See, I don’t collect comic books. I don’t live close enough to a comic shop to warrant hunting down the current issues of my favorite characters to keep up with the epic storylines that are happening. Comics also take up a lot of space, what with their fancy backing boards and protective mylar casings, and at $2.50 or more per issue, it’s not a cheap hobby. It feels more like having a pet or paying child support to an estranged spouse than a delight.

So, I collect graphic novels. It sounds fancy and hip, but it’s really just eight or so regular comic issues bound together into book form, like a mega-comic. There’s a scientifically tested probability that if you call them ‘graphic novels’ instead of ‘comic books’, your chance of scoring goes up about 15 percent. Also, showering will increase that percentage. Who’da thunk it?

Cram a year’s worth of drawn-out visual anticipation into a single volume for about 15 bucks and you have gold - the graphic novel. Sure, they’re about 8 months out-of-date as far as comic continuity goes, but they look a lot nicer on a bookshelf, and you can snag ‘em on Amazon or your local bookshoppe on the cheap. They probably won’t be worth more later, as some comic issues are, but profitability usually isn’t my main motive behind my interest in comics. My real motive is that I want to be Batman in more ways that I’m comfortable explaining and I’m trying to glean some of his tricks. So far, I’m up to ‘step one : become a billionaire’. I’m sure that the buttkicking comes somewhere after that, but I’ll skip the whole ‘getting a little boy to live with me and play dress-up’ stage.

In keeping up with the never-ending saga of the immortal Batman, I picked up the recent ‘Face the Face’ storyline, which collects issues 651 to 654 of Batman and issues 817 to 820 of Detective. It deals with Batman’s absence from Gotham, how a reformed Two-Face somehow protected the city while Batman was gone, and Two-Face eventually going crazy again upon batman’s return. While I still don’t understand how a non-physical villian character could defend Gotham city as well as Batman could, nor do I agree with the death of one of Batman’s more important and interesting enemies, The Ventriloquist, it represents an important part of the Batman canon. Ergo, I was obligated and compelled. Apparently, it was really interesting to watch play out over half of a year, but I got it all in one fistful.

See, DC Comics recently orchestrated an enormous, soul-shattering series of events that shook every DC hero and villain to the core. People dying, heroes disbanding and losing their powers, and generally depressing stuff flying all around. And then, they suddenly flash-forwarded all of their stories to a point one year later, and since this past May, they’ve been explaining the bizarre changes and the missing time in a weekly series called ‘52’, which again seems to be building up into another insanely huge crisis. This too will be collected, eventually, and I’ll try to catch up again. If you’d like a good jumping-in point, I’d try the Identity Crisis collection, and for all of the obscure characters that will pop up, I’d also suggest the enormous DC Comics Encyclopedia. It’s a worthwhile book to have to address how the characters might be related, though since the events of the Crisis, it’s probably gone a bit out of date. Does it sound unnecessarily difficult and complicated to need to keep track of a comic story with an encyclopedia? You’re not the only one who thinks so, so DC Comics will publish a Companion to help understand these events.

Don’t let that stop you, though. There are plenty of non-hero related graphic novels that deal with all kinds of subjects, often biographically. Jeffrey Brown deals with his relationships with women in tiny vignettes, in tiny books. Craig Thompson chronicles his first true romance in Blankets, which is a charmingly semi-epic and emotional exploration into love that actually, physically broke my heart. It was messy. And then there’s books like Cancer Vixen and Mom’s Cancer, which visually deal with telling the stories of people battling diseases. The classic Maus and Persepolis intelligently deal with living in war-torn countries.

Being a ‘comic’ doesn’t exclude something from being an intelligently executed work of literature, which is still a dominant perception in America. The pictures aren’t included to simplify a story, but to amplify and describe, and more often than not, to engage a viewer who might not have otherwise been so attracted by a page of words. Even more dominantly than that, the creator probably just needed to draw. So maybe you won’t be able to sell it later at a higher price, they’re good reads - something my five-foot tall stack of them will attest to. Comics like Gaiman’s Sandman have won genuine literature awards, and this week saw the publication of the very first Best American Comics 2006, from the very reputable Best American series of books. And if there’s any doubt about where to jump in, start at the beginning.

Like many popular collectibles, much of the charm of weather vanes lies in the fact that they were originally solely functional in nature - a means of telling which way the wind was blowing - but became an art form. The elaborate, whimsical weather vanes that are sought after by collectors were usually owned by the well-to-do, who were willing to spend a little extra on the details.

While weather vanes had long been used in Europe, the European weather vanes tended to portray religious themes. Americans quickly developed a new style in weather vanes, preferring vanes that had some significance to their business or the region, such as roosters and cows for farming communities and whales and ships for towns by the sea. After the American War of Independence patriotic motifs like eagles became popular, and in true Victorian fashion the weather vanes of the late 1800s were elaborately embellished with curves, scrolls and other decorations. People rarely made their own vanes, so iron weather vanes were typically crafted by a town’s blacksmith, while tin vanes were made by tinsmiths and wooden ones were made by carpenters. During the Industrial Age, around the mid-1800s, companies began mass-producing vanes.

