Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore: A Tourist's Guide to Comic Book Heaven!

The main lobby of the museum greets you with movie posters. Lots and lots of movie posters from many decades ago, featuring such stars as Jack Armstrong, Captain Midnight and Brick Bradford.

Then you enter the main hallway, and turn away from the life-sized statue of Superman to marvel at all the art on the walls. Mutt & Jeff and Our Gang posters compete for your attention with Winnie Winkle and Tiny Tim comic strips as well as original comic-book art including foe the covers of Archie comics.

There's two pieces by Frank Thorne: the covers of Atlas comics Cougar No. 1 and Targitt No. 2, a foreshadowing of what is to come!

Walk down the hallway and enter the large room on the left and you are in the main exhibit: One of the greatest comic-book collections any fan could ever imagine. Called A Story in Four Colors, the room displays row after row of old and rare comics by chronology, highlighting the most important on separate displays in the middle of the floor.
The originals are all behind glass, of course, but scanned copies of many comics can be viewed on touch-screen monitors in kiosks.

The collection also has a section for pulps, those 1930s cheap magazines with crime-fighters including Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider and The Whisperer, all of whom are considered the forerunners of comic-book superheroes. There's also a great compilation of Big Little Books from Whitman, a series that ran from 1932 into the 1960s.

I had heard of the Big Little Books, but they were from before my time and I wasn't all that familiar with them. I marveled at the wide range of titles and thought what a great deal they must have been for children decades ago!

The bulk of the room is given over to rows and roes of comic books, mainly displayed in chronological order from the 1940s to the present day. And they are not just the ones with super-heroes! There are westerns, sports, war, funny animal, humor, monster, romance -- all sorts of comics, especially in the first few decades. My daughter likes Richie Rich and Archie, and they are there. My son likes The Simpsons, and they are represented also.

But it's not just the real well-known comics that are present. I spotted Freedom Fighters No. 1, which DC Comics published in 1976. It was a fun story to read, I remember, but definitely not something truly special. But that was one of the minority comics in the collection that I had actually at the convenience store. Most of the collection consisted of so many comics I had only ever seen before in a comic book price guide!

In one corner is a special display of the comics from Atlas-Seaboard, a short-lived comic-book company in the mid-1970s. The collection has all 72 issue of the full-color comics and black-and-white magazines the company produced in 1974 and 1975. I have read that many people thought the company failed because the stories weren't very good. Maybe, but as I looked such copies as The Cougar, Planet of Vampires and Police Action I couldn't help but remember the stories from my youth fondly.

I remember how surprised I was as a kid when they showed up in the comic-book rack, jammed in with the Dc and Marvel comics, and how disappointed I was when they stopped appearing.

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Across the hall are two rooms that focus on the years 1776 to 1927, when pop culture grew from generic dolls, boats and other toys to items related to such comic-strip characters as the Yellow Kid and The Katzenjammer Kids. Amid old newspapers are some of the first Buster Brown strips and some of Palmer Cox's Brownies, which became a pioneer in name-brand advertising. These rooms also have a small area dedicated to the city of Baltimore, showing posters from its past and some dolls and other items.

The next room you enter is dedicated to the 1930s through the end of World War II. Disney toys, dolls and games are ever-present, but the one that I found most amazing was a fully operating Mickey Mouse circus train that was set up in the middle of the room. It's in wonderful shape and must be very rare, as it looked extremely fragile.

On the walls are a Flash Gordon gun, Lone Ranger and Tom Mix toys, as well as many model planes. The Betty Boop nearby comes from one of the museum's brochures. Many products are patriotic, as one can well imagine since the U.S. was at war during that era. I thought the Dick Tracy badges looked very cool!

The next room shows the emergence of television as a major creator of pop culture. There's a Howdy Doody puppet and plenty of TV Guide magazines, along with Elvis Presley posters and paraphernalia. Figures of Charlie Brown, Lucy and the other Peanuts characters stand ready, and let's not forget Davy Crockett or Captain 3-D! There's a huge Batman statue in the center of the next room, which is appropriate since the displays are dedicated to the 1960s and that Batman show was a pop phenomenon back then!

The Flintstones and Rocky and Bullwinkle products are there, as well as Pez dispensers. G.I. Joe action figures (the larger ones from my childhood) share space with Ken and Barbie dolls. There's a Superboy game. the Beatles, of course, spawned many spin-off merchandise as well as The Monkees, who are also present.

There's even a small section dedicated to the spy genre, since James Bond, the Man from UNCLE and Honey West were all active then.

The final room of the gallery is dedicated to pop culture from about 1970 to 1990, with lots of Star Wars toys and games as well as All in the Family buttons and a Space Shuttle lunchbox. There's a McDonald's game with little figurines that I don't remember at all. The smaller GI Joe figures are here, lamentably, as is a Planet of the Apes candy box.
Maybe it's because I was already grown by the 1980s, or maybe I was starting to feel overloaded with pop culture, but this room was the least interesting to me.

Across the hall is a special exhibition area, and when we were there it was turned over to a display of art by a guy named Devin Hannon. I peeked in and told the kids to keep walking down to the museum shop. Inside the room was art that consisted of taking pop figures like SpongeBob SquarePants' Patrick Star and Michael Jackson and imagining them in art as zombies. In the center of the room was a statue of the Silver Surfer as a zombie. I suppose some people would find it artistic but I just thought it creepy. The exhibit has closed, and I don't think you missed anything.

One thing the museum offers to keep the kids interested is a treasure hunt. Kiosks are placed throughout the rooms that contain a question about some piece of pop culture that is displayed nearby. You place your card in the kiosk and answer the multiple-choice question. Some of the questions are fairly basic: Who was the Lone Ranger's companion? Others are a bit more difficult, like which James Bond car is on display or a question about the Mickey Mouse circus.

At the end, you hand your card in to the cashier in the museum shop and say ''Shazam!'' He checks your score and gives you a prize. It's a nice little extra, so I hate to be a bit grumpy. But all four of our group got the exact same Donald Duck comic book, and let's face it, how many copies of a comic book does one family need?

The museum is located on the second floor of Camden Station, the city's restored railroad station. The illustration here is from one of Geppi's brochures. the building is right outside Camden Yards, where the major league baseball team Baltimore Orioles play. On the first floor is a museum dedicated to the city's sports legends.

Just be warned, when we inadvertently walked into the first floor the workers of the sports museum were pretty curt with us when they found out we were actually going to the entertainment museum! Nearby is the city's Inner Harbor, with its National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland Science Center, Baltimore Maritime Museum, Port Discovery Children's Museum and many other tourist attractions.

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