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I first met Gary Carter in 1991 at the San Diego Con. He was set up as a dealer with one table selling his new fanzine devoted to Golden and Silver Age comic books, The Comic Book Marketplace (CBM). He didn't have many issues for sale as the fanzine was only a few months old then. I bought some early issues form him but I don't remember which ones. I don't have a #1 so he may not have had that one for sale or maybe he was asking to much for it and scared me off. These early issues only had a few articles and were mostly ads for buying and selling comic books. CBM reminded me of the 1960s Rocket's Blast - Comicollector and the 1970s The Buyer's Guide For Comic Fandom which had been the primary fanzines for advertising comics in their day. I was glad to see another fanzine trying to take up where those venerable old 'zines had left off.
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| How's this for a spectacular Steve Ditko cover? From the White Mountain collection. |
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I soon subscribed to CBM and noticed that while they still had plenty of ads, it seemed to be shifting to more emphasis on articles about the history of old comics. I had already had an article on the art of Steve Ditko rejected by The Comic Buyers' Guide and I was wondering where else I might try to have it published. I was also thinking about a much more ambitious article on Ditko covering his science fiction and fantasy stories at Charlton and Marvel in the 1950s and 1960s. So naturally CBM came to mind. I don't remember the details now but I ended up calling Gary Carter on the phone and he said he was interested in such an article on Ditko and he also had some Charlton comics from the White Mountain pedigree collection with Ditko art for sale. I lived in San Bernardino about three hours from San Diego which was close to Coronado where Gary lived. So I drove down to visit him to buy some of his comics and drop off some 1950s Charlton comics for him to copy the covers for the possible future article.
Gary lived in a nice middle class home with his wife and son. It wasn't festooned with comic related art or memorabalia. A visitor from the normal world of non-comic collectors would never know he was one of the world's leading authorities on old comics books. His garage had been converted into an office where he had a Macintosh computer for working on CBM. An old IBM computer sat forlornly in the back of the room. Gary said he was glad he no longer had to use the IBM as the Mac was much better for doing the type of graphic design work he needed for CBM. I was complaining a little bit about the subscription copies of CBM I had been receiving since they had mailing labels on them. Gary graciously gave me for free several back issues he had in stock which didn't have the mailing labels. I showed him the Charlton comics I had brought that I was using for research for my article. Gary handled them gently and checked the dates on them. He was impressed and said they were "right from that hard to find period in the late 1950s."
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| Konga #7, 1962 & Unusual Tales #15, 1959 |
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| Two more Steve Ditko covers from the White Mountain collection. |
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We spent most of the afternoon doing what comic collectors are supposed to do, talk about old comic books. Gary told me he had once made a trip to Bob Overstreet's home in Tennessee and he described Bob's comic book collection as "a fantastic wonderland." I remember him saying with a touch of melancholy that he regretted all the money he had to spend on Mylar Snugs over the years to protect his comics and the bank storage fees he had to pay where he kept them stored. He said he wondered sometime if he was doing the right thing investing in comic books when he knew lots of other people who were doing pretty well with "normal" investments like stocks and real estate. I don't remember exactly how I replied but I probably said something like "don't worry, comics have been appreciating just as fast as any other asset class for many years." He showed me a collection of 1960s Charlton comic books he had recently picked up. Some had Ditko art but the overall grade on them was less than Very Fine so I wasn't interested in those. However I did buy three Charlton comics with Ditko art from the White Mountain collection. I remember sitting quietly watching Gary peruse his Overstreet Price Guide and deciding what multiple of Guide to charge me for these White Mountain copies.
Gary ushered me into his den where he had a large bookcase. He showed me an old hardcover fiction book from the 1940s with a nice cover of Superman by the pulp magazine artist H.J. Ward. That's the only copy of that book I had ever seen. I read years later that the original Ward painting of Superman had hung in the office of DC comics publisher Harry Donnenfeld for many years. Gary also showed me some of his pride and joy comics, a few copies of the extremely rare DC comic Congo Bill from the Mile High collection. We joked that it was going to be hard to upgrade the condition on them.
We sat for awhile in his living room and talked about the recent big article for the Overstreet Price Guide 22nd Edition "Journey Into The Unknown Worlds of Atlas Fantasy" that Gary had written with CBM columnist, Atlas expert and nearby neighbor Pat Calhoun. I was an Atlas fan myself and told Gary how much I liked the article. He was pleased and said with a weary inflection in his voice that the article had taken a tremendous amount of time and effort.
He gave Pat Calhoun a call to see if we could come over so he could introduce one Atlas fan to another but Pat wasn't home. I never met Pat in person but in later years we spoke a few times over the phone about articles I was working on for CBM. Next Gary and I drove somewhere to make copies of the covers of the comic books I had brought but the place was closed. I left the comics with Gary and he said he would mail them to back to me. I drove home that late afternoon with that warm feeling you get after spending time with a friend who shares your passion for the wonderful world of old comic books.
