Class News

John Podeschi ’64 writes about rare books and comic books

November 1, 2021

John Podeschi emailed:

Thanks for astutely pursuing news of my comic-book ventures. First my collections are varied and voluminous. In the early 1960s when were we at Yale, there were three major rare-book dealers based in New Haven: Bob Barry of Stonehill's, Laurence Witten, and Henry Wenning. All had second-floor offices on York Street, literally a stone's throw from the great Sterling Memorial Library with its unparalleled bibliographical resources. I bought books from all three of them, mainly from Henry Wenning, who specialized in “modern firsts.” I still have most of the books that I got from them, notably a fine collection of first editions of Graham Greene (through Wenning).

I am preparing to sell my rare books first, probably at auction. Along with rare books, I'll also send to auction my small collection (about 50 items) of NASA materials autographed by Apollo astronauts.

Regarding my comic book holdings, voluminous is hardly a sufficient word. I “invested” in comic books in wholesale quantities rather than “collected” them. Although I know a great deal about American “entertainment culture” of the 20th century (my Ph.D. dissertation was on “The Writer in Hollywood”), my personal tastes are very much old-school academic, founded on the liberal arts canon of our Yale schooling.

Over the past 50 years, I've bought comic books from publishers, news agencies, “direct-sale” distributors (those who supply comic-book shops), comic-book dealers (often entire back stocks), and collectively I would say that I currently have around two million comic books.

Over the years I've sold most of the rarest and most expensive comic books that I've owned. Although I have a knowledgeable and experienced employee steadily winnowing through these holdings, I am more and more aware that I am far from getting the best material ready to put into the marketplace.

I have always wanted to put a good portion of the overflow into literacy initiatives, especially aimed at vulnerable populations — inner-city youth being an example — for whom comic-book stories and characters have great appeal. I've discussed this idea with social service and literacy organizations. I've found that there lingers more of an endemic prejudice against comic books in the pedagogical and library world than I would have thought.