The owners of Los Angeles’ world-famous Golden Apple comic shop have launched a foundation to preserve and safeguard the medium and art form of comics, and they have nabbed Frank Miller for its first fundraising event.
The Golden Apple Comic & Art Foundation’s stated goals are “to preserve, safeguard and showcase private collections to ensure that comics, books, art and collectibles are secured for future generations to enjoy.”
“With the changing landscape of having digital comics and NFTs, even using tablets to draw and make them, the original art form is slowly going away,” notes Ryan Liebowitz, the foundation’s president. “The point of this is to celebrate and save comics.”
The impetus for the foundation was a longtime customer seeking to donate his extensive collection to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. The newly created foundation will now catalog and archived the collection and ensure its safe transportation. “It’s very popular for people to donate to universities, but the problem is that the people at universities don’t specialize in comics,” Liebowitz says.
The plan is to continue such work and expand the scope by collaborating with special collection departments at universities to establish exhibits and mobile museums. It will also work to create scholarships and convention programming while promoting the restoration and preservation of comic art.
The foundation’s first fundraising event is a charity screening (and the North American premiere) of Frank Miller: American Genius, a documentary centered on the author and artist whose seminal works include The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil: Born Again and Sin City.
The event will take place March 25 in Arizona and feature a Q&A with Miller and the film’s director, Silenn Thomas. It will have a themed menu based on Miller’s comics and films.
The event is notable as it is the first time Miller is making any sort of professional appearance in Arizona and for its tie-in to the grand reopening and return of Atomic Comics, a popular shop (it was featured in the 2010 movie Kick-Ass) that folded 10 years ago. Atomic is having a Miller autograph signing on March 26.
Liebowitz is on the foundation board with family members Kendra and Sharon Liebowitz, who collectively run the Golden Apple shop, along with filmmaker and comic art form enthusiast Kevin Smith, writer Marc Andreyko, journalist Heidi MacDonald, Atomic Comics owner Mike Malve, and producer Gary Prebula.
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