A LABOUR OF LOVE

This issue of the mag­a­zine is some­thing of a col­lec­tor’s edi­tion. It’s not rare or valu­able in any way, it’s just that this month we fea­ture col­lec­tors. The first is Bernard Mahé, whose comic book col­lec­tion is on dis­play at Caix­aFo­rum. You can read about the ex­hi­bi­tion on pages 26 and 27. The sec­ond is Lluís Bene­jam, who talks about his vast col­lec­tion of film-re­lated ma­te­r­ial, such as posters and pro­grammes, in an in­ter­view on pages 30 and 31. Then, as every month, on page 46, we are for­tu­nate to have an­other front page from his­tory from Josep Bosch’s im­pres­sive news­pa­per col­lec­tion.

Al­though dif­fer­ent, all three col­lec­tions have some com­mon fea­tures. They are all the re­sult of a life­long labour of love, and as they have grown over decades, they not only trace the his­tory of comics, films, news­pa­pers, but are ac­tu­ally a part of that his­tory. As Bene­jam says in the in­ter­view: “I have the his­tory of cin­ema in print”.

Yet they are also col­lec­tions of ob­jects made of paper, not the most durable ma­te­r­ial, as well as being huge in size. In fact, the whole ques­tion of what to do with the col­lec­tions, how and where to store them, how to dis­play them or make them avail­able, and ul­ti­mately what to do with them in the fu­ture are the sort of headaches that many col­lec­tors prob­a­bly don’t give much thought to when they first begin.

The more I think about these types of col­lec­tions – which over the years have ex­panded into ver­i­ta­ble archives so that what­ever mon­e­tary value they may have, their his­tor­i­cal value alone gives them a great im­por­tance that de­mands they be pro­tected – the more I’m taken aback by the level of ded­i­ca­tion de­manded of these col­lec­tors. No doubt the act of col­lect­ing is it­self a re­ward, but along with that comes a whole se­ries of un­looked for chal­lenges and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Mahé’s col­lec­tion is the focus of a tour­ing ex­hi­bi­tion by a major cul­tural in­sti­tu­tion, and since last year Bosch’s col­lec­tion has resided in a new home in the Fon­da­tion Mar­tin Bod­mer in Geneva. How­ever, as Bene­jam men­tions in his in­ter­view, what will be­come of his col­lec­tion is some­thing that wor­ries him and other col­lec­tors he knows. Find­ing an in­sti­tu­tion will­ing to ac­quire the col­lec­tion is no easy mat­ter. Even putting the col­lec­tion on­line re­quires a huge ef­fort and, given the size of these archives, is also ex­pen­sive. Even do­nat­ing the col­lec­tion to the pub­lic is a risk, as there’s no say­ing that the col­lec­tion will re­main in one piece.

I’ve only ever had one col­lec­tion in my life, the British sci-fi comic 2000AD, of Judge Dredd fame. I was on the spot when the comic came out in 1977 and while I missed out on the much-sought after first issue, from issue two on­wards I never missed one for the next five years. By then, the col­lec­tion, which I stored in card­board boxes, was be­com­ing a prob­lem in my small bed­room, and some of the older is­sues were start­ing to yel­low with age, forc­ing me to dip into my very lim­ited funds to buy plas­tic sleeves. At 300 is­sues I stopped get­ting the comic but couldn’t bring my­self to get rid of what had turned into a col­lec­tion by ac­ci­dent. We then moved house and the col­lec­tion was lost for­ever. I re­gret­ted the loss, of course, but I have to admit that it was a re­gret tinged with re­lief, as I no longer had to worry about it.

While not on the same scale of the col­lec­tions in this month’s issue, it gives me some in­sight into what major col­lec­tors go through. I’m not sure why they do it, but for the sake of our his­tory and cul­ture, I think we should be grate­ful they do.

opin­ion