To friends who think that comic books are a nickel-and-dime business for pre-adolescent kids, Jamie Graham reveals that he recently sold a single issue, the first “Superman” book from 1938, for $99,000. To prove it was no fluke, he then made a deal to sell the first issue of “Batman,” 55 years old but in near-mint condition, for $135,000.
The two megadeals have created a buzz throughout the comic collectibles industry. The “Batman” sale is believed to be the highest cash price ever paid for a single comic book anywhere. It also established Graham, who owns a chain of five comic book shops in the western suburbs under the name Graham Crackers Comics Ltd., as one of the superstars among the genre’s retailers.
Twelve-year-old boys spend much of their waking hours reading and fantasizing about the likes of Spider-Man, Dark Knight and Mighty Thor-all staples of the comic book business. Graham never lost his fascination for fictional superheroes and, indeed, has turned his childhood fantasies into a lucrative career.
“When we got older as kids, my friends became interested in cars and girls and gave up their comic books,” said Graham, 40, and a resident of the far east side of Aurora. “I never could do that. Comics were in my blood. I’ve always loved them.”
That isn’t to say that Graham, whose company is based at its largest store in downtown Naperville, is suffering from some kind of arrested emotional development.
“A number of adult collectors take comics way too seriously. They think Superman is for real, and it’s kind of scary to be around them,” said John Rossi, a Naperville accountant who is a regular Graham Crackers customer and friend of Graham’s. “Jamie likes hockey and football and has quite an art collection at home. He has lots of other interests and keeps his comics in perspective.”
That perspective, nevertheless, is far-ranging. Graham’s personal comic collection, which he keeps separate from his business inventory, totals nearly 50,000 titles insured for more than $1 million. His company, which employs 25 salespeople, recorded about $1.5 million in sales in 1994, ranking it among the very biggest merchandisers of comic books in the nation. Graham’s goal is to add at least another five stores around Chicago-he also has outlets in St. Charles, Downers Grove, Bloomingdale and Bolingbrook-while expanding subsidiary businesses such as a quarterly newsletter mailed to the company’s regular customers.
“Chicago and the suburbs are a good place to sell comics. There’s great density of population and lots of interest here,” confirmed John Cavallone, owner of the three-store Tenth Planet comic books chain based in Oak Lawn. “Jamie is one of the largest around. He got into the business early and has accumulated experience and knowledge that few other retailers have.”
Graham is merely middle-aged but old enough to be one of the pioneers in comic book retailing. He grew up in Elmhurst, one of four children of Jim, a manufacturing engineer, and Louise Graham. As soon as he could read in 1st grade, he caught the comics bug from his father, who always had first crack at the comics section in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday mornings. Young Jamie became a voracious reader of “Dick Tracy” and other regulars in the newspaper syndication field, then graduated to “Captain America” and “Spider-Man” in book form.
“I got a 50-cent allowance each week, and comic books were 12 cents apiece then. That meant I could buy four books a week. My friends and I played sports, but comic books were half our life then,” Graham recalled.
At the age of 10, he began saving every book he bought, always in the order of publication and eventually stored in acid-free plastic bags.
In the early 1960s, Acme Books in Chicago was virtually the only source for vintage comic books. Frustrated, at the age of 13, Graham actually built his own shop in his family’s back yard, with display racks and a thriving trading business with neighborhood chums. He had an unquenchable appetite for books and confesses that “even today I want to keep everything, and even get second and third copies of books I already have. I’m probably obsessive-compulsive.”
His mother, who still lives in Elmhurst and works part time at the Naperville store, doesn’t dispute that diagnosis. “I thought comics were awful for him as a child, but I figured they were a hobby that he would outgrow,” she said. “I never thought any of it would be worth anything ever. I’ve found out now that I was very wrong.”
In the late 1960s, vintage-radio personality Chuck Schaden began hosting a monthly comic book show on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Although not yet able to drive, Graham took an exhibitor’s booth and was soon horse-trading with serious collectors. The comic-collecting business made a leap forward in sophistication in 1970 with the publication of Bob Overstreet’s first Comic Book Price Guide, which brought some order to valuations within the marketplace.
