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Wanted: All the Funny Pages

Bill Blackbeard, Funnies Collector

by Judy Gonyeau, managing editor

magine trying to gather all the grains of sand before the next William Elsworth Blackbeard was born on April 28, 1926. When
wave hits the beach and takes them all away. This was the he was 12 in 1938, Action Comics #1, aka the introduction of
Superman, was hitting the streets. Blackbeard was known to have very
Imission Bill Blackbeard (Am.,1926-2011) set out to do by
strong feelings about comic books, saying, “Far from being
gathering old and current newspapers before they were thrown overwhelmed when Action came out with Superman, I thought it was
out. There were hundreds of thousands of newspapers out there meretricious dreck. I liked the art. I’d been following Slam Bradley in
waiting to be rescued that contained the gold Blackbeard hunted Detective Comics. And I liked the storyline; I thought that was fine.
for: those colorful creative But the Superman content
did nothing for me because
Sunday Funnies.
I immediately saw what
many other people saw:
A Focused Collector there’s no story here. If he
According to The Comics can do anything he wants
Journal, Bill Blackbeard had his to, who cares? Why bother?
“a-ha!” moment at the age of 12 But the art did appeal, and I
when he looked in a neighbor’s looked at it occasionally. It
garage and saw a massive was nicely drawn. … I
amount of old newspapers couldn’t understand how
stacked high along one wall. anyone would want to
The colorful double-spread immerse themselves in such
Sunday comics drew his eye and stuff. I was definitely not a
he started to explore what was sympathetic reader of the
there. Stacks and stacks of early comic books. I had
newspapers dating back to 1923 dismissed them growing up.
grabbed him into its clutches. “I It wasn’t until the comic
was absolutely excited at this book craze of the sixties
stuff,” Blackbeard told reporter came in that I thought, My
Kevin Parks in a segment for god—people think this is
This Week News, who noted Portrait of Bill Blackbeard, ink and classic! Couldn’t believe it.”
that “his voice still brimmed gouache original by Alfredo Alcala. San Blackbeard became much
with wonderment.” The owner Francisco Academy of Comic Art more of a realist than a The Diary of Snubs, Our Dog
of the garage came home while Collection, The Ohio State University fantasy-seeker. This trait An early favorite of Blackbeard’s.
Bill was still there and indicated Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum was a benefit as he stayed
that he wanted to rid himself of focused on comic strips. As Parks noted, “Blackbeard aspired to
all those heaps of newspapers – “that was all Blackbeard needed to acquire every strip ever published.”
know.” He hauled them off and started his collection of comic strips.
Before the Newspapers Disappear
After graduating from high school and serving during World War
II, Blackbeard started earning a living by becoming a freelance writer
by day, and comic strip collector by night. This continued at a fast
pace until the early 1960s when a now middle-aged writer and
collector discovered that libraries everywhere were putting
newspaper content onto microfiche or microfilm and then throwing
away the newspapers.
There were two problems with this: one, the microfilms were
subjective to who was clipping through the paper and often did not
include comic strips; and two, if they did include them, they were
now shown only in black and white and a series was more likely to be
incomplete.
In order to accept the newspapers from the libraries—which were
more than happy to give all this “clutter” to this new collector—
Blackbeard had to establish a non-profit. To get the donation,
Blackbeard established the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art
Bill Blackbeard called Popeye the World’s First Superhero. Whether you agree
with him or not, he was the first in comics (newspaper comic strips) to have (SFACA) in 1968, calling it “the fastest thing I’ve ever done.” The
super-human strength. Superhero or not, Popeye is in good company. donations came flying in.

26 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles