I have always been apt to save things too, from box scores to newspaper articles about the most recent Hall of Fame selections to collectibles that were printed within the pages of the daily or weekly newspapers. Some of these collectibles are more widely accepted as a form of trading card, others not yet so much. Many more are probably lost to fading memories of newspapers as we once knew them.
It looks like around 1986, an artist by the name of John Roman started doing a synicated comic in the Sunday edition, called Biography. According to Wikipedia, June 1, 1986 was the debut. The strip would continue until 1989, although on May 14th, 1989 (again, according to Wikipedia) a different artist took over the strip from Roman, Steve McGarry. Assuming this was a weekly strip and it lasted about 5-5.5 years, we'd probably see somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-300 different subjects in that time. It appears from what I can find online, the subjects were mostly sports, movie and music celebrities. Perhaps the kids would find biographies of scientists and politicians a tad boring?
I recently dug up a couple of these Biography comics that I clipped as a kid. That seems about right, as I was a Junior/Senior in High School during the 1986/87 seasons and then left for the Navy, so my collection would not have dated past 1987. I found 4 total, all sports subjects, which also makes sense. I wish I had saved them all weekly, but sports was all I really cared about when it came time to save stuff. I'm surprised that I only had 4, maybe I was more selective still, or the sports celebrities featured when I was aware and had access were sparse. I am not aware of a checklist, but that would be very interesting to see one some day.
Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Wade Boggs and Sugar Ray Leonard were the 4 I managed to save from the garbage pile. The mind can only wonder what other treasures I might have saved if I was even less selective.
When I decided to write this articles and share these, I did a few quick internet searches and found a handful of other offerings. Aside from a few that caught my eye, I selected mostly sports stars again, but there were not many more. I probably found 15-20 differnt subjects. This is not something most people thought to save unfortunately, so it would be interesting to know just how many of these there are or if there are any hardcore collectors out there. Given the popularity of celebrities and the time frame (1986-91), I can't help but think that Jordan may be the most popular subject you might find, so in that regard I am very fortunate. Some others I came across in my search were Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Pete Rose, Darryl Strawberry, Clint Eastwood, Ratt, The Beatles, Howie Long and a couple by McClarry including Thomas Hearns and Orel Hershiser. There were a few more, mostly actors and musians, but I didn't bother to capture thos images. A few were even proof or preproduction pieces (Long and The Beatles).
As usual, if there are any collectors or persons with advanced knowledge on any subject I discuss, would love to hear from you in the comments or via email. I hope you enjoy this little oddball slice of sports collecting.
0 Yorumlar