Hawai'i's amazing Comic Book Man

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ted Mays in his Kaimuki store, Gecko Books & Comics. Mays said comic books were a childhood passion that he has never outgrown. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Still, in his own way, he qualifies as a comic book character.

"There is a superhero aspect to Ted," said Andrew Chong, 38, a true comic book collector who has no interest in the monetary value of his 12,000-comic collection.

"Ted's like Oracle, who used to be Bat Girl. He doesn't have superpowers, but he's the guy you go to for all the information. It's more than that. He knows all the information, but he can put it all together, and draws his own conclusions. He has strong opinions."

Like other comic book characters, Mays, who owns and operates Gecko Books & Comics in Kaimuki and Kailua, has also had something of a strange, dark past. For one thing, Mays was "born" when he was 11 years old.

"Before that my name was Ted Oliver," said Mays, 40, whose childhood reads like pulp fiction.

"I didn't have a real good family life."

For reasons he couldn't understand, the man he knew as his father seemed to despise his elder son while doting on his youngest. It wasn't until the senior Oliver died suddenly that Mays learned two things: First, his brother was actually a half brother, and, second, his father wasn't his father. His real dad, whose last name was Mays, had taken off after he divorced Ted's mom when Ted was 2.

Things went from unbearable to unpredictable after that. The sole constant in his otherwise frantic life became comic books.

"One thing about comics, they're dependable," said Mays. "They come out once a month.

"I collected them pretty much fanatically as a kid. And, if you want the psychoanalysis, I think it was because I had multiple fathers. My mom, who was 16 when I was born, just kept marrying guys and getting divorced. We moved almost once a year. Comics offered me a sense of stability."

Making a hobby profitable

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, Mays began diving into garbage bins to retrieve soda bottles, which he redeemed for a deposit of 2 cents each. Five bottles became a dime, enough for a down payment on the latest issue of Captain Action or Metamorpho.

By the time he was 13, Mays was not only an authority on comics, but he had an enviable collection in pristine condition. He was also a junior comic dealer. But unlike other comic aficionados, Mays didn't distinguish his collection from his inventory. He'd sell anything he owned for the right price.

The profit from comics sold was used to purchase additions for the collection. Those that weren't sold were cherished and carefully kept in mint condition.

So the unhappy boy named Oliver was transformed into the comic book entrepreneur named Mays who used comics to find stability and finance a better existence.

Comics financed his college education, put food on the table, and, in the mid-1980s, brought him to Hawai'i.

Mays' comic collection now numbers more than 120,000 issues — every one of which is dear to him, and every one of which he'll part with for $2.25 to $6.95, and even more for special hardcover editions and rare vintage examples in perfect condition ($50 to several hundred dollars is not unusual for these).

Once, when comic books were just about the only entertainment game in town for young people, Marvel and DC Comics had a ready, ever-faithful audience. Those days are gone forever, says Mays. Comic book companies face stiff competition from video games, television and a blizzard of diversions.

To survive, they put out a superior product artistically, and even hire established Hollywood screenwriters to create story lines and dialog. Mays caters to the target audience of 15- to 35-year-old comic book buyers by offering virtually anything they might want, new or old.

"We carry everything from Little Lulu to the Freak Brothers. All the undergrounds — funny animal comics, Archie, romance, westerns, war — you name it. We have it."

Dynamic duo

Meanwhile, Mays' cartoonesque characteristics have not been lost on his wife, Kim, who was herself an avid comic book collector when two met in college in California two decades ago.

"He wore this dark raincoat," said Kim Mays, a massage therapist. "And he kind of lurked around. He was like the Black Spy in 'Spy vs Spy.' But, he was also a philosophy major — which, when you're a young college student, you find incredible."

Ted Mays is fascinated by the culture surrounding comics,

which he says began in 1939 with Action Comics No. 1, the first

Superman comic, and expanded two years later with the No. 1 issue of Batman.

"The whole culture is basically divided into two categories: Superman and Batman," said Mays, who has a master's degree in history from the University of Hawai'i.

One hero was from another planet with inherited superpowers. The other was a rich kid who had no superpowers who watched his parents get gunned down by a fiendish criminal.

"One represents idealism, and the other represents reality,"

said Mays. "Like the characters themselves, comic book collectors usually fall into one camp or the other.

"I think I've been more influenced by negative role models than positive. But I identify with Superman. I guess I have a lot of bad examples from which to lead my life in an opposite direction."

And if he hasn't exactly waged a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way, he has at least made life more interesting for Island comic collectors. Plus, he gets to do what most kids only dream about — collect comic books for fun and profit.

"I'm grateful," he said with a cartoon smile. "Just think, I could have ended up as a doctor, or lawyer."