Toth\u2019s work at all,\u201d says James. \u201cIt was the antithesis of everything else that was out there. Then as I got older, I started to get into what he did, and through him, I discovered some of his in\ufb02uences, like Frank Robbins, Roy Crane, and such.\u201d Some of the prides of Robinson\u2019s collection include \u201ca complete Fox story, all of the original pages, and pages of \u2018Lone Wolf,\u2019 which is a great war story.\u201d These originals are all stored in a portfolio, James explains, because of the nature of the work. \u201cFirst off, I\u2019m not a big one for putting things up on walls. I have a display book where I mount the pages and put all the originals. Also, one of the problems with Alex\u2019s work is that he tended to use elusive media, like markers, that do not age well. So I keep them preserved in a portfolio and look at them whenever I feel inclined.\u201d In the area of Toth\u2019s printed work, James is a self-described completist. However, he notes, \u201cThere are always those things that you just never see. There\u2019s a book called Love, the Ultimate Manifestation. It\u2019s an underground that he did one page in. I can\u2019t \ufb01nd it anywhere.\u201d Toth\u2019s work has special signi\ufb01cance for Robinson, who admits, \u201cIt\u2019s now become my only collection, where before it was just one of many things I collected.\u201d Incidentally, James has had the opportunity to meet Alex Toth on several occasions, and says that they correspond regularly. Harlan Ellison, the Ultimate Collector A great number of people have collections of this, that, and the other. But few have gone to the lengths that Harlan Ellison has in collecting and displaying his thises, thats, the others\u2014and a few more things besides. Ellison is a world-renowned author and critic, and has adapted a number of his short stories into comic book form under the title Harlan Ellison\u2019s Dream Corridor from Dark Horse\u2014though he is probably best-known as the author of the original screenplay on which the award-winning Star Trek episode \u201cThe City on the Edge of Forever\u201d was based. His collection of stuff, for want of a better word, has become the focal point of his L.A. home, which he has built up over the last 30 years to house his diverse possessions. \u201cI look on my house as, in some ways, Shangri-La, or even the Hearst Mansion,\u201d Harlan explains. His various collections include rare glassworks by Lalique, a vast array of original paintings, a comic book collection that he estimates at $3 million to $4 million in value, and thousands of pewter \ufb01gurines. But he balks slightly at the use of the word \u201ccollector,\u201d and stresses that he is certainly not a \u201cfanatic collector.\u201d For instance, he explains, \u201cI have the \ufb01rst comic I ever got. It was back in 1939 in Shelby, N.C., and it was a [New York] World\u2019s Fair comic [from] 1939, with Superman and Batman and Zatara. That\u2019s now worth about $4000 or $5000. If I were to be missing that comic book from my collection, I would not pay $5000 for it, because it was 15 cents when it was new.\u201d Ellison explained some of the attitude behind his accumulations. \u201cPart of my philosophy of life is that I judge success by only one standard: If you can achieve in mature adult terms the dreams you had as a child, you\u2019re a success. So, say if you wanted to be a cowboy, and you wind up owning a ranch, you\u2019re a success. When I was young, I always wanted to have a house \ufb01lled with secret passages and rooms.\u201d And Harlan has succeeded in creating the house of his boyhood dreams. One of his rooms, accessed via a secret passage, is a temperature- and humidity-controlled archive with \ufb02oor-to-ceiling bookcases that contain his entire comic collection. \u201cThey\u2019re all bagged,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not in such a way that I can\u2019t read them. I\u2019ll go down there from time to time and pull out a comic from 1943 and sit down on the \ufb02oor like a 9-year-old and read it. I think collecting things that you cannot touch and play with is counterproductive. It\u2019s an alien kind of thing.\u201d Also among his many items, Harlan owns some one-of-a-kinds. \u201cFor instance,\u201d he begins, in a rapid-\ufb01re reminiscence, \u201cthe great comic artist Jack Kirby once gave me a pen. It\u2019s the pen with which he \ufb01rst drew the Silver Surfer, and he autographed it for me. It was in my drawer, and I picked it up one day and was looking at it, and it\u2019s just a Crowquill pen with Jack Kirby\u2019s signature on it. And it struck me that I was the only one who knew what it was. It\u2019s a wonderful pop cultural artifact, but if I were to croak tomorrow, somebody would \ufb01nd this crummy chewed-up pen and probably throw it in the garbage.\u201d So Ellison had the sculptor Barclay Shaw create an Art Nouveau mounting for the pen, along with a brass plate explaining what it is. Harlan continues to verbally catalog his possessions, which include more than 25,000 record albums, and over a quarter of a million books. But despite the enormous value of many of these items, that\u2019s not what collecting is about for Ellison. \u201cI collect things that will enrich and pleasure me. People buy stuff for investment, but I don\u2019t. I buy things because I want them. I\u2019ve had people from museums offer me $200,000 for selected pieces, but I wouldn\u2019t get rid of any of this stuff. There isn\u2019t one thing in my house that I would sell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[13,5,14,18,4,16,17,15],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-alex-amado","tag-april-1997","tag-bill-jankowski","tag-harlan-ellison","tag-issue-27","tag-james-hudnall","tag-james-robinson","tag-mark-waid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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