A Little History
In 2006, Geppi's Entertainment Museum opened its doors in Camden Station in Baltimore, Maryland. Owned by Steve Geppi, the founder of Diamond Comics Distribution, the museum has highlighted pop culture memorabilia from the late 1800s through today.
Rooms were dedicated to the early days of print, Disney, and of course, comic books. The museum was one of my favorite places to visit, and at one point I had thought about getting married there.
Unfortunately, in May of 2018, Geppi's Entertainment Museum closed its doors for good. Geppi donated much of his collection to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Sara W. Duke, was kind enough to talk about the Gallery with me, including several pieces worth noting.
Pieces rotate out periodically to keep it interesting. Given that the Library of Congress has so much of his collection, it would be safe to assume they have enough material for a long, long time to come!
Lauren: In this whole gallery, what is your favorite piece?
Sara: Oh man, that's a hard pick. Each piece does its own thing, you have editorial Pulizter price cartoons and more. Motions to Gasoline Alley artwork; Gasoline Alley just ended a few years ago, but it was one of those where the comic strip where the characters aged. Frank King, who was the original artist, loved being in nature. So every year he would do an "Oh, let's go drive into nature and see the countryside". It was a car comic strip originally, about car culture.
Motions to a cartoon strip done during Watergate
Sara: This is meant to situate people back 50 years ago. 50 years ago on June 17th, there was a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel.
We have five cartoons, including one that was published three days later. We try to pick things that will resonate with people, even today.
Lauren: If I recall from the museum, the first room you went into was the room with Action Comics #1 -- A Story in Four Colors. They have a beautiful wall of Platinum Age books, as well as Big Little Books.
Sara: The Big Little Books went to our rare book division! The Platinum books got divided between newspaper periodicals and rare books. Whatever was offered to us from that room we took.
We also took the single-sheet newspapers. We tried to emulate the museum as best we could in a double-wide -- it's a very small space. During the pandemic, we wanted to have enough room for people to see things without feeling cramped.
Motions to the Disney cereal box giveaways
Sara: These were cereal box giveaways, and they're quite rare. We don't have a complete set from Mr. Geppi, but we do have a nice set.
What we don't get often are promotional giveaways. So whenever people have collected them and would like to donate them, we would happy to take them. It's the only way we're going to get them.
Sports were technically high up in corners of the Geppi Entertainment Museum but we thought it was a good opportunity to remind people that there were sports comic books and more.
The logos were not official, but we were able to date within the range because the Milwaulkee Braves started kind of late as a franchise.
Lauren: Do you have a copy of Obadiah Oldbuck (the first comic ever) in the Library?
Sara: So, we don't. We have some similar British things from an earlier period -- similar in structure. But not that book! I have seen copies of it though. One of Mr. Geppi's things he liked to do in his museum was put together things that anybody might have possessed.
Obviously, someone who might have owned this Space Cadet News would be in their 70s or 80s today. He wanted to evoke in people "Oh I remember that, oh I had that" so they could have a conversation with someone who was younger, and how they could all relate to things.
Lauren: My mom and I would go to the museum often. My mom is now 73. Mr. Geppi had all of that Beetlemania merchandise, and she was a teenager during that time. So she would point out different things she had -- there was a lot she had! It was cool to see and it made it real.
Sara: The guitar (from the Beatles section) went to the rare book division!