Collectible weather vanes generally come in the form of banner vanes or figural vanes. Banner vanes are much simpler and less expensive than figural vanes. They are flat and shaped like arrows, triangles or other shapes to indicate the direction of the wind. Figural vanes are the sort that come in fun shapes like animals.

For more information about weather vanes as well as some great photos, please visit:

http://www.denninger.com/

Although this years’ celebration is nearly over, the American Library Association has been recognizing Banned Books Week for a quarter-century as of 2006. During this week, starting last Saturday, the ALA has announced numerous books that have recently been censored, as well as long-opposed classics such as Slaughterhouse Five and 1984; Mein Kampf and The Diary of Anne Frank; Lolita and Huckleberry Finn. I’ll not be political here — my focus is entirely on collecting. Without getting too emotional about it, one might remember that the ever-iconic book-burning pyres have made banned books (past and present) a rare commodity.

In regards to the books listed above and the quite-common paperbacks to the right, most collectors would readily snatch up an early edition of Mark Twain or Mein Kampf without thinking twice about the morally questionable content inside. The books that have generated the most discussion and the highest sales fit into the regular categories of demand and rarity, and no doubt the censorship helped the demand for the likes of Lolita and Tropic of Cancer. The major list of historically banned books are valuable in their own right. Overlooked by collectors are the numerous books that slipped under the radar due to the ingenuity of writers and publishers.

By today’s standards, many of these lesser-known “obscene” books are quite tame. Discussing sex in anything but scientific terms or suggesting the overthrow of a goverment was enough to catch the eye of a vice squad or postal inspector and earn a writer or publisher jail time. In order to prevent discovery, authors and publishers took action:

• Aliases: Long a way for authors to feel free to express their thoughts without restraint, aliases are quite common on subversive texts; many simply went by initials (which, again, were probably made up). Because authors went to such great lengths to cover their tracks, many aliases have not been connected to an actual author and their works remain credited to their alias.
• Dedicated Publisher: It is no accident that a number of subversive works all seem to come from the same publisher. Publishers like Panurge Press, Olympia Press, and Vixen Press specialized in offensive works, while other publishers like “Anthropological Press” and “Rarity Press” appear to be either imaginary companies or were created for the limited purpose of publishing a few rare censored books. The limited number of publishers can make searches easier, but rarer editions from otherwise unknown presses can throw off the trail for a collector as it did for those interested in punishing the publisher for obscenity.
• “Privately Printed”: A hallmark of a potentially-censored work. Laws like the Comstock Act focused on distribution and sale of obscene works, so publishers opted to indicate that the book was not intended to be sold to the public. Panurge Press indicates their books are “intended for private circulation among adult collectors of literary curiosities,” while Fallstaff Press says their books was printed for “exclusive subscription of adult students of anthropology.” Subscriptions, “educational purposes”, and numbered editions all indicate an interest in protecting an author or publisher from prosecution.
• Rebinding and Renaming: To slip by the customs official or vice inspector, forbidden books somtimes appeared with less-eyecatching names and possibly bound differently than the regular edition, particularly translations. Parisian bookbinders often re-bound illicit texts to make them less conspicuous, even renaming such books as the Kama Sutra and Henry Miller’s Tropics to avoid sharp-eyed censors. An unfamiliar title or uninteresting cover may be hiding an early or rare edition of an otherwise banned book. Similar to how run-of-the-mill dimestore novels tried to play up their content with lurid covers and innuendo-laden titles, books that might run afoul of censorship did the opposite by playing down the content with simple covers and ambiguous titles.

As you might surmise, all of the above add up to a deliberately rare and obscure group of books. The main printings may be rare, in the hundreds of copies for “private collectors,” re-bound books may even be one-of-a-kind. In many cases, these illicit printings are the only accessible way to acquire a number of Greek, Roman, or French translations of works that the general publishing community shyed away from due to content. Also, relatively common newer printings of censored books appeared earlier in extremely limited quanities directed at private collectors by these obscure presses, making them quite rare.

For lovers of the art of bookbinding, many of these books were printed with quality in mind. Panurge Press, in particular, made their books look like the limited collector’s edition they claimed to be, with quality color frontispieces, textured bindings, uncut pages, and artistic typesetting. Paperbacks, like the non-censored peers of the time, did not survive well, although re-bound paperbacks have preserved copies that would otherwise have disintegrated due to time.

While publishers and authors have less to fear due to liberal interpretation of obscenity laws today (and in no small part to the attention on obscene photos, videos, and websites), this leniency is a relatively recent experience. Publishers prior to the 1950s used their wits to get their books published, regardless of moral opposition to their books’ contents. Even if your personal beliefs do not agree with a book’s topic, collectors can agree that these books still hold a value beyond their “banned” labelling.

