Comic Frames

Oh the magic of comics - hard-bought with pennies gathered from little tasks and errands - how those bright pages could fill a kidmind... and then the delight on later rainy days of phoning other comic-laden kids to find somebody who wanted to trade comics (Billy Cullen and Davie Nolan had great collections), then gathering your whole own collection together to bring to the other kid's house (the trade instigator always did the traveling), when he'd go through your stack and set aside the definites and the maybes while you did the same with his stack.

Then you'd both go through it all again to be sure, while maybe his kid sister or brother hung around being a pain in the proceedings, then you'd both count your final tally of definites for trading and he'd have say 15 definites with 6 maybes, you'd have 17 definites with 9 maybes, when would come the delicate part of the negotiations and considerations (do I really want this one, these are new comics, these are beatup, this is a double issue), carefully balancing the trade right down to rips and dogears.

Sometimes things would reach an impasse, you'd implacably want only 12 of his, while he definitely wanted more of yours, so he'd drag out his toybox and offer you a boat or a car or something.

Then back home on the bike with the comics safe in the basket and soon after in your mind.

Things were clearly framed in those days.