Franklin Square: home of the Comic Book Hall of Fame

Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is an arctic oasis, where the Man of Steel can unwind after saving the world. The Batcave is equipped with supercomputers to help the Dark Knight track down the goons of Gotham. Peter Manolakos’ basement in Franklin Square is furnished with light-colored wood paneling, reddish indoor and outdoor carpeting, and dozens of Iron Man statues, action figures and posters.

  Although it lacks the milieu — and closet space — of the Hall of Justice, it is the official corporate headquarters of the Comic Book Hall of Fame. Wedged between some lounge chairs, a coffee table and an old exercise bike, Manolakos, 41, toils to someday bring his ambitious dream to life. As the chief financial officer of the Comic Book Hall of Fame, Manolakos and his fellow officers hope to create the first physical structure to serve not only as a shrine to the men and women who have created the fantastical adventures of supermen such as Green Lantern, Spider-Man and Captain America, but as a museum, library and gallery devoted to comics’ rich history and impact on popular culture.

  The Hall of Fame would host comic cons, symposiums, workshops, costume play meetings — cosplay in “fanboy” parlance. It would be a comic book Cooperstown, brought to fruition in comics’ birthplace, Manhattan.

  “These are very talented individuals who do serious work,” Manolakos said, adding that a longtime perception that comics are for children has, over the years, been squashed. “This perception has changed in the last decade, as more people realize that comic books are a true American art form, and can easily take their place among more legitimate art forms and literary works.”

The journey toward a Hall of Fame started during Manolakos’ college days at the State University of New York in Brockport. Before going to class one day, he made the mistake of leaving the door to his dorm room open. When he returned, he found his next-door neighbor, Roger Rautio, reading some of his comics.

At first, Manolakos was worried that Rautio was going to ruin his comics and he “freaked out a little,” as Rautio remembers. But when Manolakos calmed down, he made a friend for life — and a business partner. When Rautio got the idea in the mid-1990s to form the Comic Book Hall of Fame as a limited liability company in New York, and an FLL on a national level, he obtained ownership of the name — and Manolakos was one of the first people to join on.

Rautio said Manolakos brings passion and diligence to the team’s pursuit; he is the professional conscience of the outfit. Or, as Rautio puts it, Manolakos makes sure “there is no unauthorized spending or spending that does not move the Comic Book Hall of Fame forward. He even has veto-power on expenditures, and can remove me from office if I am abusing company funds.” Manolakos has had little formal financial training, and much of what he and Rautio have learned has come from a copy of “Business For Dummies.“

In fact, most of the seventh- and eighth-grade students at Wantagh Middle School — to whom Manolakos teaches American history — have no idea that he has an alter ego as a CFO. By day, it’s the Cuban Missile Crisis. By night, it’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”

Manolakos and Rautio hope the Comic Book Hall of Fame will expand in the future. “I’d like to see an interactive and modern design to the hall,” Manolakos said. “There would exhibits of original art, but I also see screens where fans and can go through rare art and scripts, and speak with creators and artists — probably taped conversations, but also on occasion, live. I see virtual reality simulators, where people can play their favorite hero, or places where they can create their own heroes.”

Getting the word out is the first step for Manolakos, Rautio and Joe Alkire, the first assistant to the Hall of Fame. They’ve fostered a groundswell of support from the comics community, and meet many people who are stunned that there are halls of fame for everything from marbles (Wildwood, N.J.) to mustard (Middleton, Wis.), but not for comics. The Comic Book Hall of Fame has nearly 15,000 followers on social network sites, and an artist has been commissioned to design a statue that would be given away to creators, upon their induction into the Hall of Fame. Likely inductees, including Ramona Fradon, Herb Trimpe, Fred Hembeck, Neal Adams and Joe Kubert, have thrown their support behind Manolakos and the hall.

  “It is a great idea,“ said Fradon, who became one of the first women to work in the comics field, when she began drawing for now-defunct Timely Comics in 1951. “It’s an idea that’s long overdue. I think it would be a great way to preserve the history of comics.”

  “People would come out of the woodwork to give them original artwork,” said Adams, who has been penciling  Batman, Superman, the X-Men and others for the better part of five decades. “They would say, ‘Here, you can borrow it for 10 or 15 years.’ If they had things like those big original Prince Valiant drawings, I would go there.”

  And once the Comic Book Hall of Fame gains widespread acceptance and credibility, Manolakos said, he hopes the economic side will follow. They get some donations, but for now, they’re making a heroic sacrifice: they dip into personal savings to finance trips to conventions and buy rare pieces of original comic book art they hope will be displayed in the hall. They’ve spent thousands of dollars to acquire more than 200 pieces, including the original production art to the cover of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” No. 121 — an iconic issue, penciled by John Romita Sr.

Manolakos says he can’t even begin to guess how much money it would take to open the hall to the public. However, he said, the hall could become affiliated with a major comic convention. Or, perhaps, major publishers such as Marvel and DC will reach into their deep pockets. As for right now, Manolakos said, “They don’t know what to make of us.”

For the time being, Manolakos will continue to crunch numbers in his basement and dream of trading his wood-paneled walls for a majestic, state-of-the-art, interactive, long-overdue Hall of Fame. “We’ve come a long way with this, but still have a much longer way to go,” he said. “The main thing is that we’re consistent and steady in our course and dreams, so that they will one day become a reality.”

For more on the Comic Book Hall of Fame: myspace.com/comicbookhalloffame.

Questions or comments about this story? ChuckRobyn@aol.com.