For whatever reason, every so often I'll come across some eBay seller selling one of those "Comic-Pacs", and if the price is right I can't resist buying it.
In this case, it was a double-win(?), because this Comic-Pac features Super Friends #5 inside (along with Isis #5), and there's Aquaman right there on the cover.
The Comic-Pacs (which you can read more about via Mark Evanier's blog) were a bizarre experiment in comics retailing that no one seemed to like. But of course now they command huge prices from sellers because, if any item hangs around long enough, eventually some sub-group of people will spring up to start collecting it (which includes me--this is not the only Comic-Pac I own!).
I don't own a copy of Super Friends #5, and in a way I still don't--I can't bear to tear this bag open, so if I want to read the book, I guess I'll have to buy another copy...
Today being the first day of Summer(my favorite day of the year!), I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about the Comic Pac, a package of bagged comics, two in this case, also sold in threes during the sixties and seventies. Comic fans of a certain age(of which I am one) have distinct memories of picking these up for long car rides to summer vacation destinations.
Proving that there can be nostalgia for anything if it hangs around long enough, go to ebay and check out the comic pacs for sale--the prices are astronomical. The cheapest comic pac you'll find goes for around forty bucks--and that's if the titles enclosed are off-brand stuff like Kamandi, Strange Sports Stories, and Prez. If you want a Batman or JLA comic pac, prepare to drop some serious coin.
The funny thing about these comc pacs is, as Mark Evanier pointed out on his blog a few months back, I don't know anyone who didn't hate them--you always got stuck with a book you already had or didn't want just to get something you did(I, of course, didn't care what the second title was once I saw Jim Aparo's Aquaman in there!). And Rao help you if you bought the three-pack...you needed to be the Ten-Eyed Man to be able to figure out what that middle book was! Yet now they command high prices on ebay. As Bart Simpson once said: "Oh, the ironing."
But, hey enough negative talk--summer's here, and time is right, for comic-pacs!
