You are on Page 2 of the Leader's Report on The Fayetteville Comic Con 14-16 October 2022

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Saturday 15 October 2022

Chad Gray Shortly before the show opened to the public, here's Gerald Hogan's associate Chad Gray at far right arranging some of Gerald's Silver Age comic books. Gerald's booths full of comics, books and toys take up so much room I can't fit them all in one photo even with my widest angle (14mm) lens.	Gerald Hogan Here's the reverse angle of the previous photo with Chad Gray. Trilogy Comics owner Gerald Hogan is at far left manning the table where the customers pay their money.	Gerald Hogan Gerald with a CGC graded copy of The X-Men #14, 1965 with the first appearance of the mutant hunting robots the Sentinels. The story and cover is drawn by Jack Kirby with the Sentinel in the foreground showing the typical Kirby wide angle lens effect.

Jimmy Shirah Jimmy Shirah all setup in the early minutes of the show and all ready to roll (posters)!	Jimmy Shirah Jimmy holding one of his posters and bantering with a potential customer.	Jimmy Shirah Jimmy with a reproduction poster of the classic 1935 Boris Karloff film The Bride Of Frankenstein for a reasonable $15. The poster at left costs much more because it's much older and harder to find. The poster shows the cover of the Warren Publishing magazine Creepy #11 with art by Frank Frazetta. There was a series of these posters all with Frazetta art released in the early 1970s and you don't see them in nice shape to often.

Bob Cunningham The "old man of comics" Bob Cunningham presiding over his large selection of reasonably priced Silver and Bronze Age comics.	Bob Cunningham The Gold Key comic The Twilight Zone #84, 1978 has the first published story art by Frank Miller who was one of the most popular artists of the 1980s and is still active today. I can live comfortably without Frank Miller or any post 1977 comic book artist but I find it difficult to face life everyday not having an affordable way to properly read the type of comic Bob is holding at right. The Silver Age DC comic Rip Hunter Time Master #7, 1962 has a story by famous artist Alex Toth. The Rip Hunter comics and a few other DC science fiction comics have been reprinted in softcover books with black and white art and it looks like that is all we are ever going to get. DC has never shown much interest in reprinting its wonderful 1950s and 1960s science fiction comics properly in color in hardcover books. The only exception is the recently published Adam Strange Omnibus that reprinted the Adam Strange stories from Mystery In Space.	Bob Cunningham Bob with the Harvey Comics Black Cat Mystery #57, 1956 with a cover by Jack Kirby and interior art by veteran Golden and Silver age artist Bob Powell. Jack Kirby drew the covers and some of the interior stories in Black Mystic #s 58, 59, 60. In the 1980s John Verzyl of Comic Heaven in Alhambra, CA sold me these last three Kirby Black Cat Mystic comics in high grade from the Harvey warehouse. But he didn't have the #57 Bob is showing. Jack Kirby also drew a few issues of other Harvey comics in the late 1940s and early 1950s like Stuntman, Boy's Ranch, Alarming Tales. Verzyl also had some of those issues from the Harvey warehouse and I bought all I could.

Andy Parker Andy must have had a good show as many customers were gathered around his table for most of the day.	Andy Parker Andy with the Golden Age DC comic Boy Commandos # 11, 1945. Cover art by Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby and his partner Joe Simon invented this title but Kirby only drew some of the interior stories for the first few issues.	Bryan Barros Bryan had a nice selection of mostly high grade Bronze Age comics at this show.

Bryan Barros Bryan with the Marvel Bronze Age horror comic The Monster Of Frankenstein #2, 1973 and #1, 1973. The covers and stories are by popular artist Mike Ploog who is also known for drawing the Marvel horror title Werewolf By Night. When Marvel was known as Atlas in the 1950s the company had many horror titles featuring werewolves, vampires, zombies and the like. The Comics Code Authority in 1955 killed off those type of comics. When the Code was liberalized in the early 1970s Marvel returned to its 1950s roots with numerous regular color comics and a line of black & white magazines featuring all of the usual types of monsters.	Steve Smith I last saw veteran collector Steve Smith at this show last April. He always has a good selection of Marvel and DC Silver Age comics.	Steve Smith Steve with low or mid grade, and therefore affordable, copies of the DC Silver Age comic Showcase featuring the Challengers Of The Unknown. Steve's Showcase #12, 1958 at left is the fourth and last appearance of the Challengers in Showcase. (Their first appearance was #6, 1957.) Steve's #7, 1957 at right is a nicer copy but still affordable compared to a really high grade copy. After this fourth appearance in Showcase #12 the Challengers got their own comic Challengers Of The Unknown #1, 1958 again with covers and all stories by Jack Kirby. Kirby stayed on this title until #8. Other artists and writers kept the title going until #87, 1978 so Kirby really set something in motion with only his brief tenure on the comic. Thankfully, the Challengers' four Showcase issues and the first eight issues of their own title with Kirby art have been reprinted in hardcover books with color pages in two volume of DC's Archive Editions. The rest of the issues were reprinted in softcover with black & white pages in DC's Showcase Presents line of reprints. You can be sure these later Challengers issues will never get the deluxe treatment.

