Comic Book Resources

Moving Day Blues

• by Greg Hatcher
• in Fridays...with Greg Hatcher

Thirty-six boxes of comics. Another twenty-one boxes of graphic novels, trade paperbacks, comics reference books and histories…. and then it’s time to go box up the NON-comics books. Then maybe we’ll get to the dishes and furniture and stuff. Let’s put it this way — one of the big reasons we’re moving is so we can have a whole room as a designated library and maybe get the rest of the books out of storage; what we have here is about half of them.

We’ve got a lot of books in this household, is what I’m saying. Beware where your obsessions lead you, fellow bibliophiles. Because someday you’re going to have to carry all that stuff, maybe up some stairs. Start working out now… that flabby fanboy physique isn’t going to cut it. Trust me on this.

All this is by way of confession that it’s really not much more than a squib of a column this week. I had about half a regular column done and for the last three days I’ve gotten out of bed saying, “I gotta get that column done tonight after we get done with the boxes,” and the trouble is, the boxes never get done. So you’re getting this stream-of-consciousness grumping instead.

It did remind me of a couple of great superhero moving-day stories though. You gotta give it up for the JLI and #8’s classic “Moving Day.”

Clearly this one came from the heart. It was all I could think of yesterday when Julie and I and my sister-in-law were trying to get everything packed up for the movers coming on Monday.

We also are unearthing all sorts of weird and forgotten stuff, which reminded me of this little gem in Batman #348….

At least we didn’t have a giant mutant bat creature lurking anywhere among all the offbeat things we’re turning up, though we haven’t ruled it out yet.

Look carefully at the “giant” penny in that splash page. Conway probably shouldn’t have called attention to it in the dialogue, because I always have seen it drawn at twice that size. You do need something that symbolizes Batcave furnishings in that shot, I understand that, but I think I’d have gone with them carrying the giant Joker playing card and had the penny leaning against the truck.

Even with the perspective gaffe, though, isn’t that a terrific page? Somebody unloaded it at Heritage Galleries for a tidy sum in August of 2005; I wish I’d known about it then, I’d have been sorely tempted to go after it myself. We don’t have much original art here but we do have some, and that certainly would be a worthy addition. I think you can find the story included in the new Secrets of the Batcave trade collection, if you’re curious.

I looked almost that depressed at the thought of packing up my stuff, too. Moving day really sucks like a Hoover.

At any rate, those are the only two moving-day stories I could think of for superhero comics. For some reason I’m blanking on Marvel examples of stories about the relocation backache blues. It sure seems like the Fantastic Four would have had at least one in there somewhere, or the Avengers. Oh well. Perhaps our stalwart crew of regular commenters have some. Talk amongst yourselves.

In the meantime, I’ll see you all back here next week with a real column. Backache and all.