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Friday 14 June 2024

Charlotte Convention Center	Randy Taylor I've seen Randy Taylor of TNT Comics from Buford, GA at many shows over the years and he always has some interesting Silver Age comics. One example is this low grade but still expensive Charlton comic Strange Suspense Stories #22, 1954 with a spooky cover but no interior stories by Steve Ditko. Ditko drew many science fiction and fantasy stories for Marvel in the late 1950s and early 1960s but he also drew many such stories for Charlton in that period.	Terry Williams Here's Terry Williams with the Pre-Marvel comics Journey Into Mystery #62, 1960 and #66, 1961. Both have Jack Kirby covers which was normal for nearly all the Pre-Marvels. This #62 and #66 feature the first appearances of an alien monster called the Hulk (real name Xemnu) and is therefore one of the Hulk prototypes before the advent of the famous Marvel superhero the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk #1, 1962. The other Hulk prototypes were a robot in Strange Tales #75, 1960, a human Western villain in Gunsmoke Western #63, 1961 and a monster in Tales To Astonish #21, 1961. Xemnu and a few other monsters from Marvel's pre-superhero years were brought back in a few stories in the 1970s to battle various Marvel superheroes. In these 1970s stories Xemnu was called Xemnu the Titan to avoid confusion with the Incredible Hulk and he appeared in The Defenders 12, 1974, the Incredible Hulk Annual #5, 1976 and a few other stories.

Kevin Poling Kevin Poling of Hake's Auctions talking with potential clients. Hake's Auctions isn't the largest pop culture collectibles auction house but it's one of the oldest, having started in 1967.	Kevin Poling Kevin with some photos of items sold by Hake's in past auctions.	Amanda Sheriff Here's associate editor Amanda Sheriff with some recent books by Gemstone Publishing, owned by Steve Geppi 's Diamond Distributors. Gemstone publishes many books on popular culture collecting, most notably the annual Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. I don't buy every edition of the Price Guide but I did buy the one shown here since it has a cover pertaining to EC Comics.

Brian Wiedman And speaking of collectibles auction houses, here's Brian Wiedman representing the largest in the United States, Heritage Auctions headquartered in Dallas, TX. Brian was kind enough to give me a copy of the Heritage catalog shown at right for the collection of Roger Hill who recently passed away. Mr. Hill was a big collector of comic book original art. He also wrote or co-wrote three hardcover books I have: Wally Wood: Galaxy Art and Beyond, Reed Crandall: Illustrator of the Comics and most recently The Chillingly Weird Art of Matt Fox. I met Mr. Hill only once when I went out to dinner with him, Tom Horvitz and other original art collectors at the San Diego Con in the 1980s.	Guy Rose, Shelton Drum Here's veteran collector Guy Rose with HeroesCon promoter and the Godfather of Southern Comic Book Dealers - Shelton Drum. I've been taking photos for the Leader's Reports for the past 11 years of Guy and his crew Julio Crespo, Donald Jones and Michael Lantz at the Virginia Comic Con in Richmond which Guy founded many years ago. However I missed the last show and so I was glad to see Guy at HeroesCon and look forward to seeing him again at the next Virginia Comic Con this September.	Marlin Cohen The only other show I've seen Marlin Cohen at is the Virginia Comic Con where he manned the booth of comic books owned by that show's promoter, Brett Carreras. Looks like Marlin has found another dealer to assist as this table is owned by Timothy Kupin of Koop's Comics who used to attend the Virginia Comic Con. I lost track of "Koop" for several years until I saw him again at the Pulpfest show in Pittsburg, PA last year. Anyway here's Marlin showing off some of Koop's Frank Frazetta books all I've which I have. Marlin is holding a book with the Frazetta painting Egyptian Princes on the cover. It originally appeared on the cover of the Jim Warren horror magazine Eerie #23, 1969. The book at left in the foreground shows one of the most famous Frazetta paintings that has been reprinted many times. It first appeared on the cover of the EC comic book Weird Science-Fantasy #29, 1955. The book at right shows the cover that first appeared on the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback book Rogue Roman in 1968. Speaking of Frank Frazetta, check out the photos below.

