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| Jimmy Shirah aka "Mr. Weekend" of Metter, Georgia carries an interesting assortment of popular culture posters. I hadn't seen him since the 2019 Savannah Mega Comic Con where I bought some Famous Monsters of Filmland posters from him. |
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| Here's Jimmy with two comic books about model Cassandra Peterson better known as Elvira Mistress of the Dark. I was telling Jimmy about an obscure girlie magazine from the mid 1970s with nude photos of Cassandra before she became famous as Elvira that I sold for big money. Jimmy told me he would like to have a copy since he does well selling Elvira stuff. I told him there wasn't much chance of me finding another copy of the magazine since I am a professional girlie magazine dealer and I've only had that one copy in the last 20 years. |
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| I hadn't seen Tom Raupp of Pop Culture Playground since the last comic show I had attended, the Captain's Comic Expo near Charleston, South Carolina in 2019. Tom always has a nice selection of Silver Age comic books and other collectibles for we aging Baby Boomers. |
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| Here's Tom with two iconic pop culture items, the first two issues of the most famous and important of all the monster magazines - Famous Monsters of Filmland. The #1 issue from 1958 is low grade but is signed on the cover by its legendary editor, Forrest J. Ackerman. That's Forry on the cover wearing the Frankenstein monster mask. Any Baby Boomer with some interest in old monster movies should have at least a few of these venerable magazines salted away. |
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| Tom with two examples from one of my favorite comic book genres, the so called "Pre-Marvels" done in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Pre-Marvels were a transition period in Marvel history that came between the Atlas Implosion in 1957 and ran to 1962 when Marvel's comic books switched from the Pre-Marvel giant monsters shown here to super-heroes. Journey Into Mystery #73, 1961 is regarded by some comic dealers as a prototype to Spider-Man but don't fall for that marketing gimmick. The giant spider on the cover doesn't resonate in any significant way with Spider-Man. If you like Spider-Man prototypes get a copy of Strange Tales #97 instead. The Journey Into Mystery #52, 1959 first flashed before my eyes in Denver, Colorado circa 1978. I was visiting one of the Mile High comic stores owned by Chuck Rozanski. I asked Chuck if he had any Pre-Marvel type comics and he took me down a flight of stairs to a small basement where he showed me a few samples. This #52 was one of them. I bought it of course and still have it salted away. |
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| I hadn't seen Tony Hines since the Captain's Comic Expo in South Carolina in 2019. Tony usually has some Pre-Marvel type comics at the shows but I didn't see any on his display wall this time around. Tony was really busy at this show and he didn't have time to pose with some of his comics for me. |
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| I first met Wayne Brown of Smasher's Comics at the Savannah Mega Comic Con in 2019 and hadn't seen him since so I was glad to see him again at this show. |
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| Wayne with a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #22, 1964. Even in average condition like this copy this bluest of blue chip comic book titles brings a fair amount of money. It's unusual for the main character of a comic not to appear on the cover but Spidey's artist in those days, Steve Ditko, specialized in the unusual. I'm sure Ditko was trying to build a feeling of anticipation and mystery by not showing Spidey on the cover. |
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| I hadn't seen Banks Robinson since the Fayetteville Comic Con in North Carolina in October 2019. Banks always has a large selection of Silver Age comics and along with Tom Raupp he had the biggest and best selection at this show. |
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| Banks with two examples of one of my favorite comic genres, the Pre-Marvels: Tales Of Suspense #16, 1961 is considered by some dealers to be a Marvel "prototype" of Iron Man since Metallo is a man wearing a suit of armor as Tony Stark later did to become Iron Man. Again, don't fall for that marketing ploy; this Metallo really has nothing signifcant to do with Iron Man. I first saw and bought this comic from a married couple who were collectibles dealers who had setup at a show in Ogelthorpe Mall near my home in Savannah in the mid 1970s. Their copy was high grade and I think I paid $15 for it. I always photograph Tales Of Suspense #28, 1962 when I see it since it was one of the few Pre-Marvels I remember reading when I was a young kid in Savannah. My dad had built a cinder block fireplace in our backyard for outdoor cookouts. I distinctly remember sitting by that fireplace after dark reading this comic by its flickering light way back in 1962. |
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| Banks with two of his many copies of The Avengers #8, 1964 featuring the first appearance of the popular Marvel villain Kang the Conqueror. Over the last several years we've seen various 1960s Marvel comic books jump dramatically in value when one of the characters in those comics are featured in a new TV show or movie. Now it's Kang's turn. One of his variant identities recently appeared in a the Disney TV series Loki and Kang is slated to appear in the third Ant-Man movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in 2023. Banks told me that he figured Kang was a good bet to be featured in a TV series or movie someday so a few years ago he started hoarding copies of The Avengers #8. He said he paid between $20 and $30 for most of them and more for higher grade copies. Banks's prescience paid off as he now selling them for quite a bit more money. |
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| When you find Banks Robinson at a comic show his fellow dealer and friend Rick Fortenberry is usually nearby. I last saw Rick at the Captain's Comic Expo in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina in February 2020 right before the Plague wiped out all the comic shows for a year and a half. Here's Rick with one of his Atlas comics, Journey Into Unknown Worlds #8, 1951. Marvel was known as Atlas in the 1950s. All or most of the comic books and magazines published in the 1950s up to 1957 by Marvel owner Martin Goodman carried the Atlas Globe logo seen on the cover of this comic. Journey Into Unknown Worlds was one of the better Atlas titles but sadly Marvel killed its "Atlas Era" line of hardcover book reprints a few years ago before ever touching this title. So all these great science fiction and horror stories are still languishing in obscurity - unless you're rich enough to afford the original comics which I'm not. |
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| Rick with another Atlas comic Mystery Tales #3, 1952 with cover art by Russ Heath. Heath did a lot of work for Atlas in the 1950s but he is perhaps better known for drawing lots of war comics for DC Comics in the 1960s. Dark Mysteries #1, 1951 has a cover by Joe Orlando with inking by Wally Wood which dresses up Orlando's art considerably. Wood and Orlando were both working at EC Comics during this time but it looks like they found the time to do some moonlighting at other companies as well. They both drew a few stories for the Warren magazines Creepy and Eerie in the mid 1960s and both also worked briefly at Marvel Comics in the 1960s. Wally Wood is best remembered for his science fiction stories in Weird Science and Weird Fantasy at EC. |
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