A Tribute to My Comic Book Guy

I found out last night that a key figure from my past passed away in October. My Comic Book Guy–Al “Oggie” Medlock–was vital to my learning to function as an adult, and I don’t think he realized how life-changing that was for me.

Emerging from darkness

During my freshman year of college, I fell into a deep depression. I was discovering the real adult world for the broken hellscape that it appeared to be. Before long, I only left my dorm room for classes, and I just ate Ramen and Pop Tarts while everyone else socialized in the cafeteria. It wasn’t until a friend silently dropped off a stack of ‘90 X-Men comics at my door that I began to feel hope. I read those books around the clock, and I eventually found the energy to unlock the door and walk down to his room after finishing the first stack. He gave me another stack, followed by another, followed by an invitation to a hole-in-the-wall I had never heard of before called “Mommy’s Books & Daddy’s Comics.” That’s where I first met Oggie.

On the surface, Oggie appeared to be your run-of-the-mill, long-haired, middle-aged Comic Book Guy. His store was a hybrid of comic-book back issues and paperback novels. The $1 comic boxes contained treasures galore! With each visit to this hidden paradise, I saw hints of Oggie’s personality that defied the cynical, rude stereotype made famous by “The Simpsons.“

Oggie became visibly giddy whenever you asked him for reading recommendations. He’d stop whatever he was doing to animatedly share his encyclopedic knowledge of great comic storylines. Oggie never knew it, but his kindness planted a seed of hope that humanity might not all be a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites after all.

A few months later, when I reluctantly joined the community chorus as a requirement to keep my choir scholarship, I saw Oggie grinning in the seat behind me, eager to belt out the baritone notes of Handel’s Messiah. When I asked him about it upon my next visit to his shop, I found out that he had graduated from the college I was attending.

Taking the reins

The day I riffled through my college catalog was the day that I discovered the concept of independent studies. It turned out that you could take any class in the catalog, as long as you could convince a professor to teach you that class independently. That was a game-changer for me, giving me the chance to take the reins of my education and really dive into my passions. Not only would I go on to write a full-length play as an independent study and direct it as another independent study the following semester, but I saw an art class that particularly interested me: sequential media.

Soon after I arrived in the comic shop to tell Oggie the news of my new class, he was loading down my arms with “must-read” comics and graphic novels. From Watchmen to Sandman to Crisis on Infinite Earths, Oggie ended up giving away at least $80 worth of his merchandise. He couldn’t stand to see genuine passion go unfed.

As fate would have it, I ended up returning to teach at that college a few years later. One of the first classes I offered, as soon as I got the opportunity, was sequential media. The minute I found that I had enough students for that class to make, I rushed over to the comic shop. Before I left the store, Oggie had agreed to guest lecture my students, and I couldn’t have been more excited to share this treasure trove with them.

What I couldn’t have anticipated was that Oggie would bring several long boxes containing hundreds of comics. Not only did these comics serve as visual aids, but once he was done talking, he encouraged my students to leaf through the books and take home whatever appealed to them. He wouldn’t accept a dime. As he was packing up, Oggie presented me with a long box filled with Fantastic Four comics. Years later, when I was a young husband and father struggling to make ends meet, selling these comics meant I could continue to pay the bills and provide for my family. Oggie’s influence resonated.

Inspired by generosity

Generosity coursed through Oggie’s veins. As I got to know him, I learned that he had, on multiple occasions, let strangers who were down on their luck sleep at his house, no questions asked. They could’ve easily stolen his priceless collection of Batman memorabilia, but he took that chance several times, because he simply saw someone in need.

I reconnected with Oggie on Facebook years after he closed the comic shop. He had moved on to become a volunteer music and youth minister–still sporting his long hair and probably wearing Lobo tees–in a small country church. He taught himself how to do woodworking, specifically focusing on handcrafted wooden pens and gorgeous wooden bowls. He created a business called Oggie’s Originals and won multiple awards for his craftsmanship. Oggie regularly volunteered at the Paul Anderson Youth Home because he knew it was the right thing to do.

A legacy that remains

If you ever feel disenfranchised by the hypocrisy and callousness that humans in large numbers can display, remember that the world also contains people like Oggie. These outliers march to their own drum while inserting into society little unexpected bright spots when they’re least expected.

I’m grateful to Oggie, and I was relieved to discover that I had told him of that gratitude in a Facebook message on Free Comic Book Day, when the world was shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediately, he offered me free comics from his back issues and a chance to learn wooden pen crafting should I get the chance to visit him. I told him that I was eager to do so after the quarantine was lifted, but I soon got distracted by the busyness of life.

Oggie’s birthday was yesterday, on Valentine’s Day. What an appropriate day for the world to first experience this quirky guy who was consistently driven by love–the kind that takes action–throughout his shortened life. My heart goes out to his family as they adjust to life without him.

Thanks for giving me hope, Oggie. Your life pulled me out of despair, and I hope to pay the kindness forward that you showed me time and time again.