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Click here to return to the Main Introduction Page for the Leader's Report on the VA Comicon and the Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest

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Saturday 19 October 2019

Jimmy Here's Jimmy aka "Mr. Weekend" with his movie and TV posters for sale. I last saw Jimmy at the Savannah Mega Con last June where I bought three high grade Warren Publishing monster posters from him. If I keep seeing him at shows I'll eventually figure out his last name.	Jimmy Jimmy with a Star Trek poster featuring Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.	Donald Gehl I last saw Donald Gehl of Ducky's Comics at the Tidewater Comic Con in my town of Virginia Beach, VA last May. Since he moved to Florida I don't see him on the show circuit as often.

Donald Gehl Donald with three important Spider-Man comics. Strange Tales Annual #2, 1963 features the first crossover appearance of Spider-Man outside his own title.	Henry Flood The Fayetteville Comic Con is the only show I see Henry Flood of Chattanooga, TN at. Here's Henry chatting with a customer.	Henry Flood Henry with two Silver Age DC comics: Adventure Comics #253, 1958 where Superboy meets Robin the Boy Wonder and Superman 141, 1960. Both of these are time travel stories I would like to read. I am mostly a Marvel fan but I do like Superman from the early 1950s though the early 1960s since they contained many science fiction elements introduced by the new editor Mort Weisinger like time travel, alien invaders and so on. I've started buying the DC hardcover omnibuses now that the reprinted Superman stories have reached the late 1940s and I will continue for the next several years until the mid 1960s so eventually I will get to read this Superman story.

Josh Almond Josh Almond of Buzz Comics from Concord, NC. Josh's partner Chuck Jefferson is behind Josh's left shoulder. Josh's more regular partner Chris Rigo didn't attend this show. Josh will soon be moving to the chilly environs of Massachusetts but Josh told me he will still attend some comic book shows in the Southeast.	Josh Almond Josh with his copy of Fantastic Four #67, 1967 featuring the first appearance of Him who later became Adam Warlock. At left are some of Chuck Jefferson's pop culture toys like a Bela Lugosi Dracula figurine and a Robby the Robot model from the movie Forbidden Planet.	Rachel Borsich Rachel Borsich of Rebel Base Comics & Toys in Charlotte, NC. Rachel is holding the Marvel comic books Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos, #11 and #10 both from 1964 with the usual dynamic covers by Jack Kirby. As a dutiful Marvel zombie in the 1960s I collected two of Marvel's backwater titles Sgt. Fury and The Rawhide Kid. I would have bought the other two Western titles Kid Colt and Two Gun Kid but I could rarely find them. In those days I bought anything with Marvel's name on it except the romance comics like Mille The Model. I never really liked Sgt. Fury much. The main reason was after #7 when Jack Kirby quit doing the interior art he was replaced by Dick Ayers who I never thought was much of an artist. The art improved much later when John Severin took over the art chores. The same situation applied to The Rawhide Kid. When Kirby and his brief successor Jack Davis left the book Dick Ayers took over; only there wasn't a John Severin to eventually rescue us from the mediocre art. When Ayers left Rawhide Kid he was replaced by another mediocre artist, Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber.

Brandie Meredith Here's cosplay model Brandie Meredith of Empty B. Studios. Among all the toys in Brandie's booth were a few comic books including this CGC graded copy of the DC comic Star Spangled Comics #90, 1949. I'm curious how Batman and Robin got on a stagecoach in what looks like the Old West. I'm guessing their friend with the hypnotic time travel technique, Professor Carter Nichols, arranged it. I'd like to read the story to make sure but I may never get to. I just finished reading the first Batman omnibus with stories from the late 1940s and no Batman stories from Star Spangled Comics were included.

Sunday 20 October 2019

Banks Robinson & Rick Fortenberry The main reason I went to this show was to see my comic dealer friends Banks and Rick before the year was out. The only remaining shows I plan to visit for the rest of the year is the VA Comicon and Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest and they won't be there.