Graham, consumed with an interest in art, graduated from York High School and moved on to the College of DuPage and Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1976 with a degree in filmmaking and advertising art. By then he was collecting coins and stamps and old cars, too. At the age of 19, in fact, he had a fleet of eight Corvairs and even today maintains a diverse collection that includes three Corvettes, a 1964 Corvair, 1950 Buick Roadmaster and 1987 Pontiac Trans Am.
Never content to work for others and still an avid collector of comics, Graham went to work after college as a free-lance graphic artist. He was plenty busy, but visits to weekend comic book shows rekindled a desire to be involved in the business firsthand. He took the plunge in 1982 with the opening of a store in downtown Elmhurst. Stuck on the second floor out of sight, it quickly bombed.
Graham learned that location means everything in the comic book business and was careful to open his next store on busy Washington Street in downtown Naperville in 1983. He got off to a slow start, grossing $40,000 the first year, and was consumed with self-doubt. But the next year he was divorced-he has remained single since-and moved the business a few doors down to a busy corner on Chicago Avenue. Business soared, reaching $750,000 in revenue at the 3,000-square-foot store last year, far beyond the $140,000 to $250,000 that is common among competing stores.
There is no dearth of competition for Graham Crackers. The Downers Grove store has six rivals within a two-mile radius, for instance. But Graham has prospered, in part by avoiding expensive shopping mall locations in favor of older downtowns-the St. Charles store is housed in a building dating from the Civil War-and keeping his overhead low. He still hasn’t computerized his inventory and performs many needed repairs around the stores himself.
Still, even with stringent cost controls, it’s a dicey business trying to predict fast-shifting comic book tastes. About 75 percent of Graham Crackers’ customers are children with starkly limited attention spans.
“A particular title can be hot one month, and then kids change their mind and something else is popular the next month,” said Linda Yousif, manager of Diamond Comic Distributors Inc. in Elk Grove Village, Graham Crackers’ supplier. “Jamie is one of the best at reading the trends.”
He has also avoided the fallout from a boom-and-bust cycle in comics that occurred when a flood of speculators engulfed the market briefly in 1992 and 1993. Comics that sold for $1.75 in 1991 were bid up as high as $125 before crashing to $20 in late ’93. Graham could see the downturn coming and sold many of his valuable collectibles near the price peak.
“Jamie never got caught up in the fever that took over the market for a while. He kept his inventories reasonable,” said Nancy Ford, one of the organizers of the Chicago Comicon, a comic book show held every July 4 weekend at the Rosemont Convention Center and a longtime friend of Graham’s.
The two high-priced “Batman” and “Superman” comics sold by Graham in December went to the owner of a computer software company in the western suburbs. Graham won’t identify him by name but does say that the comic enthusiast has earned a 40 percent return on his collection during the last three years by buying top-grade old books that have resisted the see-saw price swings in other parts of the market. Graham owns several more comic books valued at $30,000 and more apiece but has refused all offers to sell them.
He may be smart in holding on to them. Overstreet, the comic book price authority headquartered in suburban Baltimore, observed that “older comics have had excellent price appreciation over the years. The two sales by Jamie Graham prove that the market is escalating, and it’s got a long way to go yet.” He’s so impressed by Graham’s expertise that he’s added him to his guide’s senior advisory staff.
“Jamie is one of the most knowledgeable people in the comic book business,” Overstreet declared. “As in any collectible field, knowledge counts for a lot.”
Overstreet estimates that some 30 percent of all comic book retail shops have gone out of business during the last couple of years. Graham hardly is deterred by such statistics, however. He hints that his next store may come in the Schaumburg area, perhaps this year, with another on the North Shore after that. Meantime, he is kept busy psychoanalyzing young minds.
” `Green Lantern’ might be the big hit this month, and next month it might be `Wild Cats,’ ” Graham says. “You have to stay on top of this business every minute. But I enjoy it so much that it never seems like work to me.”
