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| Jack Price, Lewis Forro, Gene Carpenter |
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| I was happy to see my old friend Jack Price of Suffolk, Virginia at the show. Jack and I used to travel to shows together and I’ve been helping him add to his John Wayne collection over the years. Jack and I came separately but we both arrived on Wednesday the first day of the show. Wednesday is mostly dealer set-up day before the movie stars and most of the customers arrive on Thursday; but dedicated collectors like Jack don’t like to waste time when it comes to buying more John Wayne collectibles. Veteran comic book dealer Gene Carpenter has been helping Jack fill in the John Wayne Adventure Comics run and so here are myself with Jack and Gene showing off some of the comics Jack just bought from Gene. I’m wearing my newest dye-sublimated science fiction shirt. The next day I wore my John Wayne dye-sublimated shirt but sadly Jack wasn’t there to see it. |
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| Bob Carman of Viera, Florida didn’t set up at last year’s show but he made it back his year. He always has interesting old Western movie dvds for sale. |
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| Ron Adams promotes the Monster Bash horror movie convention in Mars, Pennsylvania and sometimes sets up at this show. I also see him at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Maryland each year. Ron’s holding a model kit of the 1930s movie The Bride of Frankenstein which starred Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride. Elsa’s image is on the model box and that’s a still frame of her from the movie on the TV monitor on Ron’s right. |
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| Jerome Traver of Williamsburg, Virginia was a dealer I had never seen before. He had a nice selection of Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy dvds for sale. Many of the old Roy Rogers movies were done for Republic Studios which specialized in Western B-movies. |
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| Bill McMahon, Lewis Forro, Martin Grams, Gene Carpenter |
The most excellent and magical Sal’s by Victor Italian restaurant in Williamsburg is where your humble narrator Lewis Forro and his traveling companion Jim Frost of Williamsburg always stop for dinner on the way home four times a year after visiting the quarterly Virginia Comic Con in Richmond. At the Williamsburg show in 2015 Lewis, Gene Carpenter and newly inducted Sal’s charmed circle member Marty Grams went to Sal’s for lunch. While there Marty got the big important phone call that Lee Majors of the TV shows Big Valley and The Six-Million Dollar Man agreed to be a guest at Marty’s upcoming 2015 Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con. This year Lewis, Gene and Marty had dinner at Sal’s and were joined by Marty’s partner Bill McMahon of Maryland. We had a nice dinner but Marty didn’t get any new earth shaking phone calls. Photos of Lewis and his charmed circle of Sal’s devotees are extremely rare. Besides the one above, here is the only other photo with any charmed circle members: Gene, Lewis and Jim Frost having dinner there at the 2014 Williamsburg show. |
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| Late Wednesday night when the dealers’ room was closed there was still stuff to do at the show, like sitting up all night watching old movies projected in 16mm film on a screen. I couldn’t do that since I had to drive back home to Virginia Beach, but I stopped in to take a quick look. I used to shoot 16mm film for the U.S. Air Force way back in the day and I still like to get a whiff of it when possible. |
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| On Thursday afternoon I returned to the show. Linda Alexander of Montgomery, Alabama was a dealer I had never seen at this show before. She was there promoting her book I Am Mister Ed, Alan Rocky Lane Revealed. Betcha didn’t know that 1940s and 1950s Western B-movie star Allan “Rocky” Lane provided the voice for the talking horse in the early 1960s TV series Mister Ed. |
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| I always see Bubba at this show and sometimes at the Virginia Comic Con in Richmond. He is very talented at making leather cowboy gun belts and related stuff as well as resin and metal movie related toys. Bubba will soon be using his artistic skills at the behest of your narrator, the Leader. See the next photo. |
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| The Leader, with his vast resources, has had a number of paintings and sculptures made based on comic books and science fiction novels and he’s always looking for talent to take on new commissions. The Leader asked Bubba to handle his next intended project at the Virginia Comic Con several months ago and we got together for some more consultations at this show. Take a close look at these preliminary sketches Bubba did for me at this show. Can any of you experts on the Comic Guaranty LLC (CGC) Silver Age comic book internet chat-board tell me what this object is? The Leader will give you only one clue: the sketches pertain to a Marvel Silver Age comic annual circa 1964. |
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| I liked the 1950s TV series The Lone Ranger with Clayton Moore when I was kid so this gentleman with a nice Lone Ranger costume caught my eye. His name is Levi and he’s 86 years old! I took a close up photo of his pistol but not close enough to tell if there are any silver bullets in the chamber. |
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| At the mercy of Bubba and the Lone Ranger! You’d think they would have more respect for a guy wearing a custom made John Wayne shirt. |
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| Sam Austill of Calhoun, Kentucky and his friend C.P. Lockhart always set up at this show. I couldn’t catch both of them at their table at the same time this year but I did get this photo of Sam with some of his nice Roy Rogers memorabilia. |
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| Jim Miller, Mike Turco, Linda Rowe, Ed Pippin, Henry Kane |
