Last time, we talked about one of the most important passions that drives comic collectors--the love of reading. As we explored that facet of the hobby, we touched on another of my recurring pet peeves, which is the notion that comics should be restricted to entertaining children alone, and that adults should set aside all those “funny books.” Well, in this installment, I have a special treat--an interview with 39-year-old computer programmer Nick Simon. This gentleman has devoted years to building a unique website devoted to, of course, comics. He doesn’t seem to think comics are just kid stuff either, and he shares the same feelings of nostalgia that motivate all collectors. More than that, his project is an homage to comics history, and it’s a nifty place to visit if you’re feeling the tug of wistful reminiscence, especially if you’re a Silver Age Marvel fan. But let’s hear the rest from Nick himself...

[Note: All Marvel Comics covers shown here are from The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index and are copyright ©1998 Marvel Entertainment Group.]

I work part-time on contract at present, recently retrenched after nearly ten years in the same job. I play guitar, basketball, and soccer. I’m a qualified teacher, I’m divorced, I have two kids. When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer or a filmmaker. Actually, I wanted to do everything--I’m an air sign. The comic character I most identified with was probably Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacy’s death contributed to my loss of innocence as much as anything that happened in real life!

The Gwen Stacy story was a seminal event in my comic-reading youth too. Let’s talk about your website, The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index, with which you meticulously catalog every single Marvel comic of the Silver Age in a chronological database by cover. The site already contains an amazing array of cover scans, all noted by month, year, and issue number, and exhaustively cross-referenced. Why did you decide to start this gargantuan project?

When I first got connected to the internet I thought “well, let’s see if there are any good comics sites out there”. At the time I was selling my comic book collection, which was probably comprised of about fifty percent of Marvel’s Silver Age. They’d sat in bags and boxes for fifteen years or more without being looked at. Occasionally I’d look through a box, and the sight of a particular cover would inspire me to open the book, but really they were just sitting there--it was time to move on. But I figured I could keep looking at the covers by scanning them and using them as wallpaper on my PC. Unfortunately I didn’t have a scanner, so I started ‘collecting’ scans off the net. When I started finding them, I got the same rush as I got haunting second-hand bookstores when I was a kid. I work in software development and was tinkering with HTML, so I started building the index just for my own amusement. After I’d found a few cover scans, I started organizing them by month, thinking I’d confine myself to 1967-68, when I began actively collecting, but soon I was filling up my hard disk with more than that. I thought I’d have to draw the line somewhere, so I decided to move the cut-off date to the end of 1970. I went live with it on October 29, 1997, initially with the thumbnail images on GeoCities and the larger images distributed across several other sites, all linked together in a crazed attempt to document Marvel’s Silver Age in its entirety. I didn’t realize how much of my time it would end up consuming.

Why did you choose Marvel Comics’ Silver Age as the focus of your index?

When I was collecting, in the ’60s and ’70s, Marvel was it for me. The only DC comic I ever bought was an issue of Metal Men. It was so far behind the FF or Spidey that I decided I’d just stick to the Marvel Universe, which was complex enough anyway. I loved the way Marvel heroes bickered, and had personal problems. I didn’t see DC having the same depth of characterization. Marvel’s Silver Age ended for me around 1970, when Lee stopped writing, Kirby left for DC, and the remaining creative talent was stretched thin with the explosion of characters getting their own titles. I kept collecting for a while out of habit rather than out of genuine interest. Looking back on Spidey, DD or Avengers in the ’70s, it was pretty dire stuff, a long way from the glory days of the Silver Age.

The concept of allowing people to cross-reference all the issues available in a single month is, in my opinion, one of the most intriguing and attractive aspects of the index. It gives a sense of history and what it was like to read Marvels at the time they were being published. Do you envision the site being useful on a practical level for historical purposes, as a record for research of Marvel and that era?

I suppose so. Incomplete, it’s of limited value, although even if the images are missing you can still go to my site and with two or three clicks find out which month Dr. Strange # 178 came out, or what Spidey was up to in his own title the month he and DD guest-starred in FF # 73. I’m determined to finish it, however long it takes, so it will be complete at some stage. A cover index only goes so far, and there’s probably more ‘information’ on the Marvel Universe at about a dozen other sites I could name, such as Kevin Hall’s Daredevil Resource and The Marvel Chronology Project. But the internet is a visual medium, and the cross-referencing is something you couldn’t easily emulate in a printed publication. Now that you mention it, I’d get a huge kick out of discovering that current Marvel writers were using it as a research tool!

Have you received any response from your site so far?