An interesting sign. Let's see who it belongs to in the photo at right.	Alyssa Fell, Frank Frazetta, Peter Terracciano Frank Frazetta's grandson, also named Frank Frazetta with Peter Terracciano talking with a potential customer. I used to see at the shows selling Frazetta merchandise another branch of the Frazetta family - Stacey and Daniella - but this is the first time I encountered his grandson.	Frank Frazetta Frank with some books about his famous grandfather. The only original Frazetta drawing for sale is the naked woman at left.

Alyssa Fell Frank's assistant Alyssa Fell with three prints from Frazetta magazine and book covers. At left is the Egyptian Princess from Eerie #23, 1969. Center is Conan the Barbarian from the Lancer paperback book Conan the Adventurer, 1966. At right is the magazine cover to Creepy #7, 1966.	Eric Miller Eric Miller had the best display of EC comic books at the show. I grew up reading Marvel comics in the 1960s so partly for sentimental reasons Marvel has always been my favorite brand of comic books and EC my second favorite. I suspect however that relationship would be reversed if I had been born a few years earlier and grew up reading EC comics in the 1950s. Here's a brief article I wrote years ago for The Comic Book Marketplace about my love for EC Comics.	Eric Miller The EC comic Eric is holding has a cover by EC's main science fiction artist, Wally Wood. In the foreground from left to right the comic book covers are drawn by Al Feldstein, Al Williamson-Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood.

Derryle Keith, Alex Rodriguez Derryle and Alex with Murder Incorporated and other sordid crime and horror comics that your parents, school teachers and civic groups didn't want you to read in the 1950s.	Mike Carbonaro Veteran comic book dealer Mike Carbonaro promotes the Big Apple Comic Con in New York City. In addition to comic books he also sells other popular culture items like these movie posters as shown here.	Mike Carbonaro Mike with most of the famous Aurora Plastics Company monsters from the Universal Studios monsters movies. These model kits were released in the early 1960s. They came in a nice painted box and you had to assemble and paint them yourself. I received myself for Christmas in the early 1960s the Frankenstein, Wolfman, Mummy, King Kong and Godzilla kits. I assembled them but never painted them. They sat proudly for many years on the top shelf of the shelves in my bedroom where I kept my Marvel comic book collection. I can't remember what happend to them and I can't afford to buy them back.

Bobby Whitworth I first met Bobby Whitworth at the Tidewater Comic Con 2023 in my town of Virginia Beach, VA. Here's Bobby with the Marvel comic Journey Into Mystery, #102, 1964 with a Jack Kirby cover. The DC comic Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134, 1970 is the second issue of this title drawn by Marvel artist Jack Kirby when he moved to DC in 1970. The cover is drawn by regular DC artist Neal Adams. The story is drawn by Jack Kirby but Kirby's style must have been to unsettling for the conservative DC editors; according to the Grand Comic Book Database regular DC Superman artist Al Plastino redrew all the Superman and Jimmy Olsen faces to make them look the way DC comic buyers were used to seeing them. I bought nearly all the Jimmy Olsen and other Jack Kirby DC comics in the 1970s at my regular place, Mr. Woo's 7-11 store in Savannah, GA and other stores in Savannah. If I had known that Bobby Whitworth and other dealers were now asking $750 for high grade copies I would have bought a few extra copies. I had to settle for $30 when I sold my ungraded copy of Jimmy Olsen #134 on ebay 18 years ago.	Clint McMullan Here's Clint McMullan with a copy of Tales To Astonish #13, 1960 featuring the first appearance of the Pre-Marvel comic book monster Groot. Groot was just one of dozens of alien monsters appearing in Marvel comics in the early 1960s before Marvel superheroes took over. Fin Fang Foom and Xemnu the Titan were among the better known Pre-Marvell monsters but it was Groot that was chosen to star in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel movies so he was catapulted from obscurity to stardom. Clint's copy of this comic caught my eye since it looked nice despite the low grade. But the reason it looks nice is that it has a facsimile cover and some facsimile pages as well.	Vincent Zurzolo Metropolis Comics and Collectibles in New York City is one of the largest comic book dealers in the United States. Here is it's co-owner Vincent Zurzolo with two of the "big books" you would expect Metropolis to have: The Fantastic Four #2, 1962 signed by Stan Lee and Detective Comic #31, 1939. Not big enough for you? Then check out these two biggies in the photo below left.

