Collectors may frantically attempt to recapture their childhood with items they actually possessed as youngsters or with items they wanted to possess as children but somehow were never able to acquire. Whether it be antique furniture or match book covers, coins or stamps, big little books or comics, the vast majority of enthusiasts want the items they collect to be as close to the original condition of manufacture as possible. This key idea may seem painfully obvious to those who have been comic book collectors for a while. But to those newly arrived on the scene, it might not be quite so obvious. So it goes with comic books.
Comic books are fundamentally a mechanical device.
That is, comic books, as with all books, are intended to move. They move every time we open them to read the print and look at the pictures inside. The mechanical device concept is often overlooked and yet is one of the most important reasons that comics seem to age so quickly. The flexible paper that is used in the manufacture of comic books is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, its flexibility allows the mechanical object to work.