Super Dad Sells Lifetime Comic Collection to Fund Daughter’s Heroic College Dreams
By Mae Velasco, HeroFuel® Reporter
As a media relations manager who works with TV, radio and print at the Metropolitan King County Council in Seattle, Al Sanders channels Clark Kent in his day-to-day suit, but a decision he made to help his daughter turned him into Superman.
This 54-year-old comic book collector absolutely loves his daughter, Rose. So much so that he gave up his lifelong passion — his entire collection of comic books, one that he built up through high school and college — in order to raise funds to be put toward her college tuition. While Sanders has grown up admiring comic book heroes, his daughter has become his favorite hero. (After all, it’s pretty super that Rose is only 16 and she’s already on her way to college!)
Her dreams of becoming a life-changing teacher are equally heroic. She will be attending Fisk University, a historic black university in Nashville, and majoring in special education.
“There were 4,000 issues in my collection. They were sold as a complete selection to Mike Carbonaro of Dave and Adam’s Card World in New York City,” Sanders said. And although he couldn’t disclose the price, he reassured that the price range was exactly what he was looking for.
Several of the issues in his collection were more than 50 years old, and the “newest” titles in his possession were close to 30 years old, as he stopped collecting in 1989. They stayed with him even when he married his wife. Her only request?
“Your Sports Illustrateds need to go, but the comics can stay,” she told him, according to KING5 News. Talk about a spouse who supports your ambitions!
Want to learn more about this Super Dad whose power is to empower his child’s future? Check out our edited Q&A below with Al Sanders!
MEET AL SANDERS
HeroFuel®: What are your favorite things about comic books?
Al Sanders: I [enjoy] the color, the science fiction aspects and action of the books and the stepping out of your life into the lives of the characters that were in the books. All good books transport you to different locations, lives and times. My books just happened to be in color and include people in costumes.
HF: When and how did you get the idea to sell off your lifetime collection to support your daughter? Was it a hard decision to make?
AS: The books had moved with me and my wife, who knew when she married me that the books were part of what was coming with us. As my daughter, Rose, was getting ready to start looking at colleges and we started looking at the cost of college, I knew in my books I had something of value that could help defray the cost. It was not easy. They had been part of my life for over half of my life, but I have a special child who I didn’t want to have to deal with too much college debt.
Every person has someone special they would do anything for. Rose is my someone special. She is the “Prettiest Flower in my Garden,” and this was a small sacrifice to help her get off to a solid start in college.
HF: What do you love most about Rose? And what are your hopes for her future?
AS: Rose has a passion for helping her community. She wants to become a teacher because she wants to make sure that young people who have not had the opportunities she has get a chance to have the education that will allow them to succeed.
Rose will tell you her future includes a “50-Year Plan” that starts with her becoming a teacher, then a principal, then running her own education foundation! I want her to achieve those goals.
HF: When was the first moment you remember laying your eyes on a comic book?
AS: As I was growing up, my older brother collected comic books. I still talk about crying when I was 6 or 7 years old about how some of the books he collected were used as props in a play that he was performing in.
HF: What would you say kick-started your interest in collecting, and when?
AS: Collecting was something that didn’t become a passion until I was in high school. I stopped collecting when I graduated college and when I had to choose between buying books and paying rent!
HF: Any favorite issues or series?
AS: I started out as a big X-Men fan. I kept buying and buying through high school and college. There was a period when I was buying close to 40 titles a month. My preference were the Marvel heroes (Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Luke Cage, Thor), but I also collected a number of DC Lines (Batman, Action, Adventure, The Legion of Superheroes).
HF: Which book in your collection was the most memorable one to get and why?
AS: Giant-sized X-Men #1! It was the introduction to the “new” X-Men who are part of today’s comic history, and it was a book I had been searching for for almost two years. A small book store several miles from my home called my mother when I was out to let me know the book was available if I got to the store that afternoon. It was a one-hour bus ride in both directions and the shop owner kept the store open for me, but I got the book!
HF: Have any advice for anyone who wants to start collecting?
AS: Have fun with it! When I was 15 years old, I wasn’t thinking about making money from my books. I was just thinking how fun they were to read.
HF: What passions do you have outside of the comic book industry? How would you describe yourself?
AS: I am a reader of African-American history, a Seattle Seahawks fan, passionate about “Star Wars” — which I’ve paid to see over 100 times — and a person who enjoys good times with my family.
I consider myself an easy going, outgoing person who has worked in communications and media relations for the last 25 years. Joe Jeannot, who has known me for over three decades and who performed my wedding ceremony, would describe me as a slightly serious individual who surprised him when I sold my collection.