Yesterday, when I went into work, I discovered that someone had donated over 150 vinyl 45s to the library, ranging from old vocal bands to The Beatles to Ted Nugent. This might sound like a collector’s dream come true, but then I discovered that they were donated in a giant, black garbage bag. Full of dirt. Without sleeves. And were dragged across the parking lot. In short, these poor records were lynched.

Please don’t ever do this to your records. Please. I don’t do this to your first edition books, or your Hummel figurines, or your children. To a record collector, it was essentially a murder scene.

I gathered up the bag, informed my boss that I was going to take them home and try to rehabilitate them, and I’d get back to her with the results. I could already tell from the layers of filth and depth of the scratches, as well as the various records that had already been cracked in half, that they were probably destined for an unceremonious dumpster burial, but I kinda just had to try.

Now audiophiles are an ultra-sensitive bunch, especially where records are concerned. They’ll keep their collections at precise temperatures, they’ll build copper distilleries to bottle quadruple-ionized water to clean their discs with, and they’ll spout incomprehensibly about sonic oscillator waves. I just likes me some music. As a result of this audiophile obsessery and easy access to the internet, everyone has their own theories about how to clean records best.

While the most common method of cleaning off lightly soiled records is the use of slightly soapy water and a light brush, there are certainly those theorists that surmise that undistilled water will leave behind mineral traces in the grooves of the disc, and that soap will just generally get in there and have all kinds of drunken, debaucherous parties and mess the place up in general. Using small amounts of alcohol is also both recommended and frowned upon, because while alcohol can act as a solvent, it will also leech out the oils within the vinyl. Less oil in the grooves means less lubrication for the needle, which means increased friction, which means increased heat and damage. And don’t even think about using hot water. Heat is the mortal archenemy of vinyl.

Still, if you’re not about to shell out 25 bucks for one of the many specially prepared record cleaning solutions made from Serengeti lion’s blood and the tears of eight blind martyrs, you shouldn’t play dirty records. I’m not talking about Belle Barth - I’m talking actual, physical dirt. It’ll dull your all-important (and usually expensive) stylus, and any dirt that the stylus manages to pick up will only be dragged through successive grooves and carve them up like so many horror movie vixens. Audiophiles would have you believe that such mistreatment will actually cause black holes to form on the surface of the record which will eventually enlarge and destroy the universe, but I don’t know if there’s much truth to that.

So, with a bit of soap and water, I cleaned off a few of the records, and while they appear clean, they’re still fairly scratchy. Getting dragged across concrete in a plastic sack isn’t the best way to maintain your dignity and composure. Next time, at least put the damned things in a stack before you leave them on an unsuspecting doorstep. A few more passes should make them almost listenable and worth preserving digitally. For now, they sound like they were recorded in a tsunami.

May this never happen again.

At every antiques auction I’ve been to, when a piece of Roseville pottery is for sale there’s plenty of interest and it always does well. It’s no big surprise I guess, since Roseville consistently shows up on lists of top collectibles.

The Roseville Pottery Company was founded in 1890 in the town of Roseville, Ohio and began by producing run of the mill pottery products. In 1898 the company moved its offices to Zanesville, Ohio, a location favored by some of the country’s top pottery makers due to the rich clay available there. It wasn’t until the introduction of the hand-crafted Rozane line in 1900 that the company entered the high quality art pottery market, producing pottery that was hand painted and often signed by the artists. Instead of the plain and predictable shapes and colors typically used for vases and other pottery, the Roseville Pottery Company chose to create pieces with original forms and unique colors for the time. In 1904 the company hired Frederick Rhead as art director, and under his guidance the company produced some of the designs most desired by collectors today, including Della Robbia, Aztec, Fudgi and Crystalis. As the demand for costly art pottery decreased, the company shifted to commercially produced lines without hand decoration and ceased producing art pottery in 1914. In 1919 Frank Ferrell took the job of art director and oversaw the creation of popular Roseville designs like Wisteria, Sunflower, Pinecone and Dahlrose. Roseville struggled after World War II as the demand for high quality pottery decreased and in 1954 the company shut down.

In addition to the vases they’re best known for, Roseville also made products like cookie jars, candle holders, wall pockets, bowls, umbrella holders and flower pots. Because Roseville pottery is highly sought, it has been reproduced quite a bit and buyers should beware. This web page is dedicated to teaching collectors how to spot reproductions of Roseville pottery: http://www.wwcomponents.net/roseville/roseville.html#experimentals .

And here are photos of authentic Roseville maker’s marks as well as fakes: http://www.wwcomponents.net/roseville/rosevilleMarks.html

This site has photos of a wide range of Roseville styles and products: http://www.rosevilleplace.com/roseville-pottery/roseville02.php