Stopolis at the Acropolis or It's Just a Big Pile of Rocks

(ATHENS, GREECE) I arrived here in Athens Sunday morning after a flight which left JFK on Saturday afternoon. I took some anti-jet lag pills and felt fine. (Delta is pretty cheap by the way, they don't even have those TV sets in the back of the seats.) Jerry and his colleagues were off to their conference, so I looked in the guide book and discovered the guard was changed in front of the Parliment building at 11AM every Sunday. If I hurried I would just make it. I found the metro (notice that only in America is it called the subway) and saw the elaborate ceremony with the soliders in their traditional uniforms with the white skirts, tasselled slippers, and funny hats. There are 400 pleats in each skirt for the 400 years of Turkish occupation.

Then I walked to the flea market and from there to the Acropolis area. It was a long walk, but I finally found it. Across the street was Hadrian's Gate and the remains of the temple of Olympian Zeus which is a series of huge columns and a pile of rocks as a result of earthquakes. I then walked up the hill to the Acropolis--steep and tiring. It was actually warm, a shock considering how cold it was in NYC. The Acropolis is a series of temples erected to the gods. The main one is the Parthenon, built to honor Athena, goddess of wisdom and the protector of the city. The pediments--which are reconstructed in the new Acropolis museum--depict the birth of Athena and her contest with Poseidon, her uncle, for the right to be patron of the new city later called Athens in her honor.

The legend goes that Zeus, king of the gods, had a terrible headache. Hepheseus, god of fire and the forge, split his head open with an axe to relieve the pain (they obviously didn't have a public option) and out sprang Athena, fully grown in armor and full of her father's wisdom. I'm sure Zeus said, "What the hell was that?" The other pediment depicts Athena's contest with her uncle Poseidon, Zeus's brother, for control of the city. Poseidon struck the earth and produced a sword. Athena did the same and out sprang an olive tree-symbol of peace. Athena won!

My quesion is how does this jibe with all those Hercules movies starring dreamy Steeve Reeves? And does it overlap with the Thor comics where Hercules fights Thor and somehow Asgard and Mount Olympus both exist in the modern world? Jack Kirby later offers a different explanation in his The Eternals.

Anyway, we all got together and had drinks at the Hotel Bretany. On Monday, we visited the Archaeological Museum with plenty of hot male statues. Tuesday, we went back to the Acropolis--I was the only one who had already been. We--myself, Jerry and two colleagues--hired a guide named Athena who explained quite a bit while the winds howled and dogs followed us barking and humping each other. There are a lot of stray dogs and cats around the Acropolis, but not as many as in Istanbul. I was surprised there was no audio guide you could rent. After all, this is one of the most famous--if not THE most famous--spots in the world. Probably guides like Athena who are unionized fought tooth and nail to prevent this potential dent in their income.

After the Acropolis, we walked through the Agora, the ancient marketplace where most of the Athenians did their daily thing. The most interesting site was the prison where Socrates was executed for thinking a bit too freely. He drank hemlock. There was nothing left of the site. But it was moving to think a philosopher could be killed for exercising freedom of thought--and it still happens today.

The next day we took a day trip to Delphi which I will detail in the next post.

Pre-Greece Jitters

Here's a travel tip for you: If you want to check-in online the night before your international flight, make sure your passport isn't going to expire in less than three months. I'm leaving for Athens tomorrow and I received an email from Delta inviting me to check in online. I go to the website, punch in my passport number and expiration date which is next Feb. and I get one of the little red lines saying "You cannot check in if your passport expires within three months. You must see an agent at the airport." My heart stopped. I have visions of having to go the Greek embassy or winding up like Zev and Justin of The Amazing Race when they lost their passports in Cambodia and losing first place. So I called Delta and was on hold for 20 minutes--don't worry I amused myself by watching Jonny Quest--it was the one set in Norway with the acrobatic dwarf disguised as a gargoyle in order to steal the anti-gravity device.

Finally a human got on the line and explained when your passport is within three months of expiring you're not allowed to check in on line. They have to make sure you won't stay past your expiration date--they think of you like a quart of milk. But I said I'm returning in a week, it's even on my return ticket. For some reason, they need a human agent to verify you won't get stuck in Athens for three months.

Oh well, it's off to the airport tomorrow. I'm taking the E train all the way to nearly the last stop and getting on the airtrain to JFK. This is the first time I've done it going to the airport, I've done it coming back. I was tempted to go a comic book sale in the morning, but it's deep in Brooklyn and with this new wrinkle, I want to get to the airport in plenty of time. I'll have to skip it.

