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Your narrator, the Leader

Click here to return to the Main Introduction Page for the Leader's Report on the Captain's Comic Expo 2020.

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Sunday 29 December 2019

Donald Jones (blue cap), Michael Lantz, Guy Rose, Julio Crespo Guy and his partners Donald, Michael and Julio manning their table on the second floor of the Vanguard Brewpub & Distillery. Guy is a long time Richmond, Virginia area comic book collector and dealer and the co-promoter with Brett Carreras of the quarterly Virginia Comic Con that I usually attend.

Guy Rose Guy with three examples of comics from his always interesting inventory of Golden and Silver Age comic books. The DC comic Strange Adventures #1, 1950 with the photographic cover from the George Pal movie Destination Moon is a comic I've always wanted but couldn't afford. One of these days I'm must going to have to break down and the spend the money. Guy is holding a CGC graded copy of the EC comic Shock SuspenStories #1, 1952 with an electric chair execution cover. I've never read any ACG comics like this Forbidden Worlds issue. I like science fiction and fantasy comics and ACG has several titles in that genre but every time I pick up one to browse through the stories don't seem that interesting and the art isn't anything special. So, I guess I will just have to stick with EC, Atlas and an occasional oddball sci-fi title reprinted in hardcover book format by the British publisher PS Artbooks who I keep on my radar screen.

Guy Rose Guy with a CBCS graded pre-Marvel comic Journey Into Mystery #58,1960 with a rare Steve Ditko cover. Ditko had a five page story in nearly all the pre-Marvels but Jack Kirby drew most of the covers. World Of Suspense #1, 1956 is one of the few pre-Marvel titles that Marvel started after the Comics Code Authority killed off many of their horror titles in 1955. World Of Suspense however was published during the period of the "Atlas Implosion" when Marvel's entire comic line collapsed due to the bankruptcy of its distributor the American News Company in 1957. Many comic titles from this late 1950s period are hard find to find due to limited distribution. I have only one issue of World Of Suspense, #2 from 1956, that I found in a large collection of Dell Western comics I bought at the famous annual Hillsville, Virginia flea market several years ago.	Michael Lantz, Donald Jones Guy Rose's partners Michael Lantz with a copy of the DC comic The Brave And The Bold #54, 1964 and Donald Jones with the Timely comic Captain America #16, 1942. Donald always has a few Golden Age Timely comics to show off.	Ray Llopiz Ray Llopiz is a dealer I had never met before. He told me he will be setting up at the Tidewater Comic Con in Virginia Beach this May so I will look for him there. Ray has here The Spectacular Spider-Man magazines #1 and #2 both from 1968. Both issues are written by Stan Lee and drawn by Spidey's regular artist in those days, John Romita. The #1 is in black & white and the #2 is in color. These magazines mark the first time Spider-Man stories were published outside of the regular comic book format. The mysterious arm protruding into the photo is holding an issue of the comic book fanzine Comic Scene with Marvel big shots Stan Lee and Jim Shooter on the cover.

Brett Carreras Moving downstairs now we find setup as a dealer the primary promoter of the quarterly Virginia Comicon (VA Comicon) in Richmond, Brett Carreras. Brett had just traded with his fellow promoter Guy Rose to get this copy of Picture Stories From Science #1, 1947. This comic is what EC comic collectors call a "pre-trend" comic, back when EC stood for Educational Comics instead of the better known Entertaining Comics. When EC's first publisher Max Gaines died in 1948 his son William Gaines took over and changed the name of the company from Educational Comics to Entertaining Comics but kept the EC logo. William cancelled all his father's children and educational themed comics like the one Brett is showing and started the "New Trend" line of comics that EC was famous for, like Tales From The Crypt, Weird Science and so on.	Mike Fonseca I see comic dealer Mike Fonseca at the quarterly VA Comicon in Richmond a few times a year and other shows in the Virginia area. Let's take a closer look at that old Detective Comics on Mike's display wall.	Mike Fonseca Mike with the DC comic Detective Comics #185, 1952. I have been buying the DC hardcover omnibuses that contain the Batman titles from the late 1940s onward. I plan to keep buying and reading them up to the early 1960s over the next several years. The Batman stories in the last omnibus (Volume 7) I just finished reading stopped in 1951 so I'll have to wait a few more months for the next omnibus to find out "The Secrets of Batman's Utility Belt."

Wayne Zeno, Bill Smith Wayne Zeno is the long time owner of Zeno's Books in Chesapeake, Virginia were I've been buying most of my comic book related hardcover books and magazines for the past 23 years or so. Wayne's sometime traveling companion Bill Smith has a large comic and pulp magazine collection squirreled away but he never sets up anywhere as a dealer except when he's helping out Wayne at a show. If you collect pulp magazines with stories by Tarzan's creator Edgar Rice Burroughs then you need to talk to Bill.

Wayne Zeno, Mike Fonseca It's late Sunday afternoon and the show is winding down as seen in this nearly depleted downstairs dealers room but Wayne and Mike are still hanging in there.

Click here to return to the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Captain's Comic Expo 2020