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 and the Heroes Convention

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Saturday 13 May 2023

Michael Lantz Guy Rose and his associates Michael Lantz, Donald Jones and Julio Crespo have been a fixture at this show for many years. Here's Michael looking at a prospective female customer checking out Guy's comic book display wall. At right is Gene Carpenter also looking over some of Guy's comics. At far left is Julio Crespo talking with a customer. For various reasons I'm told Julio and Donald Jones may not be returning to future shows so this formerly enduring quartet may be whittled down to just Guy and Michael. We'll see what the future holds.	Guy Rose And here's the main event himself Guy Rose with two intertwined Silver Age Marvel comics: The Avengers #3, 1964 where the Hulk and Sub-Mariner team up to fight the Avengers and Journey Into Mystery #112, 1964 where Thor alone fights the Hulk. Because of Marvel's famous attention to continuity these two books are connected. In this JIM #112 Thor is asked by a group of teenage boys who is stronger - he or the Hulk? Thor refers back to the battle in The Avengers #3 and tells the boys that during the battle he and the Hulk were separated from the rest of the Avengers and the Sub-Mariner and fought their own battle which is shown in JIM #112.	Kevin Merrill The Godfather of Southern comic book dealers Shelton Drum of Heroes Arent Hard To Find has been attending this show regularly for the last several months. Today he had a new assistant with him I hadn't met before, Kevin Merrill. Here's Kevin gazing serenely into outer space.

Shelton Drum Shelton with two Pre-Marvel comics: Strange Tales #88, 1961 featuring the famous Aztec monster Zzutak and also World Of Fantasy #19, 1959. Of the many Pre-Marvel monsters, Zzutak has been a perennial favorite of mine and therefore has been emblazoned of one of my dye sublimated T-Shirts. I first saw this WOF #19 in the early 1980s during a visit to comic book dealer David Alexander's home. He had a better looking copy than shown here and I bought it and still have it. I later bought an even higher grade copy but I don't remember where.	Mike Fonseca Mike Fonseca of Collector's Attic always attends this show and has interesting Silver and Bronze age comics.	Mike Fonseca Mike with the DC comic The Brave And The Bold #80, 1968 with a Neal Adams cover and story. I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure I bought this issue new in 1968. The story has Batman teaming up with the Creeper. When former Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko left Marvel in 1968 he did some work at DC including co-inventing the Creeper who first appeared in Showcase #73, 1968 and later his own comic for a few issues all of which I bought new in 1968 because they were drawb by Ditko. I may have noticed this Brave And The Bold issue has the Creeper and may have bought it because of that. This Marvel comic Tales To Astonish #71, 1965 is one of the first if not the first issue of this Marvel title I bought as a kid at Mr. Woo's 7-11 store in my hometown of Savannah, Georgia. It has a cover and story drawn by Gene Colan who had worked at Marvel in the 1950s when it was known as Atlas and had recently returned to work at Marvel. Of course I didn't know any of this as a kid in 1965. In these early TTA Sub-Mariner stories Colan used the pen name Adam Austin.

Robert Griffin I heard at the Fayetteville Comic Con in April that Robert Griffin had been in traffic accident. He told me at this Virginia Comic Con that his car was demolished but he emerged unscathed. Robert always has some of the best Golden and Silver age comics at any show. He also has the most neatly printed signs and labels for his comics. Here he is showing a comic to a customer. At the Fayetteville show in 2022 Robert had a page of original by Graham Ingels for an EC horror comic book which he told me had since sold.	Robert Griffin Robert with two esoteric late 1940s comics Venus #7, 1949 and #6, 1949. Robert's label on the #6 "first Loki in Marvel" may appeal to those collectors who like so-called "prototype" comics. Such a comic would have a character with the same name or similar characteristics of a more famous character who came much later whose creation was inspired by the earlier version. An example would be Marvel comics having three different characters named "the Hulk" before 1962 when The Incredible Hulk #1 came out. I wouldn't put much stock in this Loki prototype. The Greek goddess Venus calls him "the king of the lower regions...the prince of evil" which makes him basically the same as Hades who was the god of the underworld in ancient Greek mythology. The more famous Marvel comics Loki created in the early 1960s was from Norse mythology and lived in the Norse heavenly home of the gods Asgard which wasn't the underworld in Norse mythology. This Venus #6 does have a "Marvel Comics" logo on its cover which the corporate entity which became Marvel Comics used on some of its comics in the late 1940s. A Marvel Comics logo wasn't used again until the early 1960s with the birth of the Marvel Age of Comics.	Linda Redmond Veteran collector Linda Redmond always attends this show, sometimes with her friend Tony Albert who I see at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con. Here's Linda with some interesting Marvel comics and Star Trek memorablia and a nice Superman puzzle.