I do like travelling in spite of these little hiccups. I love my little blue bag of toiletries I can hang on the towel rack in the hotel. I love sitting in the airport terminal reading a left-over copy of USA Today. There's a travel store on 12th St. where I bought some anti-jetlag pills. They had two fascinating books--one with transit maps from all over the world and another filled with pictures of tickets--from airlines, trains, theatres again from all over the world. There is some fascinating about these little souvenirs and scraps of paper giving glimpses of yours or other people's lives. I bought a Thor comic at Time Machine the other day. (It was #128 with Thor and Hercules fighting the forces of Pluto, the god of hell.) Inside the plastic bag containing it was a credit card receipt dated 2000 from a comic book store in Scranton, PA. I wondered who bought it there and how it wound up in New York. Will someone look at my boarding pass and think "That idiot should have renewed his passport sooner."?

Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life (5)

Last Saturday I went back to Time Machine and bought two Jack Kirby Thors (141 and 143), a Batman 80 page Giant (no. 203) , a Superboy 80 page giant (No. 10) and a Magnus Robot Fighter. I remember buying that Batman when I was 9. Batman was on TV with Adam West and this comic was a collection of Secrets of the Batcave. The cover is a spectacular Neal Adams with Batman going over blueprints of the Batcave with Robin.

The Superboy had an interesting exchange between the Boy of Steel and a youth from Titan, a moon of Saturn. Kral, the Titanian kid is about to kill some crooks with his heat vision. Superboy intercedes and says, "No, Kral! Stop! On Earth we give all criminals a fair trial. Men become criminals because they're mentally sick! The job of our prison doctors is to try to help them become good citizens." All of sudden Superboy is a psychologist. In another weird story, Superboy splits into two beings--himself and Clark Kent. To disguise himself, Superboy poses as the son of a Native American. The gentleman says, "Me say you are my son, Flying Spirit. Me got so many kids nobody know the difference." How offensive! The Smallville census taker wouldn't even notice a teenager suddenly showing up? Well, it's another Native American, he would probably think. And so Superboy goes to school in "Indian" dress complete with bow and arrow. "It's part of our tribal law," the thought balloon says. (The cover at left has nothing to do with the comic I bought, but it is so cool!)

Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life (4)--Trading Up

Several months ago I bought 20 old Red Circle comics from ebay because one had art by Jack Kirby. It had a reprint of a series Kirby did called The Fighting American. The other 19 didn't interest me. Strictly second-rate heroes like THUNDER Agents and the Mighty Crusaders from the 1980s without the camp value of the Silver Age books of the same title. I had been meaning to trade the 19 for the longest time. Roger at Time Machine said I should hold onto them because you never knew, they might be worth something someday. But why not just trade them for something I really wanted?

Work has been stressful lately, so I figured I deserved some new comics. I lugged in the Red Circles to Time Machine at lunch. For 19, I netted five Silver Age ones I really wanted--three in lousy shape and two much better--and bought two extras. Roger dumped the Red Circles in his 99 cent bin. I also had a Jetsons which I didn't care about and that was worth $2. My new acquisitions are four Thors from the Silver Age with art work by Kirby and one Flash from the same period featuring the wedding of Barry Allen, Flash's secret identity to Iris West. On their wedding day, the evil Professor Zoom manages to switch places with Flash so that the latter is trapped in a prison cell in the future. The villain is about to marry the unwitting Iris--who doesn't even know her real fiance is a superhero--when Flash runs into the church and kidnaps what appears to be the bridegroom. It all works out in the end, but Barry Allen explains to Iris "It was all a mistake"--that's it, his whole rationale--and she buys it! And this woman is a reporter? Lois Lane would have put all over that story. Barry does tell Iris his big secret several issues later.

Thor is another series I am collecting since it is one of the few Kirby titles I haven't snapped up. Later I went to Midtown Comics. For some reason, they have only Bronze and Copper back issues in their display bins. They save the good stuff for online. But on this occassion I found six or seven Kirby Thors in reasonable condition for $5 each. I bought one. Then a few days later I went back and they were all gone. How frustrating.

Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life (3)--Theology and the Mighty Thor

I couldn't help myself. I went back to Time Machine on Fri. while I had some time to kill before taking the train to Hudson for the weekend--BTW, we still haven't caught all the woodchucks and there are so many freakin' deer now they cross Route 9 with impunity in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. But back to Time Machine. The owner Roger was getting ready to close up--it was 7PM and he closes at 7:30PM on Fridays. One of his regular customers was standing by the register and asked if I minded if he smoked. I said no and started going through the back issues. Blondie was singing Call Me on the loudspeaker--it was an 80s mix. The Tide Is High is my favorite. The customer was telling Roger about the days when Deborah Harry was a waitress and he was one of her customers. I found several Mighty Thors which were in deplorable shape, but those are usually the only kind of Silver Age mags I buy. There were also some Flashes with exquisite Carmine Infantino covers and a few nice Curt Swan Actions and Supermans.

