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| Jason Hamlin's table had this one piece of original art by Steve Ditko from Strange Tales #113, 1963: "The Shoemaker's Strange Assistant." It caught my eye because you don't usually see Ditko original art pages at regular size comic shows. Even at the big shows like the Baltimore con, you don't see too many. I asked Jason the price and he said he was taking offers on it. |
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| Gene Carpenter & Jim Frost |
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| Jim does most of his business with the Leader's favorite comic book dealer, Gene Carpenter of All American Comics, and also Guy Rose. Jim made his usual beeline straight to Gene's table. Notice all the great Golden and Silver Age comics on Gene's display walls. He always has the best selection of those type of comics at this show. |
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| Jim Frost & Gene Carpenter |
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Here's Gene showing off two of Jim's better comics: Strange Tales #97, 1962 and Mystery Tales #40,1956. The Mystery Tales #40 has some interest to comic book collectors since it has one of the first two Steve Ditko stories (the other was Journey Into Mystery #33) done in 1956 for Atlas before it became Marvel Comics. The price of this comic shot way up in value when it was featured prominently in the "Cabin Fever" episode of the popular TV series Lost in 2008. Fans of that show claim that some of the stories in the comic were used as plot ideas and themes by the writers of the show for various episodes. I don't care anything about Lost but I do care about Steve Ditko's Atlas and Marvel fantasy stories, so someday when the hoopla over the TV show dies down, I'll try to pick up a copy of this book.
In 2001 a mutual friend of Jim and I, Richard Delmer, bought the R.J. Long pedigree copy of Strange Tales #97 from comic store owner Jerry Ringi who bought the collection from Mr. Long. Richard, Jim and myself did some good buying in this collection when it was first uncovered by Jerry Ringi. This book is famous and expensive because the Steve Ditko story in it features a prototype of Spider-Man's relatives, Aunt May and Uncle Ben. They are named May and Ben and look just like they did in Amazing Fantasy #15. I already had a high grade copy of this comic but I told Richard to let me know if he ever decided it sell his. Richard called me a few weeks ago and offered it to me for $1600 which is a bargain I couldn't afford it even so. Therefore Richard sold it to Jim who sent it off to CGC to be graded. He is waiting now for it to return. Jim says the #97 that Gene is shown holding here is a little better than the R.J. Long copy. At any rate, the 7.5 CGC grade on this copy is way to conservative in my opinion. 8.5 would be more like it. |
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| Gene with two cool pre-Code Atlas comics Adventure Into Weird Worlds #8, 1952 and Journey Into Unknown Worlds #5, 1951. I can't afford books like this anymore and so I was hoping Marvel would reprint them as part of their Atlas Era hardcover reprint books. But that line of books appears to have been cancelled as no new volumes have been announced for several months. |
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| X marks the spot: Here's Gene with three books with the letter X in the title: Gold Key's X The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, 1963; Fawcett's The Man From Planet X, 1951; Marvel's The X-Men, 1964. Speaking of the X-Men... |
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| Chris Claremont being interviewed on video. He had the longest autograph line at the show as he was easily this show's most famous guest. He was the writer on Marvel's X-Men comic book in the late 1970s who helped turn a cancelled title into the best selling comic book in the world for awhile. |
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| Here's Donald Jones and Guy Rose of Guy's Comics with three big ticket Golden Age comics from Timely (Marvel): Don's Marvel Mystery Comics #4, 1940 featuring the first cover appearance of the Sub-Mariner. Estimated price: $17,500. Also Guy's Young Allies #4, 1942 with Red Skull cover. Estimated price: $1,200. Marvel Mystery Comics #10, 1940 with another Sub-Mariner cover. Estimated price: $5,000. |
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| Another associate of Guy, Julio Crespo, had these two nice Silver Age Superman comics with reprinted stories. Superman #202, 1968 and 80 Page Giant #1, 1964. I'm not an expert on DC's byzantine comic series title / numbering system so I don't know why some issues of Superman say "80 page Giant" and 80 Page Giant comics say "Superman Annual." |
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| Jim Frost, Guy Rose, Donald Jones, Brett Carreras, Julio Crespo. Brett Carreras is the promoter of the Virginia Comic Con. |
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| Jim did a lot of a business with Guy at this show and left with a big stack of books. The usual procedure is for Jim to sell the books on the CGC chat boards and pay Guy at the next show. |
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| Guy and Jim talking over their deals. |
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| Bob Lewis, longtime owner of the Richmond Book Store, sometimes sets up at this show. This time around he had several nice posters of famous 1950s pinup fetish model Bettie Page. |
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| Bob Lewis & Natasha Lewis |
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| Bob and his daughter displaying an interesting an uncut card sheet type poster of 1950s sleazy paperback books, mostly about drug pushers and addicts. There was a lot of weird stuff going on beneath the officially placid surface of the 1950s. |
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| Chris Krieg as Avenger's member Yellowjacket and Kyle Cook as the Spider-Man villain Electro. I sometimes see Chris at the Williamsburg Film Festival. |
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| Mark Overby of Black Dog Collectibles usually sets up at this show and I plan to see him again at the Tidewater Comic Con in Virginia Beach on 16 May. Mark's beat up copy of Superboy #68, 1958 with tape on the spine still commands a big sticker price of $250. That's because it is the first appearance of the Bizarro character that figured prominently in the Superman related comics in those days. Heaven help you if you need a high grade copy of this book. |
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| Your humble narrator at the mercy of Thor. Don't trifle with the Thunder Goddess! |
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