From The Scoop: John Chruscinski: The Golden Age Guru
From the December 29 issue of Gemstone Publishing's The Scoop:
John Chruscinski is a natural-born collector, having built many collections in the last 35 years. Born in 1965 in Fort Lauderdale in southern Florida, Chruscinski lived there most of his life and began a chain of retail stores at the age of 17. Tropic Comics had stores that branched from Miami to Viral Beach, Florida. Chruscinski currently lives in his Victorian dream home in Pennsylvania and runs Tropic Comics' online store.
Scoop: When were you born? And where?
I was born in 1965 in Fort Lauderdale in southern Florida. I lived there most of my life, had my chain of retail stores there which branched from Miami to Viral Beach, FL
Scoop: When did you begin to collect Golden Age comics? What attracted you to that particular era in comics' history?
I began to get into Golden Age comics shortly after I began collecting comics around age 12. The very first Golden Age book I got for my collection was Detective Comics #14 which I got for my thirteenth birthday. As long as I can remember, I've always collected something; I started collecting stamps and coins and then graduated to comics.
I can remember collecting coins when I was about 5 years old, and my mom would take me to the bank to get roles of coins. I'd go through the rolls pull out the silver ones or the Indian Head pennies for my collection. From there, I moved on to become a pretty serious collector of stamps. But, when I found comics [again], everything else went.
Every week, I would ride my bike up to the shop were I bought my stamps from with my weekly allowance. One week, the guy that owned the shop put in a spinner rack with what I perceived as "old" comics and a copy of Incredible Hulk #113 caught my eye. I bought the book for $1, took it home and read it and from that point on, I was hooked!
It was like magic. I had baseball cards and even Richie Rich comics when I was a kid, but nothing that ever fully drew me in like the issue of Incredible Hulk did. I became totally obsessed! It was like a 180-degree turnaround for me. After picking up that issue, nothing could compare to feeling of picking up a comic for my collection. I began to collect a run of Hulk's and it took me two years to get issue #114. I had gotten every other issue from #1 on, but for some reason, #114 just kept eluding me. Eventually, I was able to get the issue and then sold the run shortly after and moved on to another run.
Scoop: What was the first comic book you remember buying for your collection and what were the circumstances (where, when, etc.)?
The first comics I truly remember buying off the rack were Conan #1-3, when I was about 6 or 7. After seeing a movie, my dad took me to get some comics and I just happened to pick up the Conan's. Although I had comics growing up like most kids, all my early books gave way to other interests until I rediscovered them later on.
Scoop: How did your family react to collecting? Were they supportive? Disinterested?
Just like pretty much every fanboy, my grades dropped as I got deep into collecting, which didn't make my parents happy, but for the most part they were pretty supportive. The coolest memory I have is of coming home from school one afternoon and my father, who was a liquidator and wholesaler at the time, and bought an entire comic collection at a flea market. My whole living room was filled with about 20,000 comic books. There were some many book in the collection, I had to build shelves in my room just to accommodate them. I was a total fanboy. I had comics on the wall
Scoop: Did you drift away from collecting at any point (as some collectors do), or did you stick with them as you grew up? (And either way, why?)
My collection was, and still is, always changing. I've sold and trade away books, bought others. At one time, I had three copies of each Superman #1, Captain America #1 and Batman #1, so to say that I've drifted away from collecting is not really what happened. My tastes have changed and matured as I've gotten older and so have my collecting styles and habits.
In addition, I expanded into different areas of collecting through comics, due to collections I've bought or through different contacts I've made. I started selling comics when I was 15. My partner at the time and I would hit all the mall shows and other cons when the came around, but things were different back then; comics weren't as easily accessible through the internet and eBay and local shops like they are today. We made due and because we had to work at finishing runs, it became more important to us.
When I open my first store, I kept in mind the things I looked for early on in my collecting. We focused on back issues, beginning with a small back stock of 9,000 issues which grew to be over a million at the height of the stores' business.
Scoop: When did you begin expanding your collection to include premiums and comic character memorabilia? What got you interested in your various other areas of collecting?
