The New York Times visits Steve Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, touring its extensive collections of comic books, action figures, comic strips, board games and animation cels. Geppi, of course, owns Diamond Comic Distributors.
The collection of comics is boldly colorful, wide-ranging and presented alphabetically within each era. It begins, appropriately enough, with Action Comics No. 1 (1938), the first appearance of Superman. It ends with more contemporary comics, like the gimmicky Superman No. 75 (1992), which chronicled his apparent death and was distributed sealed in black plastic, and the more somber “9-11” (2002), whose proceeds were donated to relief agencies. In between are comics that commemorate the first appearances of Captain America, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Hulk, She-Hulk and Wonder Woman.
Like many of the artifacts on display, most of the comics are valuable and kept safely behind glass. But a video kiosk helps circumvent this drawback. Visitors can view Action Comics No. 1 or Superman No. 1 (1939) on a monitor. People can navigate each page with “back” and “forward” options. The presentation uses Mr. Geppi’s vintage copies, so the experience feels authentic: the pages are yellowed with age, the original advertisements are included, and the monitor shows the rise and fall of each page as it is “turned.”
The museum opens to the public on Sept. 8.
