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In the early 2000s, Vermont resident Christine Farrell amassed a collection of everything published by DC Comics. She's believed to be the first person to have achieved this feat. Her collection of more than 30,000 comics begins in 1935 and features the first appearances of heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Farrell died in April, and, as Vermont Public's Liam Elder-Connors reports, some of the rarest comics in her collection will now be sold.
LIAM ELDER-CONNORS, BYLINE: Christine Farrell started reading comic books when she was a kid and began her collection in her teenage years. In 1995, Farrell took Mountain Lake PBS on a tour of her house where she kept her collection. Comics were piled in overflowing banker's boxes and stacked on the floor. It was messy, but there appeared to be some organization. In the video, Farrell pulled a comic from a container labeled, Wonder Woman, issues 121 to 145.
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CHRISTINE FARRELL: This one I paid a whopping $0.12 for. It was 1963 at the time.
ELDER-CONNORS: At first, Farrell says she favored comics with female leads, like "Lois Lane" and "Supergirl." But soon, she says she was buying all of them.
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FARRELL: I'm a pack rat. I didn't know it until I turned into a teenager. But pack rats are born, not made. And apparently, I was born a pack rat.
ELDER-CONNORS: In the early 1980s, Farrell opened a comic book shop in Burlington, Vermont's largest city. But as she told Mountain Lake PBS, she collected the comics because she was a fan.
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FARRELL: I buy them 'cause I want to read them, although, my reading is about 10 years behind. But not for resale - not at all - I do not intend to sell the collection.
ELDER-CONNORS: But now, after Farrell's death, about 500 of her rarest comics will go to the highest bidders this weekend. Dallas, Texas-based Heritage Auctions is handling the sale. Vice president Lon Allen estimates this weekend's auction could bring in $4 million, with "Superman's" 1938 debut likely to fetch the highest price. Allen says the collection contains other rarities, too, like one called "Double Action Comics." There are only seven copies known to still exist.
LON ALLEN: It's so steeped in mystery, nobody really understands what it is or where it came from. So it's something that's just impossible to value.
ELDER-CONNORS: It's comics like that that make Farrell's collection so special to Stephen Bissette, a Vermonter and comic book artist. His work includes illustrating "Swamp Thing" in the 1980s during writer Alan Moore's run on the series. For Bissette, it's not the monetary value that matters. It's the artistic and creative history that's contained in the thousands of comics Farrell collected.
STEPHEN BISSETTE: Chris had every issue of their science-fiction comics -"Strange Adventures," "House Of Secrets," "Challengers Of The Unknown." I mean, these are titles that don't register with the public at large, but they had amazing stories. And that's where, to me, the creative juices are.
ELDER-CONNORS: The auction this weekend is focused on the older and more high-end comics in Farrell's collection. The rest will likely be sold at Farrell's comic bookstore, Earth Prime Comics.
For NPR News, I'm Liam Elder-Connors, in Burlington, Vermont.
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