Lifetime collector donates comics to library

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By Heather Travis
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Eddy Smet gets emotional when he talks about his comic book collection as they have played a significant role in his life for the past 40 years.
 
 
Former Huron University College professor Eddy Smet is donating most of his collection of rare and complete runs of comics to the archives at Western Libraries. Spanning 40 years of collecting, his 10,000-plus comics, including these pieces on display at D.B. Weldon Library, include Star Trek, Superman, and Wolverine. 
 
“I had my first comic book collection when I was a boy in the mid-50s,” he says.  
 
Although he temporarily stopped collecting when he was completing university, he resumed in 1972 and has been acquiring them ever since. Now he has made the weighty decision to share his beloved collection with The University of Western Ontario. 
 
“It really hit me that I can’t read all these comics in my lifetime anymore,” he says.  
 
The retired Huron University College professor is in the process of gifting a significant portion of his 10,000-plus, single-issue and original graphic novel collection to Western Archives, the archival research department of Western Libraries.
 
Smet retired in 2006 after 30 years of award-winning teaching.   Smet’s donation has been added to the Alexander Norman Comic Book Collection, which together currently total more than 4,000 comic book issues, volumes of pulp fiction and comic book reference works.
 
“I was attracted by the comics’ entertainment,” says Smet, noting rather than superheroes, Tarzan, western and movie comics were among his favourites. “My family is first, but comics have played a large part of my life, as well as my teaching.”  
 
With an estimated value in the tens of thousands of dollars, the Dr. Eddy Smet Comic Book Collection includes rare Batman appearances from the seventies and eighties written by living legend Denny O’Neil, Frank Miller’s revolutionary run on Daredevil, Alan Moore’s complete runs on Watchmen, Miracleman and Swamp Thing, and the first 14 issues of Captain Canuck, arguably Canada’s most popular and important superhero comic.  
 
He also has an extensive collection (about 125) of Canadian Whites, comic books produced in Canada during the Second World War. These homegrown comics were developed out of an importation ban of U.S. comics into Canada during the war.  
 
“From a Canadian cultural point of view, I think they are really important,” he says, explaining the books are scarce - only about 750 were published.
 
This is believed to be the largest and most valuable collection of comic books ever donated to a Canadian university.
 
“Over the next number of years I will donate my collection as I can bear to part with it,” he says.
 
“I was quite surprised how emotionally attached I was. The comic books also go back to my childhood. It’s not only 40 years of collecting with the hope of enjoying; it’s really giving up something of pride ... Giving my collection to a good home makes it easier.”  
 
He plans to keep some copies, but the bulk of the collection will be delivered in parts to Western in regular installments in the months and years ahead.  
 
Smet owned the Comic Book Collector on Dundas Street near Adelaide Street for eight years, which was operated by his wife. He’s pleased generations of students will be able to further explore the increasingly influential medium through his collection.    
 
“I want them to be used by people; I want them to be made available ... and there are some things, like Canadian Whites, that should be preserved.
 
“Comic books are not printed as much as they were 30-40 years ago, but they are a huge part of people’s lives – Superman, Batman, Iron Man ... I think (the collection) will be useful for many years to come.”
 
John Lutman, the James Alexander & Ellen Rea Benson Special Collections Librarian at Western Archives, has been working on the donation with Smet since 2008 and says, “Comic books are a serious area of academic study and this donation will significantly support those pursuits at Western for our students, our faculty and our visiting scholars.”  
 

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