The superhero memorabilia that overflows both of Savage Pizza's intown locations is obviously the work of a compulsive collector, but the obsession of co-owner Myron Monsky began innocently enough.
After he graduated Emory University, Monsky suddenly had time for some not-so-serious reading, and became taken with Conan the Barbarian and Silver Surfer comic books. "I thought, man, comics have gotten so cool," recalled Monsky, now 57. "They're not just for kids anymore."
Monsky painted some as a hobby, and started producing canvases that faithfully blew up the covers of some of his favorite comics. When he and his partners decided to plunge into the pizza business in 1990, they rented a Virginia-Highland storefront that had tall, blank walls. The 60-inch-by-42-inch comic book cover paintings provided instant decoration.
They named the place Savage Pizza not for any superhero, but for the nickname that Monsky had given himself, Savage Messiah, after seeing the cool, now-obscure 1972 Ken Russell film of the same name about a poet-sculptor.
The paintings led to the beginnings of a memorabilia collection that kept growing and growing, exploding when Savage Pizza moved to its current Moreland Avenue location in 1996.
When Monsky and partner Michele Hennessy prepared to open a second Savage in Avondale Estates last year, she began buying figures, posters and other superhero stuff. Monsky told her to stop and took Hennessy to his storage space, which is packed with every sort of Marvel and DC Comics gewgaw imaginable.
"She said, ‘You're insane,'" he recalled with a laugh that sounded, well, kind of crazed.
Monsky talks about his collection like an addict about to fall off the wagon. He doesn't know exactly how big his holdings are now -- "It'd be depressing to know," he sighed -- but modestly estimates it "in the hundreds."
For the new restaurant, he "went crazy" and purchased a life-size Silver Surfer figure, then decided it would look even better hanging from the ceiling of his Cabbagetown loft. He thought that would cure his jones but admitted eyeing a life-size Batman figure on e-Bay just last week.
Despite the monster collection, Monsky said he's not a maniac about superheroes, just the memorabilia.
"I get kids in here all the time who think I know all about this stuff and want to talk superheroes," Monsky said. "I say, ‘Guys, I've read a few comics and I've bought a lot of stuff, but I don't really know anything.'
"They think I'm an idiot!"
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