Craig McCracken, The Powerpuff Girls, Collect Her, and Object/Ephemera Addictions

One of my best graduate students ever, Jonny Holt, stopped by the office today to catch up and chat; since leaving academe, he's enmeshed himself in the world of publishing and bookselling. In any event, Holt reminded me of a presentation he did on comic book and comic artifact collecting. It was a lecture that folded together Holt's readings of Chris Ware and Craig McCracken and focused on the obsessional pathologies that can arise from books, toys, etc. when a passion for collecting goes awry--or, in the eyes of the collectors, when passion turns to obsession. Here's that episode of the The Powerpuff Girls, "Collect Her/Supper Villain"(1999)--a classic!