In the early '90s, I bought a guy's collection of Superman which contained a complete run of Superman, some assorted Action Comics and some other Superman-family books, but it also contained a pretty extensive collection of toys, too. The toys were really cool and I took an interest in them, started selling them and just kind of expanded from there
Scoop: How did your collecting develop over the years? What excited you about early on? What excites you now?
The thing that excited me most when I was a young collector was when I collected coins and stamps, and even baseball cards early on, they were all just two-dimensional things and aside from collecting runs or mint marks, after putting them in a binder or coin holder, they really didn't "do" anything. But, with comics, I had a collectible that I could read and enjoy over and over again. It's like rock and roll memorabilia, which I have also collected over the years, you can enjoy them for more than aesthetic value.
As I've gotten older and seen and owned all that I have, what excites me most now is finding something that I've never seen before or coming across that oddity out there. It's not so much the big dollar items, but things like the 7¢ comics from the '50s that I'd never seen before. They run $4 in good in the Overstreet Comics Book Price Guide, I bought it for a $1 in Fair, but it excited the hell out of me because I saw and I'd never in my life seen one before.
Scoop: You have a fairly extensive original art collection. What type of art do you collect and which artists?
I've had to downsize the collection over the years, but I still have a pretty nice collection of piece hanging on my wall including pieces by Ken Kelly, Chris Achillios, Carl Barks, Scott Hampton, Steve Ditko and Jim Steranko. Plus more that aren't framed. At one point I had some original Frank Miller stuff and some others, but I've kind of moved away from the art as of late.
Scoop: What are your favorite pieces of original art?
My absolute favorite piece of original are would have to be the Ducks painting by Carl Barks. I got the piece from Carl personally at his 96th birthday party and it was just an awesome experience to sit there with him as he told be what made him draw the piece was just something I'll never forget. That's the one thing that, no matter what, they'll be burying me with!
Scoop: Do you have any stories about "the one that got away"? Do you have any specific comics or art that you sold that you wish you had kept?
More that anything, the only piece that really "got away" wasn't something I sold, but something that disappeared. A friend of mine, who was murdered in the early '90s, was doing some framing for my and I had given him, among other things, a Steranko splash page from Nick Fury #1. Although the other pieces were still in his possession and returned to me after the investigation, the splash page never turned up. It just disappeared and I've never seen it again.
Scoop: When working at CGC, what were some of the rarer comics that you got to see? Any that you needed for you collection?
I got see a lot of the pedigree books, the Mile High, the Gaines File copies. The most prominent thing to come across my desk were the 10.0 Thor #156, the 9.9 Incredible Hulk #181 and 9.2 Captain America #1. Working for CGC was wonderful and I absolutely love working there. The only reason I even left was because I was homesick.
Scoop: In your opinion what do you find the most rewarding about comics and collecting in general?
The backbone of this hobby is reliving your youth. Psychologically, childhood is the happiest time of your life. It's when you have no responsibilities, the world is golden and your imagination is the strongest it will ever be. Things that you can touch and hold that spark that memory that's buried so deeply inside us all, a comic or a toy or anything that rekindles the flame, that's what make our hobby amazing. That is were the reward is!
Scoop: How has the comic book and art hobby evolved in the time that you have been a serious collector? What has surprised you?
When I was seriously collecting from 1979 - 1982, big dollar stuff rarely sold for dealers. Trading was where a lot of book changed hands. I would pick up Comics Buyer's Guide and call through the classifieds to work trades for books I wanted or needed for a run, sometimes picking up some things to trade later on with someone else.
At one point, I traded a run of Avengers from #101 - 200 for a Phantom Lady #1 in VF, to turn around and trade that away for the next tier of books I was trying to get. Alost every big book I had at that time, I traded for.
Now, with the internet and eBay, that sort of trading is more of a thing of the past. Books are going for more and more at auction
Scoop: What advice do you have for people interested in collecting comics and or original comic art?
Collect what you love, and you'll never lose! Buy what you like. That's that way I ran my stores and that's the way I collect.
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