Steve Smith Steve with a mid grade copy of the DC comic Showcase #28, 1960 with the second appearance in that tile of the Sea Devils. The cover, by famous DC artist Russ Heath, is one of DC's "gray tone" aka "wash" covers which makes pencilled artwork look more like it was painted.	Robert Griffin I've had my eye on Robert Griffin for a few years now and his inventory of Silver Age comics seems to get better every year. Robert makes the neatest printed labels for his comics than any other dealer I know. Robert's low grade copy of The Incredible Hulk #6, 1963 is still expensive at $600. That gives me some encouragement that my extremely high grade copy I bought from John Verzyl in the early 1980s might be worth some pretty good money now. Jack Kirby drew the first five issues of the Hulk in his own comic. Dealer and collector Harry Hopkins told me he heard that Kirby took sick and Steve Ditko was called in to draw the cover and story of this #6 which was the last issue. After that the Hulk made a few guest appearances in other Marvel comics until landing the second feature (following the Giant-Man lead feature) in Tales To Astonish #60, 1964. The Hulk feature remained in that spot until 1968 when the title was changed to The Incredible Hulk and the Hulk took over the entire comic with #102.	Robert Griffin Robert with a page of original art by Graham Ingels from a 1950s EC comic but Robert wasn't sure which one.

Donald Gehl Donald Gehl enjoying a moment of levity with fellow dealer Gerald Hogan. Star Spangled War Stories #112 and #115 from 1964 are issues from the "The War That Time Forgot" series that was the lead story in this comic from #90, 1960 to #137, 1968. This series featured several American soldiers stranded on a remote island populated by dinosaurs. The island was named Dinosaur Island in issue #103. Most of the stories were drawn by DC stalwarts Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. DC in those years had lots of war comic books and many of their superhero and science fiction comics frequently featured dinosaurs so why not combine the two motifs? I still remember in my hometown of Savannah, GA one evening in 1962 I was in Mr. Woo's 7-11 store looking over his comic book spinner rack. Suddenly this Star Spangled War Stories #104 jumped out at me. My youthful imagination was set ablaze but sadly I didn't have .12 to buy the comic.	Donald Gehl Donald with several examples of 1960s era Dell comics with photo covers adapted from the TV shows of the day. If you're over age 40 you should be able to name all the TV stars pictured here.	Jim Shooter Writer, artist and editor Jim Shooter has been a big mover and shaker in the comic book business for a long time. He started working for DC Comics in the mid 1960s on the Legion of Superheroes in Adventure Comics at age 14 and is still active today. He may be best remembered as Marvel Comics's editor-in-chief from 1978-1987. During that time the comic book historians say he brought some corporate discipline to the company which had been playing musical chairs with a long succession of short term top editors. This had resulted in lots of missed dealines and other confusion. I'm not going to recount Mr. Shooter's storied career here because in my own personal comic collecting memories Jim Shooter was largely off my radar screen; I quit collecting Marvel and any other comics in 1977 when I joined the Air Force and so I never knew what Mr. Shooter was doing at Marvel as its new creative boss. But prior to 1977 I had been buying nearly all of Marvel's comics and I remember in the period after 1970 Marvel did sometimes feel like a company adrift with issues not coming out on time, or artist and writers changing from month to month and reprinted stories in place of original stories. If Mr. Shooter fixed most of that, good for him.

Wes Flanary Artist Wes Flanary talking with a potenital customer. Wes paints with oil instead of acrylics or watercolors like many other artists and this gives his paintings a little more richness and luster that oil paintings are noted for.	Wes Flanary Wes with an original oil painting of the Captain of the USS Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk (William Shatner) and a print of his First Officer, Lieutenant Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy).

Click here for Page 1 of the Leader's Report on the Fayetteville Comic Con 14-16 October 2022

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Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest and the Virginia Comic Con 2022