Pop Culture Chronicles

A Trip to the Pop Culture Library

Our family recently spent an afternoon at the Browne Popular Culture Library on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. I could spend hours looking through their holdings. 

The entire fourth floor of the university library is dedicated to pop culture studies. They have an astounding collection of movies, recordings, and periodicals. But best of all, they have over 50,000 comic books. It's one of the largest library collections of comics in the world, although exceeded by the comic collections of the Library of Congress (over 100,000 comics) and the Comic Art Collection at the Michigan State University library (over 240,000 comics). 

Even Golden Age comics are available. You can actually touch them and read them. Now some of the older, more valuable stuff has to be read on microfiche on the first floor reader. But duplicate issues are also available in hard copy.

So we took the elevator to the fourth floor where we turned right down a hallway that took us to a room with tables, a computer, and a help desk. Shelves held a number of reference works on the history of film, comics, TV, actors, fictional characters, and popular music among other topics. The reference books cannot be taken from this room. 

Here is what was different from what I had envisioned: There were no stacks to browse in hopes of serendipitously running onto something that strikes your fancy. All items must be requested at the help desk, so it's good to know what you're looking for before you get there.

People unaffiliated with the university as either staff or students are at a bit of a disadvantage. First, you have to pay $25 if you want a library card. Parking can be a pain since so many lots are reserved. You cannot use a laptop to browse the card catalog since only school affiliates have passwords to access the wi-fi. While the website boasts large collections of Spiderman and Star Trek memorabilia, none of it is on display.

But the librarians will bring out whatever you want to see. I found the staff to be most helpful, friendly, and accommodating. They gave my kids some discarded hard cover comics and I came away with a reference book from the discard table. The librarians can log you into a library computer for use of the card catalog. So in spite of some inconveniences, I intend to make use of access to a library of this caliber which is within driving distance from where we live. 

(Photo courtesy Flickr)                  

Geppi's Entertainment Museum

A recent business trip took our family by Baltimore, Maryland. We stopped off at downtown for a couple of hours to visit Geppi's Entertainment Museum.

The museum is a celebration of American pop culture from the Brownies, to Buster Brown, to Batman, to the Beatles. Moving from room to room is like taking a trip through time. Visitors begin by pondering the Pioneer Spirit (1776-1894) as they view the toys of children from that era. The first commercialized pop culture characters were the Brownies who appeared on toys and other merchandise.

The museum took us on through the history of newspaper strips, comic books, antique toys and banks, old time radio, television, music, and movies. Many items displayed the likeness of pop culture icons including Mickey Mouse, Superman, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Howdy Doody, the Beatles, Darth Vader, Mr. T., and many many more. The museum houses items which include toys, cereal boxes, records, books, action figures, lunch boxes, model kits, games, and much more.   

One of my favorite parts of the museum is the Batman display with a life-sized caped crusader guarding glass display cases of Bat-merchandise. Included were replicas of the TV series' bat-phone and the Shakespeare bust that gave millionaire Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward access to the bat-poles. What amazed me is how much of this bat-stuff I actually have in my collection. I'd love to have a Batman museum or even a decent display case like they have in antique malls. Then I could unpack more of my stuff.

Another favorite part of the museum was the comic book room tracing comic history from the Golden Age to the Modern Age. Encased in glass were issues containing first appearances of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Hulk, the Fantastic Four and many others, all in decent condition. I pointed out Action Comics #1 and told my kids that if we had a copy we could pay off our house and have money left over. Some of the most interesting comics were those with TV or movie photo covers with everyone from Lucille Ball, to John Wayne, to Fess Parker's Davy Crockett. The comic room also had a huge, perhaps complete (?), collection of Big Little Books.

Adding to the fun were cards with bar codes that could be scanned at monitors throughout the museum which asked pop culture trivia questions and gave you multiple choices. Cards were later exchanged at the gift shop for a prize. The museum was colorfully decorated with huge copies of comic covers, actual movie and adventure serial posters, original comic art, animation cells, and other treasures.

I first learned of the museum from my friend, Ron, who told me it was featured in this year's Jughead Free Comic Book Day issue in which Archie becomes a night watchman at Geppi's. The comic included the museum's web address.

So if you're ever in Baltimore, and you're a retro pop culture enthusiast, you'll love Geppi's. Our family got out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to arrive at this destination on time. The kids were excited and had pop culture t-shirts ready to wear that morning. They love vintage pop culture. We must be raising them right.