Geeking about gifts.

I just have to geek about this.

I work at a local sci-fi convention. This year I was staffing the registration desk, which happened to be next to Children's Programming. The head of Children's Programming placed a box full of comic books on my table with a sign attached saying 'For Kids Only'.

Most of the time I spent at Registration I was reading those comic books and trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.

At the end of the con I talked with the head of Children's Programming. Apparently she has a bunch of old comics in her basement that she gives away to kids who might enjoy them. Nobody took one at this con; I swear that I did not ask, but she offered the comics in the box to me.

These are early 1970's Incredible Hulk and Hulk/Sub-Mariner comics, all written by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and one by Harlan Ellison. They are drawn by Trimbe, Romita, and two of them by Jack Freakin' Kirby.

They're in terrible shape. The pages are falling out of the spine, they covered in dirt and folds. So they're not worth anything. But OMFG I feel like someone just dropped golden tablets in my lap.

My instinct is to cover them in plastic and protect them like the children I never had. But that would be against the spirit in which they were given. She wanted them to be read and enjoyed and I intend to do that. I may scan them in so that I never lose them. That will probably destroy what's left of their spines.

I just...I had to geek about this. OMG.

Lordy! I'd offer to buy them. You save those things when you can.


S.

You are a lucky min. A just reward for you service to geekdom at the con.

Is one of them Incredible Hulk 181? That issue is the first appearance of Wolverine, and it was drawn by Herb Trimpe (not Trimbe). It's worth a small fortune in good condition.

Aside from that, enjoy them, but don't bother putting them in plastic or trying to sell them. Unless you stumbled upon a key issue like the one mentioned above, they are probably close to worthless and most of them could probably replaced with better copies out of a comic dealer's $2 stock.

Even so, there is no harm in trying to make them last as long as possible. Comic were meant to be enjoyed and read, not hoarded like Midas' gold.

Speaking of Herb Trimpe, my copy of the Incredible Hulk featuring the Bi-beast's first appearance had its cover torn off and eaten by my cousin when he was just a baby. Dude just ate the whole thing. My cousin offered to buy me a new one, but I bought both the comic and a candy bar for a quarter, so I figured it was no big deal. Years later I met a guy who was willing to pay two grand for a copy of that issue. Stupid babies.