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For the Love of Captain Action
As Eury tells it, it all began when, "On a dream-chasing expedition in mid-1986, I packed my comics, toys, and newlywed wife Rose - actually, she was on foot - and relocated from our native North Carolina to the Delaware Valley, leaving behind family, friends, and employment. My goal was become an editor at DC Comics, first by establishing myself as a comics and fan-press writer in the more affordable but nearby Philadelphia area. Rose and I moved with no jobs waiting and very little money in our pockets." "Mark Waid, then the editor of Amazing Heroes, published an over-the-transom submission of mine, leading to my writing features, columns, and interviews for that magazine, connecting me with lots of comics pros. At the time I also broke into scripting super-hero funny-animal comics like Spider-Ham, Mighty Mouse, and Underdog," he said. "In late 1987, I wrote letters of inquiry to DC Comics and Comico, stating my desire to become an editor. My timing was fortunate: [then-Comico editor] Diana Schutz had just lost her assistant editor and hired me to start at Comico in January 1988," he said. "Diana is, I believe, the best editor in comics. She's also a great teacher, and I will always consider her my mentor." Eury said he made the move to New York City and DC's editorial staff when Batman was in theaters in 1989. "I was a bit too 'Mayberry' and naive at the time to survive there, and left three years later, when Batman Returns was in the theaters in mid-1992," he joked, adding that he thought about returning to DC when Batman Forever was released, so he could leave again with Batman and Robin. "I was recruited to join the staff of Dark Horse Comics, and after a post-DC sojourn moved west to beautiful Oregon. I was at Dark Horse for two years, wrote freelance animation-based comics and cartoons for a few years after that, and flirted with animation screenwriting, almost relocating to Los Angles until my wife made me realize that neither of us really wanted to leave Oregon to live there. So I gravitated out of comics and, after considerable struggling and selling many of my collectibles to survive, found a 'normal' job," he said. "For four years I've been employed as the communications director for an Oregon organization, but this year I'm inching my way back into the periphery of comics: through the publication of my books Captain Action: The Original Super-Hero Action Figure and the forthcoming biography Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time, and by editing TwoMorrows' new magazine, Back Issue, which premieres this fall," Eury said. "I've got a few other things in the works. I plan to keep my day job, however, which I also enjoy. Being this busy keeps me motivated and disciplined." Like many on the business side of comics, he grew up with a love of collecting that began simply enough by reading comics and playing with other toys. "As a child, I wasn't really a collector - I was a consumer. I played with my toys and read my comics, and they got passed down the chain to my younger brother and cousins. It was in high school that I first started collecting comic books, which I'd always loved. My parents encouraged my collecting habits, as well as all of my creative pursuits. They've always been supportive of me," he said. And he wasn't the only family member with the collecting gene. "The Eury home has collected a lot of dust, because my mom is a packrat and throws nothing away. She's got an awesome collection of hundreds of albums from the 1950s and 1960s. Dad is a Yankees fan and has a wall of Yankee memorabilia. My brother John is a voracious reader and a reference librarian, and owns hundreds of books. I joke with my family that their house will explode one day from having too much stuff shoved inside," he said. The first thing he collected was flicker rings, with their lenticular images that change from one picture to another. "As a grade-schooler, I had lots of them, from Batman to the Monkees. The flasher rings packaged with Captain Action uniforms were a clever addition. This childhood fascination never manifested itself into jewelry wearing: outside of my wedding band, I haven't owned a ring in decades," he laughed. Then, of course, there was Captain Action. "I first saw Captain Action in a fall 1966 TV commercial when I was a wee lad, and shortly thereafter in the Sears Christmas WishBook, where I pored over color product photos, bugging my parents for a Captain Action and his super-hero uniforms. My father suggested that I add this to my Christmas list, which I did. Santa came through, and for three consecutive Christmases I received Captain Action items. They were my absolute favorite toys, and encouraged imaginative playtime," he said. He pointed out that the manufacturer's marketing and the then-current super-hero mania were what really grabbed his attention. "Ideal identified Captain Action's target audience and cleverly zeroed in on it through TV commercials and comics-esque ads in comic books. Like thousands of other young boys in the mid-to-late 1960s, I was thoroughly mesmerized by superheroes (Adam West as Batman was almost a deity to me)," he said. "Ideal's colorful packaging and strategically orchestrated advertising campaign caught my young eye, and I badgered my parents to buy the toys for me." Though he said he wouldn't be surprised to find reminders of his original toys somewhere in his parents' basement, he doesn't think they survived his childhood, but his memories of playing with them endured. "In 1989 when recovering from a serious illness, I decided to recreate some of the more comforting moments of my childhood by obtaining a Captain Action. Luckily, in a Manhattan collectibles shop I found one with an accompanying Batman uniform," he said. "That opened a Pandora's Box of Captain Action collecting." His collection grew while he worked in the comics industry with such creators as Art Adams, Adam Hughes, Steve Rude, Dick Giordano, Chris Sprouse, Dan Jurgens, Brian Stelfreeze, Randy Bowen, Michael Golden, Paul Gulacy, and Matt Wagner. Another of the noted comic creators he worked with was Murphy Anderson, who was distinctly associated with Captain Action. Anderson not only illustrated Ideal's original packaging in comic book style, but also wrote the foreword to Eury's Captain Action book. The book itself came about as Eury's first comic book industry career was winding down. "In 1998, Robert V. Conte, with whom I had worked at Dark Horse Comics, had started his own publishing company, Studio Chikara, and emailed me an offer to write a sixtieth anniversary book about Superman. For several reasons I declined, which surprised Robert. In a subsequent email where he acknowledged his surprise to my passing on Superman, Robert asked, 'Okay, then. How about a book on Captain Action?' He knew of my love of Captain Action and was looking for super-hero and toy product for his burgeoning book line. I'd never even remotely considered a book on Captain Action until Robert suggested one. He said that it really wasn't that hard to separate Michel Eury, professional writer, from Michael Eury, major Captain Action enthusiast, for the purpose of undertaking the project. "When I was younger and breaking into the business, it was difficult for me to separate fan from pro. By the time I researched and wrote Captain Action, I'd matured enough to clearly see the distinction between collector and writer. I approached my research as I would with any subject, with open-minded objectivity. I was adamantly opposed to making Captain Action a bland price guide or a fawning fanboy treatise, but in my writing I infused my obvious appreciation of the subject into an energy that I hope compels the reader to turn the pages," he said. "I researched and wrote Captain Action: The Original Super-Hero Action Figure during the summer of 1998, gathering and cataloguing hundreds of photos. I helped broker a cross-promotion between Studio Chikara and Playing Mantis, the toy company who was at the time reviving Captain Action. The book was solicited in early 1999, and when orders came in lower than expected, Studio Chikara delayed the project," he said. After a subsequent delay in which the book was in limbo, he began considering the situation a professional embarrassment. Eury even sold much of his Captain Action to help finance the purchase of a home. "Not long thereafter, however, Tom Stewart, a Captain Action collector and contributor to TwoMorrows magazines, recommended that I approach publisher John Morrows about publishing my book. I did, John was interested, and now the book is available-featuring the wonderful design work of Pam Morrow," Eury said. The highly detailed, well-researched volume has attracted praise from many different corners, and its publication has reinvigorated his enthusiasm for Captain Action. "Of course, my big challenge now is to rebuild my fragmented Captain Action collection!" he laughed. "For a stiff-jointed figure with a constipated facial expression - I'm describing Captain Action, not myself," he laughed, again, "Captain Action is more than a collectible. He's the bridge to my youth." |
