There are those who proudly showcase their collections of stamps, magnets, porcelain plates, old coins, baseball cards and even cat figurines. But do they dedicate a room in their house solely to display their assemblage?

Darren ‘Dags’ Maxwell has done just that for his obsessive assortment of everything Batman – a buying spree begun in the 1990s that saw him collect more than 1,300 items. The only way to properly store the accumulation was to devote one room in his Australian home completely to his pursuit of everything Gotham. In the new documentary Batman and Me, audiences get a glimpse of his eight-year buying spree that saw Maxwell purchase anything he could lay his hands on that related to the Batman movies, filling up not only his spare room but his freezer as well. Yep, he has stored Batman ice cream for more than 30 years.

The interview was conducted recently via Zoom.

Let’s take you back to the beginning. What was the very first item that got you started with your Batman memorabilia?

Well, before I started collecting officially, it would have been the 1990 calendar from the 1989 movie if that makes sense. I also got the children’s board game that was released at the time, and both of those are items that I opened up and used, even though ironically, the board game was a children’s game and of course, I was an adult at that point, so that was kind of a bit silly. But that was before I started the whole collecting thing and really got into the zone of it. It wasn’t until later on when I started buying items to keep in their packets and as a consequence, the board game and the calendar had to try and be replaced sometime in the future to rectify the issue that I had opened them up.

How far up the collectors’ list did you make it? Were you in the top ten of Batman collectors?

Actually, no, because I stopped collecting back in 1997, so I mean like a seven, eight-year run of really intense collecting. I have even acknowledged that of all the collectibles produced since 1939 to today, there would be a lot more bigger collectors than myself. So, I am lucky if I would be in the top thousand as a guess, really. Because don’t forget, there’s a difference between quantity and quality, so if you are talking about quantity, yeah sure I have got a lot of stuff, but in terms of quality, I ended up with a lot of stuff that actually people would classify as rubbish. [Laughs.]

Was there something that eluded you in your collecting, some great item you just couldn’t lay your hands on?

There’s only one. The one thing that eluded me throughout my entire time and even a lot of my friends don’t even have this, is a minted box of the Batmobile made by Corgi in the 60s/70s. The only time I ever saw one, aside from when I was a little kid, I actually had one and of course, then I used it, was at a collector’s fair in the U.S. in 1993 and it was like 500 American dollars even then. That’s the one thing that I don’t have. A lot of people, including myself, have loose ones in various conditions, some of them are scratched and some of them are in perfect condition, but a boxed one of those, I think if you had one of those, that is definitely the best thing you can have in a collection.

In the documentary, you take great pride in owning all these memorabilia but never opening it. You never really enjoyed the items. Does one have to keep everything in mint, pristine condition?

Yeah, it’s very interesting because a lot of people work on the view, did I take items out of their packets or did I leave them mint in the box? I learned as the decades have rolled on that keeping things mint in the box as they were purchased at the time, invariably leads to a greater value later on. And down the track, people always say I used to have one of these, but I used it. I ingrained into my own mind that everything had to be kept mint as was purchased. And that even includes things if you went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and you bought a Batman item still wrapped in really, really cheap plastic, a little plastic bag, I would still keep it that way. I never opened anything. Once I got into the collecting zone, everything stayed exactly as I purchased it and I had no intention of ever taking anything out of a box. But of course, that doesn’t work for everybody. Some people say, well if you buy a product that’s in a box, you can’t even see what it is, what’s the point of having it? And it’s a fair argument. But from my perspective, I prefer to keep things as they were purchased because I was never planning to play with them or do anything special like that, like with toys, for example. I wanted everything kept the way it was bought, so decades later I could look back upon it and go well, there it is, exactly as it was purchased when I first got it.

You started this collection before the internet and before eBay. Imagine what you might have bought then?

I am actually glad I was collecting when the internet didn’t exist because once eBay came in and the internet sort of found its way into the world, I discovered that you are right, you can buy just about anything anywhere. And as a consequence, your finances would just be going out the window. I was kind of glad my collecting was limited to just store-to-store hunting. And that of course meant that we missed out on a lot of really good things that were being produced internationally, but in the end, that was a benefit rather than a hazard because even though the collection wasn’t as big or as comprehensive as it could have been, at least I didn’t end up living out on the street corner with tons of merchandise around me [laughs] because I couldn’t afford a unit to live in.

When you started, the world would have labeled you a nerd. Now with the Marvel Universe and science fiction so essential to the entertainment industry, you are one of the cool kids.

I think the internet and social media have a lot to do with it.  And you are correct, once upon a time, being a science-fiction fan or a pop culture fan, you are looked down upon by society. Now everybody’s into it, it’s become part of the mainstream. And now you see superhero information or products just about everywhere. People are happy now to sort of talk about the whole pop culture franchise being part of their lives, whereas back in my day, people did keep it very, very quiet. But I would argue that people have always been fans of this sort of material, they have just never been willing to discuss it with anybody else. But now that the internet is out there on social media, people are happier to share their thoughts and their love for it all and they have discovered other people who feel exactly the same way. And for that reason, everybody is sort of joined together. And these days, being a pop culture fan is considered a cool thing whereas once it wasn’t. 

Collecting can easily become a drug – where you need to buy something to handle your ‘fix.’ With the release of the new Robert Pattinson Batman, did you get a little urge to buy something?

I mean, even with the Christopher Nolan films, they are all great and wonderful, but from a buying merchandise perspective, that’s long gone now, the shutters have come down and I am completely over it. I work part-time at a friend’s collectible store on the weekends and it’s fantastic, he’s got Batman stuff everywhere and none of it interests me. The only time I got tempted was about four years ago, was actually in another collectible store here where I saw some merchandise that I had never even seen before from the 1989 movie and if anything is going to keep triggers, it’s going to be that. If I was tempted by anything, it would be because it was the ’89 film. But as it turned out, I still said no, even though my other half was prepared to buy them for me. Because I was afraid that even if I took a step down that path, it could reopen all these old wounds effectively and I was just not prepared to do that. And even consequently today, even as of right now, I will not go to the Batman section of eBay for that very, very reason, it’s a complete no-go zone from my perspective.