Library of Congress adds collection of comic books
WASHINGTON — The Library of Congress has acquired its largest donation of comic books and other pop-culture memorabilia, including early Mickey Mouse storyboards and items that date to the dawn of American newspaper comics.
The acquisition, announced this week, comes courtesy of collector and entrepreneur Stephen A. Geppi, who is donating more than 3,000 items from his holdings, which span the eight-decade history of the American comic-book industry.
His Mickey Mouse storyboards are from the Jazz Age animated short "Plane Crazy," which was inspired by aviator Charles Lindbergh. Other items, library officials say, include printing blocks from Richard Outcault's late-19th-century comic-strip character the Yellow Kid, Beatles memorabilia and a No. 2 Brownie camera Model F from Eastman Kodak.
The donation — which the library says it is valuing "in the millions" — resulted from months of conversations between Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who champions ways in which the public might view the library's scope anew, and Geppi, who opened Geppi's Entertainment Museum in 2006 in Baltimore.
"As I have interacted with people in our buildings and at other libraries across the country, I have found that when you tell them we have the world's Comic books are a big part of a sizable donation to the Library of Congress.
largest collection of comic books, they do a double-take, because it makes them think about the Library differently," Hayden said.
"It makes them realize (that) maybe there is something here for me. It is a way to get people's attention and pull them in."
Last year, Hayden moderated a conversation with "Wonder Woman" TV star Lynda Carter as part of a library exhibit spotlighting its superhero-comic holdings.
Geppi, a comics distributor who opened his private collection to invitation-only viewings in 1995, said his eyes were fully opened to the library's commitment to comics when Hayden arranged his viewing of the library's original art for Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the historic comic by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko featuring the 1960s debut of Spider-Man.
Soon, a light went on for him, as he considered the future of his own museum collection, which he says he built during several decades as "a monument to people's childhood."
"Can you imagine having Action Comics No. 1 sitting right next to the Gutenberg Bible in a display — putting it on that level of importance in pop culture?" Geppi said, referencing the 1938 comic book in his collection in which Superman made his debut. The acquired items will move from his museum to the Library, and he is still considering where he will house the rest of his collection.
Geppi, who was born in Baltimore's Little
Italy neighborhood in 1950, noted that comics were condemned by Congress in that decade, and that he believes the comicbook industry took much of the rest of the century to recover. Part of his mission has been to see that comic art is rightfully appreciated.
"Comics needed to put in a setting where they were seen as valuable," he said. "If it was good enough for Renoir, it was good enough for Mickey."
That dovetails with the library's vision.
"With this extraordinarily generous gift from Stephen Geppi, we not only fill in gaps in our collection but enhance the ability of researchers to understand the indelible role comics played in American entertainment and culture," said Sara Duke, curator at the library's rare prints and photographs division.
She said the Library of Congress has systematically sought out original cartoon art since the 1950s, and it has broadened its scope in the past decade to include small-press comics and mainstream comic-book collections.
“The magnitude of this gift is overwhelming,” Duke said. “We, as an institution, intend to honor it by making the collection as accessible as possible to Americans (and) the world while still preserving it for future generations.”
There are "really only two American art forms: jazz and comics," Geppi said. "And this collection deserves to be in a place that can preserve it forever."