A Visit to The Gardner Fox collection at the Knight Library , University of Oregon
I was surprised to learn that quite of few libraries in the US, Canada, and Europe maintain collections of original comic books. Only an hour from my home I found the 600 original comics once owned by writer Gardner Fox. The procedures for viewing these books are a bit involved and its best to make contact with the Library before visiting. They will give you a link to the whole collection. You must register and fill out your research request in advance and a student volunteer will fetch the boxes containing 20 or more books stored in mylar sleeves in individual files. You are allowed to use a private camera but you cannot scan the books on your own.. They charge $6.00 per page. The librarian will watch you like a hawk as you handle these expensive books and I found some of them in brittle condition. Still, it was nice to actually hold the original copies of 40’s books. DCM has most of the Magazine Enterprises books in this collection, but the non PD books with stories by Mr Fox can be viewed.
I wrote to the Department head about sharing their pd material. We’ll see what he says. For those of you within driving distance to a large university, you might make inquiry as to whether they have original comics in their archives. A number of the UC California libraries do and a few in the Midwest and East coast.
Maybe we can collectively make a breakthrough in having these various libraries who acquired their collections mostly by donation share their resources through scans without outrageous fees. If anyone has already made a visit, let’s hear about it.
