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| Bob Lewis is the owner of the Richmond Book Shop. I visited his store once many years ago looking for science fiction pulps. I'm prone to frequent spells of comic book nostalgia and while thumbing threw Bob's comic boxes one item triggered another nostalgia attack. The item? Bob's nice copy of the Classics Illustrated Prehistoric World from 1962. This is one of the very first comic books I remember owning. I still have a fuzzy 53 year old memory of sitting on the sofa in Savannah, Georgia with my Dad trying to read this comic to me. He said he had a sore throat and couldn't read it verbatim so he said he said he would just briefly explain to me what the captions to the illustrations said. Thanks for the memories Bob! |
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| Bob had a small group of 1930s era Film Fun girlie humor magazines in nice shape. I've sold a few of these over the years myself on ebay and at shows. The covers on these two are by pinup artist Enoch Bolles. |
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| Bob Lewis & Wayne Ehrmann |
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| Here's two bookstore owning veterans, Bob Lewis of the Richmond Book Shop and Wayne Ehrmann of Zeno's Books in Chesapeake, Virginia, doing a deal with some of Bob's science fiction pulps. The hardcover book at Wayne's left is The Simon & Kirby Library: Science Ficton which is newest entry in a series by Titan Books which is reprinting many of the comic stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. This volume includes all the 1960s sci-fi stories done by Simon & Kirby for Harvey Comics. I read it cover to cover, bought an extra copy to speculate on and heartily recommend it. Check out Wayne's nice Captain America and Avengers posters in the background. |
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| Veteran comic book dealer and computer expert Harry Hopkins of Fandata and I go back a long way together. We were both stationed at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California in the 1980s and I've seen him at shows in the Virginia area ever since the early 1990s. This Amazing Spider-Man #1 CGC graded 3.5 was Harry's most expensive book at this show. Harry is wearing as usual his cool Make Mine Marvel button. I wish I had one of those. |
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| Speaking of comic book veterans, Rick Fortenberry of Charlotte, North Carolina has been collecting and dealing in comics for about as long as anybody. We have some mutual friends in the Carolinas, Dave Hinson and Shelton Drumm but I don't see Rick at many shows and so far we haven't managed to do any business together. Hopefully, we can change that someday. This copy of Four Color #656 from 1955 featuring
Turok Son of Stone is a book I like because I have a long history with it. I first bought a copy of it for a nickel in the late 1960s at my favorite used bookstore in Birmingham, Alabama which I sold on ebay in 2000 for $93.55, a pretty good return on 5 cents even if took over 30 years. I also found a higher grade copy at the Hillsville Flea Market in 1998 which I had graded by CGC which I sold on ebay in 2004 for $71.00. |
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| Here's Rick with a copy of the eye-catching Fantastic Four #73 from 1968. I really enjoyed reading this issue when I was a kid. |
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| Would you believe an asking price of $5,000 for a CGC graded 2.0 (Good) copy of The Incredible Hulk #1? I asked Mario why the price for a low grade copy was so high. He told me that collectors were finally starting to realize that Hulk #1 appears to have had a smaller original print run than than many of the other early Marvel key books and therefore the price of Hulk #1 had been heating up recently. He told me that CGC graded 1.5 and beat up incomplete copies had already sold for $1,500 not long ago. |
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| While talking with Mario we discovered that we both liked science fiction artist Gray Morrow, so Mario showed me this original art page by Morrow from issue #8 of the b&w magazine Space: 1999. Asking price $500. Mario said he spends a lot of time trying to track down original paintings by Morrow. I told Mario I was going to email him a photo of a book by Philip Jose Farmer I read in the 1960s with a nice cover painting by Morrow: The Gates Of Creation, to help him locate the painting for me. |
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| Mark Overby of Black Dog Collectables with a copy of Fantastic Four Annual #1, 1963. Asking price: $125.00. |
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| Mark and Jim looking very intently at something interesting on Mark's display wall. |
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| Guy Rose of Space Mountain Comics always has interesting Golden and Silver Age comics at this show. Here he is with a copy of Rip Hunter Time Master #1, 1961. I had a copy of Rip Hunter #27 I bought new in 1965. I've always been a science fiction fan and any comic book that involved time travel or other sci-fi themes was likely to catch my high. In the early 1980s I was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado and spent much of my spare time scouring and plundering all the comic book stores in the area. I managed to pick up a small batch of high grade Rip Hunter issues at Security Comics in Colorado Springs for $3.00 each which I sold on ebay many years later. I keep waiting in vain for DC Comics to reprint the Rip Hunter comics in the hardback DC Archive format but I don't think it's ever going to happen. |
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| The Leader's traveling companion Jim Frost always does a lot of business with Guy at the Virginia Comic Con and this show was no exception. |
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| Guy and Jim carefully checking out the condition of an old comic. |
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| Battle of the boobs: honorable mention |
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Erin McIntyre as Lady Loki.
That's not A.I.M.'s Cosmic Cube Erin is holding. It's a model of the Asgardian Tesseract seen in the last Avengers movie. |
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| Battle of the boobs: runner-up |
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| Battle of the boobs: the winner! |
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| Melba Smith as Princess Serenity |
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| Jim Frost & Gene Carpenter |
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| Jim Frost usually does most of his business with Gene Carpenter of All American Comics. That's partly because Jim is a big Atlas Comics collector and Gene frequently has the best collection of Atlas books at this show. |
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| Gene Carpenter & Jim Frost |
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| Jim pointing out something to Gene on a comic, possibly a minor defect requiring a downward price adjustment. |
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| Jim at Gene Carpenter's table near the end of the show. Jim is showing off two of several comics he got from Gene: Western Trails #1, 1957 with a John Severin cover and Tales Of Suspense #28, 1962. I have a long history with TOS #28, mostly tragic. It was one of the few pre-Marvel 'monster' books I had in the early 1960s and long since lost in the ashes of the distant past. In 2001 a high grade copy turned up in the R.J. Long pedigree collection in Hampton Roads where Jim Frost, myself and our mutual friend Richard Delmer live. Somehow Richard got to the book before me. A few years ago Richard decided to sell it and gave me first chance at it but I foolishly balked at the $300 price. So then Richard sent it to CGC for grading. It came back a 9.6 and Jim sold it for Richard on the CGC chatboard for three or four times what Richard had offered it to me for. After the show I bought Jim's copy shown here which will have to suffice for now. |
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| Here's the Leader's favorite comic book dealer Gene Carpenter with three early 1960s Marvel comics, all of which I have a long history with. I've had a mid-grade mail order copy of Tales To Astonish #25 since the early 1970s. Same story for the Tales Of Suspense #6 and I also bought a high grade copy from Mark Nathan in 2009 at the Virginia Comic Con during one of his rare 50% off sales. I had never seen the Kid Colt Outlaw #107 until I bought a high grade copy at the Hillsville Flea Market in 1997 from a dealer who had a box of old Western comic books. This #107 is one of the few Marvel Western comics that feature an alien or monster what were common to the fantasy / sci-fi titles but not to the Westerns. |
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