Reuben Santos Reuben with the best display of statues at this show. The extra large statues of Galactus battling the Fantastic Four and other Marvel characters and one the Sentinels battling the X-Men are especially impressive.

Jamie Conner, Wayne Zeno, Karl Wickert Jamie Conner of Conner's Comics with Wayne Zeno of Zeno's Books and Karl Wickert. I've been buying my comic related hardcover books and magazines from Wayne's Zeno's Books in Chesapeake, Virginia for the past 22 years. Wayne doesn't attend the upcoming Tidewater Comic Con in my town of Virginia Beach, Virginia but I'll see Jamie and Karl there in Jamie's booth.	Jim Frost, Gene Carpenter I hadn't seen Gene Carpenter since the Fayetteville Comic Con last October 2022 since he missed the April 2023 edition of that show. Gene told me he won't be at the Pulpfest convention in Pittsburg this coming August due to a conflicting show so I won't see him again until the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in September. That's a long time to wait for my next Gene Carpenter fix. Jim Frost spent most of this show at this table trading with Gene and came away with a box of fresh merchandise to sell on the CGC chatboards.	Gene Carpenter As usual Gene had the best selection of Golden, Atomic and Silver Age comics at this show. His only close rival is Shelton Drum. Here's Gene with some of his Atlas Comics from the 1950s, all with the Atlas Globe logo on the cover except Journey Into Unknown Worlds #1, 1950. I can live without reprints of the 1950s Atlas comics with Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch and Yellow Claw but I wish Marvel would reprint in hardcover books more of its 1950s science fiction comics like this JIUW and Speed Carter Spaceman but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon. Regarding the Men's Adventures comic book at far left: This is an early example of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman's fetish for using on his magazines and comic book titles a plethora of masculine pronouns. So in the 1950s and 1960s Goodman saturated the magazine market with titles like Stag, Male, Men, For Men Only which are now called by collectors "Men's Adventure" magazines or more crudely, "sweat magazines."

Gene Carpenter Gene with the Marvel comic Journey Into Unknown Worlds #5, 1951. The Atlas Globe logo didn't start appearing on the covers of this title until #12.	Jim Frost Jim with one of the comics obtained from his trading with Gene Carpenter: the Atlas comic Spellbound #1, 1952 with cover art by Sol Brodsky. In the 1960s Brodsky worked at Marvel as a production manager.	Jim Frost, Gene Carpenter, Shelton Drum Late in the show when the customers had dispersed Shelton Drum came over to Gene's table to see what might be of interest. Shelton seems intrigued by one of Gene's comics. Let's take a closer look at it in the photo below.

Gene Carpenter, Shelton Drum Shelton holding the EC comic Saddle Justice #6, 1949 with cover art by Graham Ingles. The interior stories are all by regular EC artist Johnny Craig, Al Feldstein, Graham Ingles. Saddle Justice was one of the titles known as the EC "Pre-Trend" titles to distinguish them from the later "New Trend" titles that made EC famous. EC itself used the phrase New Trend, New Direction and Picto-Fiction. Many years later EC fans needed a term to describe EC comics before the New Trend so they invented the term Pre-Trend. I bought all of the Complete EC Library hardcover reprint books with black and white stories by publisher Russ Cochran that started in the late 1970s, except Mad and Panic which I don't care for. Several years ago Gemstone Publishing started reprinting in hardcover all of Cochran's books but this time in color. The job was taken over by Dark Horse Publishing a few years ago. As of now Dark Horse only needs to publish the second volume of Crime Patrol, the first and only volume of Saddle Romances and two volumes of Moon Girl to complete the project of having all the EC Pre-Trends, New Trend, New Direction and Picto-Fiction titles that Russ Cochran released reprinted but this time with color stories. When that glorius day arrives I am going to sit down in my leather easy chair and read in chronological order all the comic books EC published from 1947-1956 (except Mad and Panic)! Of course there are several other EC Pre-Trend titles like Tiny Tot Comics and Picture Stories From The Bible but I can live without those.

Shelton Drum, Kevin Merrill, Jason Hamlin The show is over, the loading doors are open and the dealers are headed home. Time now for your narrator Lewis Forro and Jim Frost to head out and make their customary stop at Sal's Italian restaurant on their way home.

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 and the Heroes Convention