May The Good Guys Live Forever - The Lost Pleasure of the Comic Club
Jordan Gorfinkel was an assistant (then full-time) editor for the Batman titles. At the end of each letters columb, he would use as a sign off - "MTGGLF."
Later on, when he left his editing position (as an aside, I sure would love to see him editing the books again), he explained what MTGGLF stood for.
It stood for "May the good guys live forever," which was the secret slogan to the comic book club that he had belonged to when he was in college (or perhaps before then, I am not positive).
Thinking about that, and the whole concept of comic book clubs, I will admit that I got a bit nostalgic, but in a strange way, as I was never in a comic book club. Before the internet, the only time I would ever talk about comic books was at the comic book store, and as David Welsh so eloquently wrote about recently, talking about comics with people you do not know is often a tricky business.
No, what I became nostalgic for was the time when there were people who loved comic books so much that they would go out of their way to form CLUBS to talk about them.
It is great to talk about them on the internet, it really is (I enjoy it a lot), but I can only imagine how cool it must be to get together with a group of friends and talk regularly about comics, and how much devotion it must have took to get to some of these clubs. Especially if you were a youngster. It is almost like, if you were willing to show UP, that proved how into comics you WERE.
Now, with the internet, such groups are largely becoming a thing of the past (as anyone who wants to talk comics can got to a messageboard or a blog or whatever).
There is a certain sadness in that, I think.
Sort of like throwing out your old typewriter.
In any event, I'd love to hear any stories of comic clubs that you folks belonged to, if anyone has any such experience.
Later on, when he left his editing position (as an aside, I sure would love to see him editing the books again), he explained what MTGGLF stood for.
It stood for "May the good guys live forever," which was the secret slogan to the comic book club that he had belonged to when he was in college (or perhaps before then, I am not positive).
Thinking about that, and the whole concept of comic book clubs, I will admit that I got a bit nostalgic, but in a strange way, as I was never in a comic book club. Before the internet, the only time I would ever talk about comic books was at the comic book store, and as David Welsh so eloquently wrote about recently, talking about comics with people you do not know is often a tricky business.
No, what I became nostalgic for was the time when there were people who loved comic books so much that they would go out of their way to form CLUBS to talk about them.
It is great to talk about them on the internet, it really is (I enjoy it a lot), but I can only imagine how cool it must be to get together with a group of friends and talk regularly about comics, and how much devotion it must have took to get to some of these clubs. Especially if you were a youngster. It is almost like, if you were willing to show UP, that proved how into comics you WERE.
Now, with the internet, such groups are largely becoming a thing of the past (as anyone who wants to talk comics can got to a messageboard or a blog or whatever).
There is a certain sadness in that, I think.
Sort of like throwing out your old typewriter.
In any event, I'd love to hear any stories of comic clubs that you folks belonged to, if anyone has any such experience.
posted by Brian Cronin at 8/30/2005 06:33:00 AM
3 Comments:
I never really had a formal comic club, but at different times I had best friends who were also into comics... Glenn King, whom I've sadly lost touch with over the years, was the one whom I had the best conversations with. We would spend hours talking comics... sometimes every single evening when he got home from work (much to the displeasure of his wife). We'd also throw comics trivia questions back and forth at each other.
I run a mailing list for the Puget Sound of Washington area, incongruously called seataccomics in Yahoo Groups, and one night, I invited them to my apartment to watch videos of old superhero cartoons and movies. We never got to watching a single one. We got together about mid-afternoon, and started talking comics... and then, before we knew it, it was after midnight! We were enjoying the conversation so much, we'd lost all track of time, and never got around to ordering the pizza we'd planned to have for dinner!
Good times!
Well, it's funny you bring this up. I was part of a club up until very recently. A LCS (not the one i work, but another), who was owned by a firend of mine, did something like this.
It started out as just a few of us hanging out one day, talking about Identity Crisis. As the end of it, we all decided that we'd keep the talking going every time the new issue came out. A few others started to join in, was added getting pizza and soda to the gathering, and it was a lot of fun.
When IC ended, we moved on to Green Lantern: Rebirth. However, by about issue #4 of that, folks slowly started to stop coming in for the discussion and a few months ago my firend closed his storefront and moved his comic selling totally online.
Still, for a little while there, it was a lot of fun. You got a real sense of community and brotherhood (moreso than you can hope to get online). And I kinda miss it already.
Certainly sounds cool, Jon and James!
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