Holy Word Balloon! Comics Library Opens

Ask 50-year-old Ed Sobczynski, former insurance broker, why he would step away from early retirement to open a comic-book reading room and watch, as white clouds filled with words rise above his head.

``I said I was going to turn one of my hobbies into a business and Poof! Shazam!'' Sobczynski said, stretching his hands toward the ceiling. ``Here it is.''

The Comic Book Library is, in the words its creator Sobczynski, ``a pop culture reading room'' and in the mind of one comic-book aficionado, ``an idea whose time has definitely come.''

Tucked at the corner of Stone Way North and North 40th Street, the storefront is filled with 400 current issues and 2,000 back issues stretching from Alpha Flight to Zorro.

The reading room provides cash-strapped comic-book fans with a chance to sate their habits without zapping their budgets.

``Comic books nowadays are so expensive people can easily spend $20 or $30 a week trying to feed their habit,'' said Bill Savage, a University of Oklahoma history professor who wrote a book about the Golden Age of comics.

The average comic book, 30-some pages of color, action and adventure, these days will set you back $1 to $2. The 50-page versions, or those with 1990s graphics and color, go for upward of 5 bucks.

While movie buffs, pop-art collectors and even romance-novel readers meet with understanding and support, comic-book readers say they are the object of scorn.

``It's an incredible stigma. If you have pictures without words, it's art. If you have words without pictures, it's literature. You put them together and it's juvenile schlock - I don't understand,'' said Phil Rose, 28, a free-lance editor and comic-book fan.

Rose saw Sobczynski at a gathering of comic-book collectors at Seattle Center, with fliers announcing his store opening. The first day of business for the read ing room, Nov. 15, Rose was there.

Sobczynski says he thinks many who dropped the comic-reading habit in their youth think the new comic books are like their 1940s and 1950s counterparts - ``two-dimensional escapist trash.''

``They would relegate people who read it as having less than normal intellect,'' he said. ``They're escapism, certainly. But a lot of them are socially relevant.''

Sobczynski's interest in comic books waned, then peaked again when the good guys started tackling drug abuse, scheming slumlords, pollution and women's rights in the 1970s.

For example, the authors of the classic Green Arrow and Green Lantern - which dates back to the time of Spiro Agnew - have the heroes questioning themselves about spending so much time fighting villains. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' duo then set off, in Jack Kerouac tradition, in search of real issues.

As the May 1971 issue attests, social issues began in their home.

``You always have all the answers, Green Arrow! Well, what's your answer to that -- ?'' Green Lantern inquires.

From a fractured cloud comes Green Arrow's reply: ``My ward, Speedy, is a JUNKIE!''

Sandman, a new title exploring issues of sleep and dreams, is among the more popular titles with Seattle readers.

A few racks over, however, an olive-skinned Vampirella with more cleavage than fire-red bikini crouches from her cover.

Savage said such voluptuous women, called good girl art, sprang up after World War II, once publishers found out servicemen were interested in comic books. Women with long legs, big breasts and shoulder-length hair - usually only props for the good guy to rescue - were a big hit.

Sobczynski said comics grew up with their readers.

The money for Sobczynski's collection has come from his pocket, and each new membership brings him back $2, plus a $4 daily reading fee. In exchange, readers get a chance to sink back into a plump round chair and enter another world.

Sixteen, from all walks of life, have signed up for memberships so far.

On a recent afternoon, a guy who says he's a University of Washington law student on break is in the reading room, clutching a copy of X Factor.

The futuristic fantasy has got three gangs interwoven - X Man, fugitives because they didn't register with the government, New Mutants, the young toughs fresh on the scene and X Factor, who are the registered heroes.

All those details, but this young man won't provide one: His name.