Micah Spivak, Vincent Zurzolo Vincent with Superman #1, 1939 and Action #1, 1938. They don't get much bigger than this, now do they? I had a chance only one time in my life to buy Action #1 and I flubbed it. In 1977 I was staying at my grandnmother's house in Birmingham, Al for my usual summer vacation and I took the bus to Atlanta, GA to attend my second comic book convention. In a glass display case was a solid Very Good copy of Action #1 priced at $500. I'm sure that price was lower than the Overstreet Price Guide price for a Very Good copy in 1977. I had about $500 but I came to the convention to buy Pre-Marvel and EC comics. I never had much interest in DC comics and I never bought a comic just as an investment. I only bought what I liked to read and collect for fun. I sure didn't travel all the way to Atlanta to spend my hard earned $500 on just one comic book, even it was a big important comic like Action #1.	Micah Spivak Micah with an original art page from Thun'da #1, 1952, the only comic book drawn entirely by Frank Frazetta. Yep, it figures Metropolis would have something like that.	Mike Carlin This booth actually belongs to Al Stoltz but the man in the photo is old timer comic book dealer Mike Carlin helping out Al at the show. Let's have Mike show us two of Al's comics in the photo below left.

Mike Carlin Mike with two early examples of Marvel's flagship title The Fantastic Four #4 and #5 both from 1962. The #4 is extra expensive since it introduced Marvel's 1940s Golden Age hero the Sub-Mariner into Marvel's 1960s Silver Age of Comics. I vaguely remember having a copy of this comic as an eight year boy in Savannah, GA but of course it was lost to the ravages of time. Eight year old kids aren't concerned with diligently perserving their comic books. It wasn't until four years later that I bought Fantastic Four #43 which got me started collecting that title. I used to see Mike Carlin setup as a comic book dealer at the collectibles shows in the Washington D.C. area circa 1997-1998 when I was a dealer myself making the comic show rounds.	Ashley Rankin, Ben Rankin I first met Ashley and Ben Rankin owners of Tallstories Book and Art Gallery in Rock Hill, SC at HeoresCon 2023. They have lots of impressive rare books, pulp magazines and artwork that you don't see at most comic book shows. The Vampirella poster behind Ben's head has a low price on it so I assume it's a reprint and not the original Warren Publications poster from the 1970s.	Ben Rankin Ben with a large original painting of Thor by the Marvel Silver Age famous artist Jim Starlin. I told Ben his eclectic merchandise would sell well at the Pulpfest convention in Pittsburg and he said he was indeed setting up there for the first time this coming August. I look forward to seeing him there.

Ashley Rankin Ashley with two issues of the famous science fiction pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction from 1938. Through the late 1930s and all the 1940s and early 1950 under the editorial control of John W. Campbell Astounding was the leading sci-fi pulp. It featured stories by all the big name writers such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak and so on.	Ashley Rankin Ashley with a special issue of Astounding Science Fiction from 1938. It contains the legendary story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell writing as Don A. Stuart. This story was made into the famous movies The Thing From Another World 1951 directed by Howard Hawks and the remake The Thing 1982 directed by John Carpenter.	Ashley Rankin Since most people will have trouble finding or affording this famous pulp magazine I asked Ashley to carefully open this Astounding issue to show us the illustrations from the title page of "Who Goes There?"

Todd Turner I had to stop and take another look at this lovely depiction of Spider-Man. There are lots of posters and illustrations of Spider-Man available but I had never seen Spidey captured in a stained glass mosaic! I thought stained glass artwork was only found in churches. Then I met the artist Todd Turner and he showed me something even more fantastic...	Todd Turner ...how about a stained glass mosaic of Dr. Strange in one of his other-worldly mystical dimensions! I told Todd that Steve Ditko, Rembrandt and Michelangelo would be proud of him. Sadly, I don't have $4250 in my cookie jar to buy this fabulous piece of art.	Todd Turner A closer view of Todd's stained glass Dr. Strange masterpiece.

Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on the HeroesCon 2024

Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Fayetteville Comic Con, the Tidewater Comic Con and the Columbus Moving Picture Show