A local comic book show is entering its third decade.

The Virginia Vintage Comics and Collectibles Show returns for the 21st year to the Salem Civic Center on Saturday, August 25. Since the show was founded by Floyd County residents Roger and Nancy Mannon in 1998, it has been billed as “the only Vintage Comics Show in the Eastern United States.”

“There is an increasing number of comic book shows and conventions, and most of them have some old comics,” Roger said, “but we are the only one that is devoted entirely to vintage comics and collectibles.”

Comic books were widely popular in the mid-twentieth century, and have enjoyed a renewed popularity in recent years. Not only have comic book icons like Superman, Batman and Spider-man spawned successful movie franchises, but even secondary comic book characters like Green Lantern, Aquaman and Guardians of the Galaxy have generated popular movie and television series as well.

Because of its focus on vintage material, the Salem show has drawn vendors and collectors from 14 states, from New York to Florida to the Midwest. “This year we’re getting a fifteenth state, with Bobkat Comics, from Weaver, Alabama,” Mannon said. Some comics that sold for a dime in the 1940s and 1950s are now sold for thousands of dollars. Values depend on significance, scarcity and condition. The most valuable comics usually come from the “Golden Age” of the 1940s and 1950s and the “Silver Age,” through the end of the 1960s. “But not all old comics are worth big bucks,” Mannon noted. “We have lots of good comics priced at $2 or $3 at the show.”

The show includes 50 vendor tables, featuring some of the nation’s top comic book dealers. In addition to comics, the show will feature other vintage collectibles, such as pulps, digests, paperbacks, sports, toys and advertising The Salem Civic Center is located at 1000 Roanoke Blvd., with easy access from I-81 at Exit 141 Show hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.