Pulp Heroes and X-Ray Specs

We held them in our hands, the smell of pulp and ink rising from their pages. Exciting adventures and the antics of little kids, friendly ghosts and funny animals. The wild west, World War II and the Korean War exploded right before our eyes. Caped crusaders flew through the sky, battling enemies with powers just as mighty as their own. There was horror, there was humor, and there was war. Our friends were teenagers and cowboys, super heroes and detectives, and we could have them all for a pocketful of change.
The comic book was king when it came to reading. I would lose myself between the pages of all of the costumed crime fighters of the day. Superman, Batman, The Flash. Aquaman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman and The Justice League of America. I had them all, piles and piles of them, stacked neatly in my room. When it came to comic books, Uncle Pat was my hero. He would bring them home from the Woodbury dump and give them all to me and my brother Carl. Besides all of the DC superheroes he would bring me Our Army At War with Sgt. Rock of Easy Company, The Haunted Tank, and Enemy Ace. There were Charlton comics and Dell/Gold Key, and Harvey as well. Mad magazine, and Blackhawk. Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, and something I never saw before; a huge comic book that was all of the collected stories of Dick Tracy, from the very beginning. It would be one of my favorites.
I had all of the "Li'l" comics, too. Li'l Dot, Little Audrey, Li'l Lotta, and Richie Rich, the Poor Little Rich Boy.
Comics were a passion-no, they were an obsession, and it was just as thrilling hunting them down as it was reading them. I had Uncle Pat and Pop-Pop Gardner for my main source of supply, and there was the Woodbury Newsstand near the railroad tracks when we could get to town. The aroma of that place was wonderful. Pulp paper and ink. The smell of ink from the covers of all the comics and the magazines and the stacks of newspapers. It was a drug, it was a siren's call. I couldn't wait for the weekend and a trip to the Berlin Farmer's Market. There was a vendor who sold paperbacks and magazines, and tons of comic books. In the early sixties you could get five for a quarter. The top half of the cover would be torn off, but that didn't matter, FIVE comics for a quarter instead of 10 or 12 cents a piece. This was the mother lode when it came to buying comics. You could get a good deal at the Cowtown flea market in Woodstown too, but I always liked the Berlin Market for its selection. There was a little shop in South Woodbury that sold ice cream and candy, and there was a huge pile of old comics in the front window area that you could rummage through. All the comics were a nickel, and the covers weren't torn in half. You could find unusual stuff there. Sad Sack, The Blue Beetle, old Tastee-Freeze books, and comics I never heard of before. I was always looking for new sources.
In between the stories of our favorite heroes was the most amazing advertising. There were always ads that promised to make you into a he-man with muscles upon muscles with which you could impress the girls. Kids! Make money selling GRIT, America's family newspaper. Did anyone ever do that? Sea monkeys and greeting cards, cheap plastic soldiers-thousands of them for only a dollar! The joke and novelty page was always my favorite. The X-ray Specs: see through your skin and look at your bones! Tempting, always tempting, but you knew it was too good to be true.
I would spend hours and hours on a rainy afternoon going through my hoard. We read them over and over, their pages dog-eared and worn from it all. Mine were neatly stacked, Carl's in a pile in some corner of the room until Mom would have us clean it up.
I loved the Classics Illustrated comics as well. I would read The Last of the Mohicans, Treasure Island, The Red Badge of Courage and a host of famous books long before reading the real thing. Classics Illustrated fueled the fire, and inspired me to read more as I got older.
There were incredible adventure stories. Turok-Son of Stone, the adventures of an American Indian who gets stuck in a lost valley populated by dinosaurs. Unusual characters like the Metal Men, Star Spangled War Stories featuring tales of soldiers in World War II also fighting dinosaurs!
I pored over each panel, I studied the drawing styles and tried to copy them. Sometimes I was successful, but more often than not my drawings were crude and awkward.
We did not preserve our comics in mylar sleeves or plastic coffins. We read them over and over and over. We traded them and argued over who was mightier, Batman or Superman, The Green Lantern or Hawkman. Who was funnier? Baby Huey or Casper the Friendly Ghost? The covers were often more thrilling than the book itself, and the ads were mostly scams to get money from the pockets of children and young adults.
It was cheap entertainment, a way to spend a rainy day or a hot summer afternoon.
They were cherished friends and thrilling tales, and they educated us too.
And soon, in this year of 1961, a new company would begin to tell us tales.
Tales at which we would truly marvel.