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| Comic Book Marketplace #21, 1993 |
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| Cover story on one of my favorite genres, the pre-Marvel monster comics with Jack Kirby art. These books always included a Steve Ditko story also. |
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I finished my Ditko article and mailed it off to Gary right before the Air Force to sent me to South Korea for a year in 1992. He called me before I left and said I had done a good job and he was considering making it the lead article with a cover spot on an upcoming issue of CBM. I said I liked working on it and Gary said he understood and also liked the "joy of research" that goes with writing articles.
When I returned to the USA in early 1993 a lot had happened. I called Gary and found out he had moved to Tennessee to work with Bob Overstreet on CBM's replacement Overstreet's Advanced Collector. Gary said my Ditko article would be in the first issue of that new quarterly fanzine and that I would be paid $75 for it since the Overstreet company was big enough to afford to pay its columnists. The new fanzine only lasted a few issues and then the name was changed back to The Comic Book Marketplace with a monthly publication. I saw Gary for the last time in 1993 where we spoke briefly at the big Comicfest comic con in Philadelphia. He asked me if I had received my payment for the Ditko article and I remember him making a dismissive remark about all the price guides competing with the Overstreet Guide. Gary said these johnny come lately guides were mostly "just hype."
Over the next few years while I was stationed in Virginia Beach, Virginia I continued working on a few more articles for CBM. I spoke with Gary over the phone about the articles. I remember in particular he was impressed when I tracked down the 1970s mail order dealer Robert Bell for an interview for CBM. Gary said I must have worked for the F.B.I. sometime along the way. I asked Gary if he could reimburse me $40 for the the money I paid to have the recorded telephone interview transcribed by a typist. He said Overstreet only paid a flat fee for articles and not expenses. But somehow he bent a few a few rules or something and paid me $150 for the Bell interview instead of the usual $75.
I remember one of the last conversations I had with him in the late late 1990s. The subject of Jack Kirby came up and Gary told me he had met Kirby only once and considered it a "profound privilege." He told me that he was saddened by Kirby's resentment of being the "workhorse" of Marvel comics and not getting the financial rewards he thought were his due.
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| Comic Book Marketplace #80, 2000 |
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| My last article for Gary Carter was my tribute to EC comics. |
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| Overstreet Advanced Collector #1, 1993 |
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| My first article for Gary Carter was about Steve Ditko's science fiction / fantasy stories for Charlton and Marvel. Fellow Ditko collector Conrad Eschenberg liked my article but said this magazine was overpriced at $10 since it didn't have color photos. |
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Sometime in the early 2000s my relationship with Gary came to an abrupt end. The Overstreet publishing company was bought by Steve Geppi of Diamond Distributors and Gary resigned as editor of CBM. Russ Cochran was brought in as the new editor. Cochran didn't know me and had no interest in me doing anymore articles. It took me forever to get his office staff to return to me an article that I had submitted to Gary. I called Gary's office in Coronado where he had moved back to after his stay in Tennessee. I got his terse recorded message that the West coast branch of Geppi's company, Gemstone Publishing, was closed. I had no other number for Gary and haven't heard from his since. I imagine he disagreed with the new editorial changes that Geppi and Cochran had in mind for CBM but I don't really know. I heard a few months ago, in 2012, from comic dealer Gene Carpenter that he had heard that Gary had sold his DC collection, even his beloved Mile Highs. Maybe so, but I can't believe that a pure perfect specimen of a comic collector like Gary would ever sell his books.
I'll always remember that pleasant visit to Gary's home in 1992 and the fun times I had writing CBM articles for him over the next few years. There have been lots of excellent fanzines over the years but for me CBM had its own special appeal for serious collectors of old comics. The articles were well written by the collectors themselves. It didn't have a pretentious tone like The Comics Journal that was always interviewing esoteric European comic artists I had no interest in. It didn't review current comic books or report on current news like The Comic Buyer's Guide. Those were all good 'zines for their own market but if you were a serious fan of Golden and Silver Age comics then CBM was the perfect fanzine for you. For me, its only rival for capturing the nostalgia and charm of comic books from the 1940s through the 1960s was the Rocket's Blast - Comicollector in its heyday before the 1980s and Alter Ego in current times. Also unlike most other fanzines, CBM's later issues were printed on quality slick paper with lots of color photos. Alter Ego just started using slick paper with some color. Gary was doing that back in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure the high production values and the unique spirit of CBM will make it more collectible in years to come. Certain issues already sell on ebay for higher prices than most other fanzines from the 1990s. It was Gary Carter who guided CBM on its way through that special niche of comic book history and nostalgia and and he couldn't be replaced. After he left the Cochran era CBM was still pretty good but it veered away from covering purely comics and delved into other areas of popular culture. It folded up after a few years. Maybe if Gary had stayed on CBM would still be around in some format or other. At any rate the Carter era CBM will always hold an honored place among collectors of old comic books.