Banks Robinson Banks with some Dell movie adaptations with the usual painted covers Dell was known for except for the Lion Of Sparta which is a regular illustrated cover but with a photo of the star Richard King as King Leonidas. This movie was released as The 300 Spartans so maybe the comic book came out before the movie. I've always liked this movie and prefer it to the 2006 version 300. At least the original version was filmed on location in Greece instead of a Hollywood soundstage with fake computer generated backgrounds.	Banks Robinson Banks is showing off here his recently acquired copy of the rare Marvel magazine The Adventures Of Pussycat. Marvel's publisher Martin Goodman also published a line of "Men's Adventure" magazines like Stag, Male, For Men Only and so on. A few of them had a comic strip about this sexy female secret agent Pussycat. The famous pinup artist Bill Ward illustrated many of the strips but Marvel artists like Jim Mooney and Al Hartley also drew some. This 1968 magazine reprints many of the Ward strips and Banks told me it has one original story by Wally Wood. The cover is by legendary Timely / Atlas / Marvel artist Bill Everett.	Rick Fortenberry Several years ago Marvel published a spiral bound type of a book called The Marvel Vault with reproductions of historical Marvel comic book covers, collectibles and gimmicks. Later DC did their own version of this called The DC Vault and Rick had recently bought out a guy who had about 30 of them. Rick gave me a discount so I bought one.

Rick Fortenberry Rick with a few Atlas / Marvel western comics. The two Rawhide Kids have Jack Kirby covers. The Wyatt Earp covers are by Atlas artists John Severin and Joe Maneely. I don't know who drew the Kid Colt cover. When Marvel was still publishing its Atlas Era portion of its line of Masterworks hardcover books two volumes of Rawhide Kid were published. But the Atlas Era books were cancelled a few years ago. Since then a few omnibus format books have come out reprinting stories from Marvel's early 1960s period but they contained the more popular Jack Kirby giant monster stories and Steve Ditko science fiction stories. I doubt we will ever see omnibus reprints of old Western stories so it looks like Kid Colt, Two-Gun Kid, Wyatt Earp and all the other Marvel Western characters will continue to languish in un-reprinted obscurity.

Gene Carpenter Here's Gene looking a little tired but still able to preside over his famous inventory of Golden Age and Silver Age comics. I asked him to show me some extra rare comics and he produced these Rat Fink comics and something named Go-Go And Animal with a partial photographic cover featuring the 1960s singing group The Monkees. There was a national Rat Fink craze circa 1962/63 where you could buy different colored plastic Rat Finks out of a bubble gum machine for a nickel each I think. They had a hole in their butt so they could be mounted to a ring. I had a few myself in those days and if memory serves the purple and black colored Rat Finks were the rarest; at least that's what the more advanced collectors with more nickels to invest at White Bluff Elementary School in Savannah, GA told me.

Gene Carpenter Gene with two always in demand comics with Frank Frazetta covers: Ghost Rider #2, 1951 and Famous Funnies #214, 1955.	Gene Carpenter Gene with three science fiction comics. The comic with the most convoluted history is the Space Ace #5, 1952 from Magazine Enterprises. Gene has noted it as "#1" since it was a one-shot issue featuring the space character Space Ace who had appeared in four earlier issues of Jet Powers and earlier in a comic named Manhunt. Space Ace apparently had another name Jet Black just to confuse things even more. Supercar #1, 1962 is Gold Key's adaptation of the popular animated puppet TV series. Mystery In Space #46, 1958 features a cover drawn by Gil Kane colored in the "gray tone" technique of making the line art look more a painting that DC was noted for in the 1950s. I'll next see Gene at the VA Comicon in Richmond 26 October and next at the Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest 6-8 November. Then it looks like the Leader will be done visiting comic shows for the rest of the year.	Banks Robinson & Rick Fortenberry It's about 4 p.m. and I was done for the day with a six hour drive back to Virginia Beach ahead of me. But on the way out I snapped this photo of a slightly weary looking Banks and Rick chewing the fat.

Click here to return to the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the VA Comicon and the Williamsburg Nostalgia Fest