I also snapped up an fairly good Strange Adventures--No. 181 with the title Man of Two Worlds, also the title of DC editor Julius Schwartz's skimpy autobio which I had just finished--and a Mystery in Space featuring Ultra, the Multi-Alien with a coupon cut out of the last page. It didn't significiantly decrease the value since it did not interfere with the story. Anyway, the Flashes were like $10 each and I was not going to spend more than around $20. The beat-up Mighty Thors came in for $3 each, with the Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, the total was $23. I decided to forgo the Flashes, Action, and Superman as too expensive.

All the Thors were drawn by Jack Kirby, king of the comics, and the artist whose work I collect the most passionately. All were from 1967-68 when I was eight and nine. I didn't have these particular issues in my collection then, but some around the same date. In one storyline, Thor loses his god-like powers, except his super-strength, and joins a circus as a strongman. Little does he suspect the evil ringmaster plans to hypnotize him into stealing a fabulously priceless and heavy golden bull. I guess it was the circus strongman angle that attracted my burgeoning gay sensibilities.

Thor # 150 had a detached, ragged front and back cover, but a beautifully detailed rendering by Kirby of Hella, the Goddess of Death, looking like a creation of Christian from Project: Runway with a fantastic flowing cape and amazing mask and headpiece, shooting out in all directions, in dark green. The original owner of this Thor #147 had taken a pen and made Thor blackish-blue and drawn lines in the title letters. There was a stamp on the cover--Oct. 23, 1967. It made me wonder who bought it on that date and how did it get to this shop on 14th Street?

I haven't read all of them, but interesting questions are raised by Thor's deity-hood and that of his father Odin. Were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby saying the Norse Gods were the real creators of the universe and our Christain theology was a myth (at least within the parallel comic universe where Thor was real). Odin is often called All-Father and his home Asgard is referred to as the realm eternal. Odin is all powerful and in Thor #145, he rails like the Old Testament deity--"Odin is a vengeful liege...Odin is an angry liege...Odin is now and forever, supreme! And woe to him who strays from righteousness." But Hercules also makes frequent appearances as does his father Zeus. Who would win in a fight Zeus or Odin. Kirby takes up the mythos again in his series for Marvel The Eternals, with comparable figures of an all-father and a rebellious super-powered son. This theological discussion was debated in the letter pages of Marvel comics. I will have to do more study on this. Maybe I should go on that NPR show, Speaking of Faith.

Scenes from an Amatuer Comic Collector's Life

Walking along Sixth Avenue Sat., I passed a guy selling comics. He had a suitcase open with mostly recent titles. I'm really into Silver Age (mid-1950s-early 70s) books. Bronze Age followed into the 1980s and I like some of those too. We are now in the Copper Age of Comics, I think. The seller, a tall African-American in his 30s, did have a couple I could see buying if they were cheap enough. There was a Mighty Thor from the early-mid 60s (original price 12 cents). The cover by Jack Kirby (The King of Comics and an artist I collect) displayed the blonde and buff thunder god in battle with Magneto, now known through his portrayal by Sir Ian McKellen in the X-Men films, but here the Malevolent Master of Magnetism was cross-breeding on another Marvel comic. I asked the guy how much he wanted for said mag.

"It's worth $300. I could get about $1oo on ebay." Uh-oh, I thought. The most I was willing to spend on these things was $5, $10 tops. "I'll let you have it for $30," he said. I felt like saying if you can get that much on ebay, why don't you sell it there?

He read my mind and answered: "I would hold out for more, but I need the cash now. I lost my job, so I'm selling them this way." I'm not an expert, but I didn't think it was worth $300 or even $100. I would have graded it in good condition, not mint. Mint means it's in exactly the same state as when it was first printed. There were slight tears on the edges and the colors were marginally faded. I passed, thanked him and walked on. As I headed for the subway with my non-eccentric purchases from Bed Bath and Beyond (a plastic Lazy Susan) and Macy's (two pairs of pants and two pairs of shorts), I wandered what would drive a person to sell their comics on the street and not online? I thought about how much money he needed and how much he would make that day.

I started thinking about my own collecting. I must have thousands of comics. What if I had to sell them. Could I do it? I just started collecting again about four or five years ago. As a kid, I would spend all my allowance money on them. Of course, I treated them like shit--I cut out pictures I liked, wrote all over them, didn't keep them in plastic bags. They are all gone now except for a handful of mostly coverless readers--collector's jargon for issues so beat up they're only good for reading. That kernel of my original collection forms the core of the new one. I've recreated my childhood collection with them. Every Wed., the day new comics come out, I go to Forbidden Planet or Midtown Comics and look for new collections of old reprints--Marvel puts out Essentials and DC has its Showcase Presents. Few of the new ones interest me--only those by Mike Allred who does Madman who has a kind of retro cool.

Maybe it's immature, but I see a lot of guys my guy (40s-50s) in the comic book stores every Wed. It makes me feel safe to escape into this fantasy world of super-heroes. Maybe the ones I have are worth thousands (the ones I've bought recently, not the ones I treated like shit as a kid), maybe they're worth nothing. But they mean something to me and it would be hard to part with them.