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| Jim Frost and Gene Carpenter |
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| Here's Jim and Gene negotiating over a book. Jim's main comic book passion these days is 1950s Atlas comics. As soon as he walked in the door he went straight to Gene Carpenter's table and spent most of the show there. Gene usually has the best Atlas comics at a show. |
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| Here Jim at Gene Carpenter's table with two of the books Jim brought to the show as trade bait: the Atlas Journey Into Unknown Worlds #19, 1953 and the Charlton Unusual Tales #9, 1957 with a Steve Ditko cover. I'm a big Ditko fan myself and have a high grade copy of this book tucked away. |
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| Here's the Leader's favorite comic book dealer Gene Carpenter of All American Comics with two killer Atlas comics. Spellbound #22, 1955 and Marvel Tales #104, 1951 with a Basil Wolverton story. These two books share a common cover theme: two green things, one in the mud and one in the mirror. With Jim in tow, I'll next see Gene at the Williamsburg Film Festival in March, 2015. |
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| After finishing with Gene Carpenter Jim zeroed in on his next target, dealer Guy Rose who also has interesting horror and science fiction books. He and Jim usually do some business at this show once or twice a year. Here's Jim explaining to Guy how this particular deal could be done. Guy looks a little dubious. |
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Guy Rose is a veteran comic book dealer and co-sponsor of the Virginia Comic Con. Here is with the Atlas comic Venus #1, 1948 and S.P.M Publications Weird Tales Of The Future #1, 1948. Guy told me these two comics are from his personal collection and never before offered for sale at a show.
I've never had of any of these WTOFTF comics but I like 1950s science fiction stories and so I am curious about them. I recently ordered the hardcover reprint book of this comic title from PS Artbooks due out in a few months so I will finally get to satisfy my curiousity. |
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| Guy Rose with another comic from his personal collection, never before offered by him for sale: the legendary Thun'da #1. 1952. Why is it legendary? It is the only comic book drawn entirely by Frank Frazetta. |
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Harry Hopkins of FANDATA with the DC comic Superman #146, 1961 featuring the origin of Superman. Also, the Marvel comic Journey Into Mystery #112, 1964 with the famous battle between Thor and the Hulk. I've still got my high grade copy of this book that I bought from John Verzyl in Alhambra, California back in the 198Os. Check out the large button on Harry's lapel. It's the rare late 1960s Marvel superheroes button from the revised M.M.M.S. fanclub kit. I wish I had one of those.
Harry and I go back a long way together. We were both in the U.S. Air Force and stationed at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California in the 1980s. I frequently see him at comic shows in the Northern Virginia area. |
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| Here's Mario with two key Marvel comics: Strange Tales #110, 1963 featuring the first appearance of Doctor Strange and The Avengers #1, 1963. With one Avengers movie already released and two more scheduled the price on Avengers comic books will continue to climb. A Doctor Strange movie is scheduled to be released in 2016 and so it's time for the speculators to start buying up the Strange Tales #110. |
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| David Burns of Granite Falls, North Carolina, setting up at this show for the first time. I had never me David before but we both know some of the same comic book dealers and show promoters, Shelton Drumm and Dave Hinson both from the Carolinas. This rare copy of From Here To Insanity #12, 1955 was one of a few Mad magazine imitations that Marvel Comics did in the 1950s. The Overstreet Price Guide says that all but four pages of this magazine were drawn by Jack Kirby. I had never heard of Kirby doing any art for the Marvel satire magazines so David and I checked it out. The Guide is wrong. There is no Kirby art in this magazine at all. See sample below left. |
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| From Here To Insanity pages |
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| Does this look like Jack Kirby art? Of course not. The entire magazine has art similar to this sample. |
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| Mark Huseman of Gemstone Publishing holding the magazine Comic Book Marketplace, given out by Diamond Distributors to comic book shops on Free Comic Book Days. This flimsy magazine caught my eye as I walking by the Gemstone table because I used to write articles for the original and wonderful Comic Book Marketplace magazine edited by Gary Carter in the 1990s. This new version is only a pale shadow of the Carter original but I'm glad that at least some vestigial remnant remains to remind us of CBM's past glory. Thanks Gemstone! |
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| Kris Krieg of Chesapeake, Virginia, dressed in a cool looking Yellowjacket costume he made himself. I've seen Kris for the past two years at the Williamsburg Film Festival and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con but I didn't know he was a comic book until I met at him at this show. Since he lives in Chesapeake which is not far from the Leader's home base in Virginia Beach, the Leader is seriously considering inducting him into the charmed circle of those few mortals invited to visit the Leader's Lair. |
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| Sunny Stoudemire is the Leader's favorite comic convention babe. She makes most of her own costumes and the Leader never fails to take her picture when he sees her at a show. She travels with Zeno's Books of Chesapeake, Virginia to shows in the Virginia and Maryland areas. Here she's wearing her Ravager costume from the comic book Teen Titans. |
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| Jim Frost, Lewis Forro, Gene Carpenter |
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| Here's your humble narrator, the Leader in his Amazing Fantasy #15 shirt, posing with Jim and Gene at Gene's booth late Sunday afternoon a few minutes before the show closes. The Leader has traveled through the far reaches of space and time and in all that cosmic vastness, he has found no comic book collectors that he looks upon with more favor than these two gentlemen. |
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