High school teacher organizes giant comic book show this weekend
By Chuck O’Donnell, Special Writer
Chris Eberle is an anything-but-mild-mannered U.S. history teacher at Hillsborough High School where he uses music, props and his quirky sense of humor to bring the people, places and events that shaped our country to life in the classroom.
But while he may be reviewing the French and Indian War with sophomores by day, you might find him reading up on the “Skrull-Kree War” or some other comic book story line at home at night.
Like many of the Spandex-clad superheroes from his beloved comics, Mr. Eberle has something of an alter ego outside the classroom.
As the owner and organizer of a semiannual comic book show franchise in central New Jersey called WildPig, Mr. Eberle spends his spare time alphabetizing thousands of comics, booking vendors, contacting professional artists even planning the after party.
His next show, coming Saturday and Sunday at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Piscataway, is shaping up to be so big he’s calling it the “Super WildPig Show.” Not only will there be dozens of dealers offering everything from comics and graphic novels to action figures and apparel, but more than 30 pro comic book artists, including J.K. Woodward (“Crazy Mary”), Chandra Free (“God Machine”) and Reilly Brown (“Power Play”), will be there to do commission work.
Mr. Eberle will be raffling off valuable comics, such as Marvel’s “X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga” omnibus and DC’s “New Frontier” Absolute Edition.
He’s not only the organizer, but he’s also a vendor. He will be selling some 60,000 comics he’s accumulated by digging through people’s attics and basements at the bargain-basement price of 50 cents each.
And since the show falls on the 11th annual Free Comic Book Day a national superhero holiday where some two million comics will be distributed at more than 2,000 shops and shows across the country there will be stacks of free comics on hand Saturday.
Bryan Deemer, one of the hosts of the Comic Geek Speak podcast, has been attending Mr. Eberle’s shows for years and enjoys the sense of brotherhood they create among comic book fans in central New Jersey.
”If you’ve ever been to a really big comic convention in New York or Philly, you know you’re just a nameless person in the throngs of humanity pulsing through the aisles,” Mr. Deemer said. “At the ‘WildPig’ shows, you can talk to the artists and be surrounded by other like-minded people. Everyone is very friendly, and you can enjoy your hobby rather than feeling like you’re in a cattle chute like at one of the bigger shows.”
On the surface, there seems to be a wide dichotomy between these fantastical tales of caped supermen and the academic tomes he uses in class, between “World War Hulk” and World War II. But Mr. Eberle said they complement each other like Batman and Robin.
”Teaching history is more than simply rattling off facts and dates,” said Mr. Eberle, 39. “While it is important to establish certain facts and chronology, encouraging critical thinking is at the core of my approach in the classroom. Disciplining oneself to grasp a subject from as many different perspectives as possible applies just as much to reading comics as it does to the study of history.
”Plenty of comics books utilize American and world history as a context so a reader’s enjoyment of the work is enhanced if they have a solid background in history. For that matter, virtually every artistic medium is influenced by history so I think one gets that much more out of a novel, painting, TV show or a movie if one understands the historical events and forces that helped shape and inspire the work.”
In the classroom, Mr. Eberle is as colorful as one of the heroes in his comics. He’s been known to play rock ‘n roll or dress as some of the key historical figures, as he said, to “keep the kids awake and hopefully compel them to think critically.”
Just to liven things up, he’ll occasionally don a mask and try to sneak up on English teacher Melissa Blevins, his neighbor across the hall for the past 10 years.
Ms. Blevins says the kids see his superhero bobblehead collection on his desk and hear him playing U2 and “get the cool factor the minute they walk into his room.
”Ultimately, Chris offers quite a bit of himself to his students which, I believe, is what gives the students the automatic buy-in when he teaches them about history,” Ms. Blevins said. “I have no doubt that as he teaches about the historical greats, the superheroes of the past, he animates the material to a degree that makes it all extremely memorable to the kids.”