The Obsession Factory
Back from the much-needed break with a few stories to tell. We’ll save the politics for later. Things are pretty much speaking for themselves at this point, and besides, it’s nearing the brink of being too depressing to contemplate. I have a three-week sprint to the end of my Borg contract, and then some more R&R coming, during which I hope to take a fresh look at EA and make several long-delayed upgrades (yes, Filchyboy, that means you…)
In the meantime, let me tell you about Iola, Wisconsin. Iola is far from far: a town that the good burghers of Little Chute (my primary destination), consider remote and provincial. However, nestled among the tractors and silos is an office park complex of considerable size: the world headquarters of Krause Publishing. This sprawling facility employs nearly 500 people: editors, account executives, printers, shippers… the lot. It is also the repository of a great horde of rare treasures, stacked and hidden in climate-controlled and highly secured vaults. This facility transforms Iola from sleepy cowtown to ground zero in the Empire of Obsession.
You see, Krause specializes in publishing guides and magazines for collectors. Collectors of everything. If you can think of a hobby or enthusiasm from crafts and antiques to hunting and herb farming, Krause probably puts out the authoritative guide and must-read periodical for the subculture of devotees.
My business with Krause comes from my off-hours gig as reviewer for Comic Buyers Guide, the weekly tabloid that tracks the news and views of the funnybook industry. I have met several of the staff and editors at the annual San Diego Comic-Con in the summer, but have never seen them in their native habitat. Since it was just a short ride down a two-lane country road from my Thanksgiving destination, I couldn’t resist the chance to stop by for a visit.
Judging from the reception they gave your humble narrator and his consort, they don’t get many visitors out in Iola. We were treated to lunch at a local deli (actually in the nearby town of Scandinavia, since the only eatery in Iola is a Subway attached to the Citgo station) and given a full and complete tour of the facility, including introductions to the most senior executives.
The interior of Krause looks like any other cube-farm. It reminded me in some ways of my one and only corporate job in the belly of the advertising production department for a regional chain of hardware stores. But the difference was flair. “Flair,” of course, is the term for decorations that employees use to personalize their workspace. Often this is in the form of banal inspirational posters, photos of loved-ones, perhaps the occasional faded snapshot or postcard to remind them of a long-ago tropical vacation.
Not at Krause. Since every staff member of every publication is, by definition, an uber-geek in their particular field of expertise, each cubicle was a veritable gallery of exotic memorabilia and a dumping ground of collectable samples and specimens. In the sports-card niche, there were elaborate displays of framed and signed posters, gigantic uncut sheets of trading cards from decades past, mounted and signed accoutrements of every professional sport (footballs, baseballs, hockey pucks, golf balls), jerseys and the like. In the crafts section, there were samplers on the walls, baskets stacked up to the tops of the high cubicle walls, quilts and blankets, and every manner of weird, useless and indescribable knick-knacks.
The Comic Buyers Guide gang were stuck way back in the corner, with a crowded row of booths jammed with artwork, toys, action figures, and piles and piles of comics. Shelves groaned from rows of thick reference books, price guides, circulation reports and hardbound graphic novels. But what’s here on site is nothing compared to the infrastructure of obsession stored in vaults and personal collections in and around Iola.
One of the editors was kind enough to show us his secret stash – a staggering trove of old paper housed in an outbuilding behind his house, with floors specially engineered to support the weight of over 50,000 bagged, boarded, stacked and stored comics, plus assorted games, books, toys, posters, videos, movie lobby cards and other necessities. All of this was organized in a system that would make the curators of the British Museum blush with envy. And this was, by everyone’s admission, nothing compared to the legendary collection of CBG editor Maggie Thompson, who was, regrettably, too busy to take us around to see it on this trip.
I’m something of a collector myself, but I felt like the star slugger of the Toledo Mudhens being given a few swings in the cage at Yankee Stadium. The best part of the trip, though, was the thing that makes the high entry costs of the collecting subculture so worthwhile. Out in Iola, far from everything common and familiar in my experience, I was able to engage in rich and interesting interactions with people who were basically complete strangers, based on our shared enthusiasm and detailed knowledge of a particular subject. Obsession has its downside if taken too far, but anything that can bridge great distances so effectively can’t be all bad – as the good folks of Iola and the staff of Krause Publications will be happy to show you!
9:56:21 AM 
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