CULTURE AND THRILLS, INC.
TAMPA, FLORIDA

DTA Collectibles is the online destination for collectors of comics, pulps, and beyond. David T. Alexander operated The American Comic Book Company in Los Angeles until his move to Florida in 1989 where he founded DTA Collectibles as a mail-order collectibles business. In its evolution from print catalogs to online storefront, DTA Collectibles has remained an international source for rare and obscure paper collectibles. DTA Collectibles is the online destination for collectors of comics, pulps, and beyond. David T. Alexander operated The American Comic Book Company in Los Angeles until his move to Florida in 1989 where he founded DTA Collectibles as a mail-order collectibles business. In its evolution from print catalogs to online storefront, DTA Collectibles has remained an international source for rare and obscure paper collectibles. Even if you don't see any thing you cannot live without, we hope you will get a kick out of seeing what we have available. When you examine old publications it is like looking back at the fabric of society that brought us to where we are today. Our collection has been decades in the making and at present we only have around 10% of the collection on line. We are attempting to scan, accurately grade and describe every item that comes through our hands. The inventory generally consists of items printed prior to 1980 and our emphasis is on material published before 1965. During elementary school I tried to accumulate comics. My big break came in 1956 during the 6th grade. I must have been the biggest fan in my school. You can see in my 6th grade class photo that I am the only one wearing a comic book t-shirt—Davy Crockett, who was the big comic book and TV craze in 1956. As the year was drawing to a close, my buddy, Dan (in the striped shirt at the far right), told me he was moving and he and his older brother had to get rid of stuff before the move. He did not collect comics but his brother did and wanted to sell his collection. I gathered every cent I could get my hands on and went to his house where his brother showed me a long run of Blackhawk and many other comics. He had one Golden Age This was the best era of stock car racing. Every car was homemade, there were no factory built cars. I was able to rub elbows with some of the top Short Track drivers in the Southeast: Buzzie, Emil and Wayne Reiutmann, Will Cagle, Bill Roynon, Dave McGinnis, Dick Pratt, Pete Folse, Dave Scarborough, Buzz Barton, Maynard Troyer, Bobby Allison, Cush Revette, Possom Jones, Larry Brazil, Jack Arnold and many others. Although I was having a ball at Golden Gate Speedway, my time at USF was not productive and this fascinating experience was not what my parents had in mind for my future. They decided that a smaller campus would be the turning point for me so in 1965 I was shipped to Rome, GA and enrolled in Shorter College. When I left home, I had 22 boxes in my closet. They were loaded with all the comic books, pulp magazines, paperback books, movie magazines, sports publications and racing programs, and photos that I had accumulated up to that point. When I used to tell people I went to college in Rome they thought I was really cool until they found out it was Rome, GA. The city was located midway between Atlanta, GA and Chattanooga, TN. Don't get me wrong, while the culture was a shock for me, the geography was fantastic. Mountains, hills, streams, caves, rivers, dirt roads, and woods provided lots of fun for someone who had spent his life near the beach. Many of the kids at Shorter were there for the same reason as myself—they did poorly at their first school and this was a sort of "last chance" school. Everyone wanted to maintain their student draft status and still have a large dose of fun. I got involved with the Phi Delta Tau fraternity and was the president for my final two years in 1966 and 1967. A lot of crazy things went on—things that will never appear on this web site—but we will include a few of the more tame photos. During my last term in college I had to take a job and the only thing I found was a position with a magazine distributor. It is strange how things work out. My responsibility was to strip the logos off the comic book covers so they could be returned to the publisher for credit. Now if you have been wondering who it was that stripped all those comic book covers, it was me. The guy that ran the place let me have all the three-quarter cover comics I wanted. I took them to my dorm room and although I did not get the same excitement from reading them that I had a decade earlier, I was intrigued by some of the classified ads in the Marvel titles. People were actually advertising to sell back issue comic books, pulp magazines and movie posters. There was even a collectors fan magazine, the Rocket's Blast - Comic Collector, advertised in the classified section of the Marvel comics titles. Robert Bell, Howard Rogofsky, Passaic Book Store and Grand Book Center all offered catalogs featuring old comics for sale. I sent away for all of them. Rogofsky's catalog was the best as he actually gave detailed information about which characters appeared in each issue. His price for Superman #1 was $15.00 in 1967. My thought was that while I was pleased to see an interest in the old comics, I would never be able to pay $15.00 for one comic book. Boy, was I wrong. Hollywood Boulevard was one of the first places to see when you went to California in the 1960s. Cool cars, unusual people, strange stores, comic book and movie poster stores—this was like heaven! I really got back into comics at the end of the1960s. I had my 22 boxes of comics and collectibles shipped out from Florida and placed some sales ads in the Rockets Blast - Comic Collector. As soon as the ad broke I got responses from collectors who wanted to buy and sell. Over the next couple of months, I maxed out my MasterCards buying collections. I realized I was either going to have to get in the business full-time or file for bankruptcy.