Superhero sale
A tearful farewell to a comic mega-collection
When 21-year-old Sancar Kavvas died of leukaemia in 1998, he left the fruit of his short life’s labour in boxes.
Thousands of comic books documenting the dilemmas and decisions of heroes – be they mutants battling bigotry, a scantily clad vamp reading emotions via scent, or bald cousins trying to escape a valley. X-Men, Vampirella, and Bone feature prominently in Sancar’s collection, piled inside his parents’ Auckland apartment.
Sancar’s dad, Nejat Kavvas, handles the comics’ plastic sleeves with gloves. Some have certificates declaring them authentic first editions, others are signed by their artist. Kavvas knows they might be worth something, though little idea how much.
That hadn’t mattered for the past 20 years. The 2400-odd comics’ sentimental value was enough. But a recent downsizing of his house and the growing of his grandchildren mean the comics are entering the market.
‘‘We will, of course, keep some pieces in memory of my son,’’ says Kavvas, a retired businessman turned artist. ‘‘But the reality is these boxes take up too much space, and unfortunately none of the family have Sancar’s interest in comics.’’
Kavvas and his Kiwi wife moved from Istanbul, Turkey, to New Zealand when Sancar was in utero. Their son was named after Syria’s Sinjar Mountain, where his ancestors ruled, and he grew up on Auckland’s North Shore.
Sancar’s obsession with comics started about the time he was diagnosed with leukaemia, at age nine. Doctors gave him three months to live. He defied them, but the cancer kept coming back.
The boy was given a freer rein than had he been ‘‘a normal kid’’, says Kavvas.
‘‘His mother and I decided to do whatever we could to give him a quality life, to give him comfort in what would likely be a rather limited life. That included giving him rather large sums of money – which he spent entirely on comics.’’
When Sancar was well enough, he travelled to comic conventions in the US. He bought rare editions, superhero figurines that remain sealed in their original packaging, and thousands of collector cards. As a teenager, he helped finance a short-lived comic book store with friends in Takapuna.
Much of the time, however, he was terribly ill. Kavvas believes his son found hope in comics’ alternative realities ‘‘because they allowed him, perhaps, to escape his own dimension’’.
Auckland University associate professor Neal Curtis teaches critical theory and is the author of On Sovereignty and Superheroes. The comics expert says it’s rare for a collection the size of Sancar’s to come on the market.
‘‘I imagine a collection like this, in really good condition, being collected from the late ‘80s to the late ‘90s by someone with the money and interest to pick up older comics … will be very, very interesting,’’ he says.
Curtis describes the world of superheroes and super villians as a philosophically charged realm.
‘‘They’re places where people – sometimes quite flawed people – have superpowers, and work through questions of identity and morality. That’s a really empowering thing,’’ Curtis says.
Comic book speculators snap them up on the off chance they’ll soar in value. An extreme example is Marvel Comics’ Amazing Fantasy #15, an issue of which sold for 12 US cents on newstands in 1962 and for US$1.1 million in 2011. Why? It debuted Spider-Man (and was in near mint condition). An issue of DC Comics’ Detective Comics #27, introducing Batman in 1939, went for for more than US$1m in 2010.
Both those superheroes spawned their own series of comic books. A first edition Batman, introducing the Joker and Catwoman, sold for US$1.7m in 2013. An issue of Amazing SpiderMan #14, featuring the Green Goblin for the first time and guest-starring the Incredible Hulk sold for a more modest US$145,000 in 2015.
Others buy them because they’re ‘‘just really hooked on the story’’, says Curtis.
‘‘You’ve got to remember these are massive fantastical soap operas that in some cases have been going 80-plus years. People search out particular issues, because there are key parts of the narrative – for example the death of Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man – that become so important to the general mythos.’’
Gwen Stacy, for the record, was the girlfriend of Peter Parker – alter-ego of Spider-Man – and died after the Green Goblin hurled her from a New York bridge. This 1973 story arc was a watershed moment for The Amazing Spider-Man and comics in general: the first time the loveinterest of a popular protagonist had been killed off.
Curtis says ‘‘aura’’ is another reason people fork out for secondhand comics, when the stories are largely available digitally and in multi-issue paperbacks. ‘‘There’s just something about getting your hands on a comic that came out on its day of release. There’s this famous German cultural critic called Walter Benjamin who talked about original works having a particular aura.’’
Benjamin, born in 1892, wrote an essay on how an artwork’s socalled aura decayed with mechanical reproduction: ‘‘ie, getting slapped onto tea towels, postcards, the internet and whatnot,’’ says Curtis. Just as renaissance art fans make pilgrimages to Paris to see the Mona Lisa, comic book lovers covet cheaply printed pamphlets – at whatever the cost.
Kavvas is not sure why Sancar collected so diligently, aside from being ‘‘a boy who when he did something, did it perfectly’’.
More than 20 years after his son’s death, tears fill Kavvas’ eyes when he talks about him. The comics don’t bring him the joy they brought Sancar, but he hopes they will to someone else.
‘‘I imagine a collection like this, in really good condition, being collected from the late ‘80s to the late ‘90s by someone with the money and interest to pick up older comics … will be very, very interesting.’’ Neil Curtis