Oh yes. I’ve received about two hundred e-mail messages, probably about three every two days now. Some of those have been ongoing conversations. I’ve had seven or eight correspondents who have scanned covers I’ve needed, and some even helped me set up sites devoted to individual titles, where the larger images are now located. I couldn’t have come this far without their help. And the responses have been from all over the planet--Finland, Sweden, Italy, the UK, Canada, Mexico, the West Indies. I’ve been surprised and delighted by the level of response, and also by the literacy of those involved. People who grew up on a diet of Marvel Comics seem to be extraordinarily literate!

I’ve always felt that Marvel Comics in particular were one of the finest tools for expanding a young reader’s vocabulary and literacy. Are you planning to develop your concept further, by expanding to include other eras or other companies?

One ‘expansion’ I’ve already embarked on is developing tribute pages to specific artists. I was always a huge fan of certain pencilers and inkers. Steranko was always a favorite, and my site includes a Steranko section, with images of every cover he did for Marvel. I did Steranko first because he worked in comics fairly briefly and therefore there’s a reasonably small number of Steranko covers. About half of these are outside the ‘Silver Age’, so I’ve gone through that boundary. I also have pages devoted to John Romita, Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, John Severin, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Dan Adkins, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Neal Adams, Vince Colletta, Barry Smith, Gil Kane, even Chic Stone and Werner Roth! Some of these artists did only a few covers, others did hundreds--in Gil Kane's case, I think he did too many! With all of these artists I’m presenting a selection of covers rather than trying to be comprehensive like I’ve been with Ditko and Steranko. I mean, Romita’s run on Spidey is basically already there for all to see in the Spider-Man section of my site, so there’s little point in reproducing it for a tribute page. I’m likely to put up the non-Spidey Romita covers in a Romita section. I’ve also headed backwards into the pre-hero ‘Atlas’ issues of titles like Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense and Amazing Fantasy, and I’ll continue to do that. There’s some great stuff in there.

Do you think the site or the concept might develop into something of commercial value, or are you simply interested in doing it because you love the comics and the hobby?

If I was interested in making money from it, I’d probably be selling ad space on it by now, although maybe fifty hits a day isn’t all that great from an advertiser’s point of view--I haven’t looked into that. I’ve deliberately resisted all these Web-ring and Link Exchange banners because I don’t want them cluttering up my site. But if someone came along and said “I’ll pay you $50 an hour to work on it so it gets finished more quickly,” then I’d be ecstatic, because at this rate--working on it a couple hours here, a couple there--it’s going to take me years to finish it. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy, make no mistake!

Does the index project give you an added incentive to complete a collection (since you need the cover scans)? Is it the way you have set a personal goal for collecting?

My collection is only scans now. All I have left of my ‘real’ collection is a box of Sgt. Fury and Marvel Tales, some FF ‘reading copies,’ and some Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD (of course).

Have you been a collector all your life?

No. I collected Marvel (nearly all of their titles from about 1967-72), and then for a long time I only collected the Fantastic Four. I haven’t seriously collected any titles for about fifteen years. That’s not to say I think there’s been nothing worth collecting; the stuff Miller and Janson did on DD and the Byrne FF issues were probably as great as anything in the history of comics, and more recently I’ve really enjoyed stuff by writers Busiek, Waid and Kelly. I’ve been buying--wait for it--Gen13, which I think has recaptured and probably outstripped the spirit of the early X-Men. But I might go three months without buying a comic. I certainly don’t collect comics as I once did.

Do you have other interests in the world of collecting and comics?

I used to collect movie posters. I’ve got quite a few, but they’re harder to store, impossible to scan and difficult to sell...but I can’t seem to part with them.

Your site recreates an entire era from the past--it’s a real treat for Marvel collectors. Why do you think we are all so driven to collect and reconnect with things from our past like this? What does nostalgia mean to you?

Well I don’t see the point in denying what was once important to you. I have kids, and through them I have rediscovered aspects of myself that I’d forgotten. One of the best things about being a parent is that you sometimes get to see the world through a child’s eyes again, and it can be a world of wonder, awe, excitement and endless possibility. That’s how I felt when I was into comics, and that’s what I get when I see an old cover. From the responses I’ve had, others are seeing that too.

That’s certainly the case from where I’m sitting, Nick, and thank you for your participation in this ongoing discussion of the power of nostalgia. For those of you who want to visit Nick’s site, and see the Marvel Universe of the Silver Age come alive in a stunning array of covers from every title imaginable, go to The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index on your web browser, and immerse yourself in Marvel’s glory days, True Believer! Excelsior!

Waxing Nostalgic is a look at pop culture, collecting, and all the work that goes into building a reference work on a grand scale. If you have comments or questions, write to Waxing Nostalgic, c/o Gemstone Publishing, 1966 Greenspring Drive, Suite 405, Timonium, MD, 21093. Or send e-mail to barnold@gemstonepub.com.