Darren Garnick was a Super Collector of Stories

As this issue goes to press, store shelves are in full Halloween mode. That means displays at grocery stores are piled high with boxes of Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry and Carmella Creeper.

Last year, Carmella Creeper broke through “the cardboard ceiling” as the first female in the Monster Cereals lineup since it was introduced by General Mills in 1971.

Darren Garnick got excited by that kind of news.

For three decades, the Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, journalist and writer collected cereal boxes and related memorabilia from Cap’n Crunch, Quisp and other cartoon character cereals as well as one-off sports celebrity brands like Flutie Flakes.

That “cardboard ceiling” line was lifted from a sidebar Garnick wrote that accompanied his “Granite State Super Collectors” story in the September 2023 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.

Garnick, who died Aug. 30 after battling pancreatic cancer for more than a year, was a regular contributor to the magazine. His newspaper career included stints with the Boston Herald and The Nashua Telegraph. His work over the years also appeared in The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Runner’s World and The Jerusalem Post. In a different phase of his career, he produced several political documentaries for PBS.

Garnick, 56, was the first writer to visit me after I took over as editor from Rick Broussard last year. Freelancers are paid by the story so the Amherst resident had no financial incentive to spend an hour with me and Morgen Connor, our digital operations and marketing manager, late on a Friday afternoon in Manchester.

He wanted to talk about the progress he was making on his story ­— which featured several New Hampshire residents who were as excited about their unusual collections as Garnick was about cereal boxes — and how we might best present it.

I had no idea Garnick had such an impressive track record, but it does not surprise me now. The passion he brought to the story was the mark of a professional who never stopped loving his craft and had a great sense of fun.

It would be the only opportunity I would have to work with Garnick, whose illness intensified shortly after the story was published. We send our deepest condolences to his family, and we’ll be thinking of him — and this passage from “Granite State Super Collectors” — when we walk past the cereal aisle.

“Whether its autographs, action figures, fashion dolls, coins, stamps, baseball cards, Beanie Babies, Star Wars toys, comic books or a slew of other collectibles, the objects that people choose to collect are a physical, visible extension of their personalities.”