Dennis Gifford article from 1987.

[colcool007]

The University of Dundee is setting up a comics library so all donations would be gratefully received. Some of my doubles have already gone across to them. And I would not be surprised if they eventually turn it into a museum or an interactive media site to engage kids of all ages.

[Phoenix]

The University of Dundee is setting up a comics library

Are Thomsons sponsoring it?

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I will look into this: I want my SPARKYS to go into a dedicated Museum so that somebody can hopefully appreciate this stuff: 100 years after I did--------hopefully they will scan the pages as well as a backup.


Dundee is not all that far from where I live, so hopefully I can even go and see them before I pops me clogs.


I will take this approach over risking the entire pile of comics getting chucked into a skip by uncaring relatives/ council workers.

[Lew Stringer]

I will take this approach over risking the entire pile of comics getting chucked into a skip by uncaring relatives/ council workers.

I'd suggest perhaps making out a will to specify to who or where your possessions should go? It's something I really need to look into too.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Yes we are not getting any younger, are we, Lew! We won't be around to see the comics come time so I would feel better putting the best material at least into a Museum.

[Phoenix]

I'm going to take all mine with me otherwise I will certainly be extremely bored.

[geoff42]

A museum is most certainly required but, of course, only one issue is required of any one issue. Most collections will be of interest to collectors only... the rest is, i'm afraid, surplus to requirements. But back on the museum, considering the digital age, there will be every issue of every publication available but not on display... that is way too much to ask besides requiring a football stadium to house them all and then some. No, the way to go is basically a monitor or a series of monitors. With a click of a button, one can view every comic that has ever been published. Of course, copyright issues are engaged here but, say if a museum stipulates that it won't offer any issue on their monitor that is less than five year's old... would that work? Undoubtedly, royalties would still need paying for such viewing but couldn't that be offset by entrance fees or sundries such as socially connected events - comic fairs, swaps weekend once a month at said venue, maybe just a bar where enthusiasts can meet and engage. I'm just throwing ideas up in the air but, I feel, a museum in the old sense wouldn't work. In the digital age... maybe

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I'm going to take all mine with me otherwise I will certainly be extremely bored.

I wonder if they have some sort of customs control at the Pearly Gates, Phoenix?

---if so, your choice of material will surely get the stamp of approval before you are allowed to enter the cloudy paradise...those new arrivals with a wheelbarrow of VIZ may be redirected to Hades, of course!


Just joking, Lew: I know you work on Viz!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

A museum is most certainly required but, of course, only one issue is required of any one issue. Most collections will be of interest to collectors only... the rest is, i'm afraid, surplus to requirements. But back on the museum, considering the digital age, there will be every issue of every publication available but not on display... that is way too much to ask besides requiring a football stadium to house them all and then some. No, the way to go is basically a monitor or a series of monitors. With a click of a button, one can view every comic that has ever been published. Of course, copyright issues are engaged here but, say if a museum stipulates that it won't offer any issue on their monitor that is less than five year's old... would that work? Undoubtedly, royalties would still need paying for such viewing but couldn't that be offset by entrance fees or sundries such as socially connected events - comic fairs, swaps weekend once a month at said venue, maybe just a bar where enthusiasts can meet and engage. I'm just throwing ideas up in the air but, I feel, a museum in the old sense wouldn't work. In the digital age... maybe

Surely a museum, at the very least, would house scans of long runs of comics in their premises, Geoff? My local library has thousands of historic local newspapers on microfilm, which takes up a lot less space.

I am sure that the entire History of our comics on disc form could be housed on a sturdy shelf!


The entire archive of UK comics in paper form would require a sizable warehouse, I agree, likely very expensive to maintain: maybe it could be funded by selling all the doubles that come in on e-bay?


I'm quite serious.

[suebutcher]

What's missing from the British national library? Do they have a comics "wants list"?

[comixminx]

When my friend Andy Roberts was killed in a traffic accident in 2005, I suggested that his comics collection should be donated to the V&A Museum, which is what happened - actually to the National Art Library, which is part of the V&A. They were very happy to have it, tatty copies and all, as a representation of one person's passage through time, so to speak - the context of which comics went together in one sample person's life was of interest in itself. It also included a lot of small press and independent publications that otherwise would disappear entirely as being very limited print runs with no copies ever sent to the British Library. (Googling the Andy Roberts Memorial Collection, I find this intriguing reference to some research using it.)

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Yes Minx the story you have very interestingly recounted above reflects exactly my own approach regarding what happens to my cherished comics after I am gone; everything else I own can be thrown out or given away,, I am not too bothered---


---but these childhood comics represent such a powerful human memory, I cannot bear the thought of them lying on some freezing garbage heap, or thrown into an Industrial furnace,,,


Yes the thought of exactly WHO lovingly owned these comics in the distant past is quite a human story in itself.

[Phoenix]

What's missing from the British national library?

Well, for a start they no longer have a copy of The Boys' Holiday Book, published in 1927 by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. When I put a request slip in for it five or six years ago, might have been earlier, they went down to the storage area to get it but came back empty handed, and told me that it had been destroyed during the war. I still haven't seen a copy.

[Phoenix]

I wonder if they have some sort of customs control at the Pearly Gates, Phoenix?---if so, your choice of material will surely get the stamp of approval before you are allowed to enter the cloudy paradise...those new arrivals with a wheelbarrow of VIZ may be redirected to Hades, of course!

If I were to take only the story papers and books that I would be happy to read over and over again throughout eternity, Rab, I would still need a lorry. A wheelbarrow certainly wouldn't cut the mustard. P.S. How do you know it's cloudy up there?

[colcool007]

The University of Dundee is setting up a comics library

Are Thomsons sponsoring it?

Thomsons are not sponsoring it, but they are supporting it.