The Solar Guard always sets up at this show and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Hunts Valley, Maryland. They are a group of fans devoted to 1950s science fiction movies and TV shows. I enjoy talking with them about those subjects. This year the topic of conversation was one of my favorite Arthur C. Clarke novels Childhood’s End. I asked the Guard members if any of them had seen the new Childhood’s End mini-series as I didn’t want to buy it on Blu-Ray unless it was faithful to the book. I suspected the mini-series was the usual Hollywood idiotic hatchet job. None of the Guard members had seen the mini-series either but they shared my suspicion that it was probably not a respectful version of the book. Ed Pippin is holding a hardcover copy of the classic 1950s book Conquest Of Space with Chesley Bonestell art. I’ve been looking for a high grade copy of this book for about 30 years but this copy had the usual torn dust jacket. |
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| Solar Guard member Henry Kane holding the 1950s hardcover book By Space Ship To The Moon which I had never seen before. The introduction is by the famous German science writer Willy Ley. Check out the ornate space ship cockpit display Henry is sitting next to. It was built by Mike Turco. Before joining the Solar Guard, Henry served in another aerospace organization, the U.S. Air Force, as did your narrator the Leader. |
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| Martin Grams is a prolific author of popular culture books with a speciality in old time radio and TV shows. He also finds the time to set up as a dvd dealer at numerous collector shows. Here he is presiding over his vast inventory of arcane and esoteric dvds. His partner Bill McMahon is on his left. |
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| Marty chatting up a prospective customer. |
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| Marty showing off the new hardcover edition of his Time Tunnel book. The publisher only recently printed 100 copies, five of which were given to Marty. Marty kept one for himself and sold three of them so far, so this copy is only one left for sale. I’ve fussed at Marty over the years for not having more collectible hardcover copies of his books but I relented and bought the regular softcover copy of this book a few years ago from Marty at his Mid-Atlantic show. Then I had to wait another year for Time Tunnel stars James Darren and Robert Colbert to appear at Marty’s show where I paid them to autograph it. Then I had to wait another year for the other star Lee Meriwether to appear at the Chiller Theater convention so I could pay her to sign it. Now after all that time and money spent Marty shows up with this hardcover copy! He’s asking $50 for it. I told Marty I might pay the premium price of $50 for the book if Darren, Colbert and Meriwether were available at one upcoming show to sign it; but that isn’t the case and I don’t have the stamina to pay the big money for the book and spend the next several years chasing down the three stars to sign it. |
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| Gene Carpenter of All American Comics is the Leader’s favorite comic book dealer, I see him every year at this show and the Baltimore Comic Con and every four months at the Virginia Comic Con in Richmond. |
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| The Williamsburg Film Festival is a Western themed show so Gene brings lots of Western comic books. Here’s two copies of comic books based on the 1960s TV series The Big Valley. Cast members on the covers are from left to right Linda Evans, Lee Majors, Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Long, Peter Breck and Lee Majors again. |
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| I watched my share of Western TV shows back in the 1960s and Bonanza was always my favorite. Here’s Gene with a copy of Bonanza #1, 1960. The actual number is Dell Four Color #1110. |
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| Gene with a copy of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Gene looks a little detached here. He may be getting tired of the Leader constantly pestering him to take more photos. |
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| Keith Hurd of Hurd’s Outpost in Cortland, Ohio is a veteran autograph dealer. I see him every year at this show and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con. Here’s one of his John Wayne autographs for $250. |
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| Rodney Aistrop of Appalachia, Virginia had a few nice Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy items for sale at the show. Elderly gentlemen like Rodney personify the spirit of the Williamsburg Film Festival. Before they were old men today they were young men in the 1940s and 1950s. In those days the popular culture heroes were movie and TV cowboy stars like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Reliving your childhood at a show like Williamsburg is just human nature. Today the popular culture heroes come from science fiction movies and TV shows like Star Wars and Star Trek. So human nature being what it is, you can be sure that 30 and 40 years from now there will be shows like Williamsburg with antiquarian men and women doddering around in their Star Wars and Star Trek costumes and spending their pension money on light sabers and phaser pistols. |
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| Packy Smith and Mike Bifulco |
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| Late on Thursday shortly before heading home I stopped to take a closer look at two dealers who I noticed earlier had some interesting popular culture books, Packy and Mike. |
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| Packy Smith and Mike Bifulco |
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| Here’s author Mike Bifulco with two of his books about the 1950s Superman TV series starring George Reeves and the 1940s movie serial Superman Kirk Alyn. If you have questions about the celluloid incarnations of the Man of Steel, you would do well to ask Mike. |
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| Late Thursday night on the second day of the show. The dealers’ room hasn’t been locked up yet so there are still a few lingering die-hard fans poking through the dvd boxes or sitting around talking shop about the old days. The Leader is finished for this year and on his way out the door but he will back next year to take more pictures and hobnob with his friends. |
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