The San Diego Comic Con
1982 - 1990
I was stationed at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California from 1982 to 1991. San Berdue was a nice enough town except for the smog from Los Angeles. The smog would float in and linger as it was trapped against the mountains that overlooked San Bernardino and nearby Riverside. San Bernardino did have a strategic location for comic book collecting. It was only 60 miles from Los Angeles where there were lots of comic book stores. It was also near Highway 15 which led up over the mountains into the High Desert and went to Las Vegas 3 hours away to the east. Las Vegas wasn’t good for comic books but 3 hours away from San Bernardino to the south was a place that was very good for comic books, San Diego. The San Diego Comic Con was held there every summer. And so every August for 9 years I made the pilgrimage to the mecca of comic book cons.
The San Diego Con lasted four days but I never spent the night. I drove down early for the first day of the show, spent all my money in the dealers’ room and drove back late that same day. I haven’t been to California since leaving there in 1991 and I hear the San Diego Con is now mostly a multi-media event featuring movie and TV stars, with its comic book tradition having largely withered away. But in the 1980s it was still nearly a pure comic book con. Nearly every major comic dealer in the country was there and lots of small fry dealers as well. Of course many big name comic book artists and writers attended as guests. There just wasn’t anything else like it in the world.
I can’t relate my adventures there in exact chronological order as the memories are all jumbled up. But I’ll list some people and purchases below to give a taste of what it was like in those days to visit the biggest and best comic book convention in the world.
Early 1980s
My first visit there in 1982 I met Bill Cole who was just getting started in the Mylar Snug business which he had bought from Ernie Gerber. In later years Bill put me touch with comic restoration expert William Sarrill to help me with a case of fraudulent encapsulation by another Mylar dealer.
I’m pretty sure this 1982 con was the first time I met big time dealer Bruce Hamilton who I had heard of from seeing his ads in the fanzine The Rocket’s Blast & Comic-Collector aka RB&CC. I bought an Avon Space Detective #2 with a Wally Wood cover from him. We weren’t sure if the book had Wood stories as the suspected Wood stories didn’t look like Wood at his best. Mr. Hamilton speculated the stories may be “Wood in a hurry.” While I was looking over his comics a local TV news cameraman came by and Mr. Hamilton posed for him holding a copy of his Marvel Comics #1 from 1939. Mr. Hamilton looked a little weary like he had done this several times before. Later I showed this important new Space Detective purchase to a friend who worked in a shoe shop in Denver that I had known a few months earlier when I was stationed there. He had said back in Denver that he had always wanted to go to the San Diego Con and I was glad to see he made it. When I showed him my new book he was pleased and said something like “I wish I could afford big books like that.” At a later con I remember seeing Mr. Hamilton helping to set up a Carl Barks art display. He looked really tired and he said to a friend he hadn’t slept in almost two days.
At one show I was standing outside the convention hotel waiting in the long line for the doors to open. I could see through a window nearby into the hotel lobby where the convention guests were lined up to get their guest badges. I spotted pop culture historian and RB&CC fanzine writer James Van Hise in line. I had always enjoyed his RB&CC column “The Williamson Collector” on artist Al Williamson. I don’t remember why I recognized him. I didn’t know him personally. Maybe I had seen his photo in RB&CC.
On one of my early visits I ran into dealer John Knight. He was a friend of Ron Pussell who I had met months earlier at a comic show in San Francisco. John sold me a nice Cosmic Aeroplane copy of Captain Science #5. Many years later I sold him something on ebay.
One of my best visits was an early 1980s con where I met a dealer who had a nice stash of pre-Marvel monster books in high grade. I bought a few. The only one I remember for sure is Amazing Adventures #2 which I had never seen before. He also had the #1 but I couldn’t afford it.
At another early 1980s show I picked up two nice books from a dealer whose business name was Comic Investments. A pre-Marvel Strange Worlds #4 and a Charlton Strange Suspense Stories #20.
Most of what little original art I have came from these San Diego trips. The main original art dealers I met at the shows were Tom Horvitz, Albert Moy and Richard Halegua. I never bought anything from Tom and Richard but Tom invited me to dinner with some of his friends and clients and I enjoyed listening to these well heeled art connoisseurs talking shop. I remember Roger Hill talking about buying Frank Frazetta sketches. He also noted that artist Greg Theakston had asked him to loan out some art photostats to help him with one of his book publishing projects. Albert Moy wasn’t at the dinner but his name came up. I said I thought Albert had “moxie” and Tom agreed.
I did buy a five page Ditko story from Albert Moy, “The Missing Link” from Tales Of Suspense #31. Albert also had at that same show a Ditko five page pre-Marvel story “Where Is The Wommelly” from Tales Of Suspense #33. Albert’s $600.00 asking price wasn’t to bad but I was already broke from buying the other story and had to pass. Two days after the show I got a call from Richard Halegua who had the story and was asking $1200.00. I suppose he got it from Albert who must have given him my phone number. I remember thinking why didn’t Albert tell him I had already passed on it for $600.00?
A few weeks later Albert called me. He had two more Ditko stories. One of them was “The Star Raiders.” I had to pass on them as well and Albert gave up on me after that. I did see him over 20 years later at the Baltimore Comic Con but I didn’t strike up a conversation. I figured he wouldn’t remember me.
At another show Richard Halegua had one page to one of my favorite Ditko pre-Marvel stories “The End Of The Universe” from Tales Of Suspense #41, 1963. He had bought the entire five page story at auction and had already sold off the rest of it before coming to the show. I was explaining how much I liked the story. Richard wasn’t to sympathetic. He told me if I really liked the story so much that I should have outbid him.
The only other complete Ditko pre-Marvel story I bought at one of the shows was “I Know The Secret Of The Poltergeist” from Tales To Astonish #1 for about $600.00. The seller said it came to him from Jim Steranko who was known for helping himself to original art when he worked at Marvel in the 1960s. The art in this 1959 story is from a peak period in Ditko’s career and looks magnificent. It is one of my proudest possessions.
At one show I stopped to chat with big time dealer Peter Koch from New York. I had heard of him from getting his and his brother Joe’s “Avalanche Of Wonder” catalogs but had never met him in person. I think it was a large sexy babe original drawing by girlie artist Bill Ward that drew me to Pete’s table. He told me had a Ditko story from an issue of Amazing Adult Fantasy, “Those Who Change” back home. He had no interest in selling it.
At one show I was admiring the original art cover to the EC comic Weird Science #9 that a dealer had on his display rack. Russ Cochran spotted it and came over and wrote the guy a check for $7,000. This piece must have passed through his hands before as Mr. Cochran was EC publisher Bill Gaines’s agent for selling the original EC art. I guess Mr. Cochran needed it back. I tried to strike up a conversation with him to tell him how much I enjoyed his EC hardcover reprints, but he was in a hurry and brushed me off.
My best luck at buying original art came from meeting Michael Thibodeaux who was set up selling Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby art. Mike knew Kirby from being an inker for Kirby on some of his DC 1970s comics. I always passed on Kirby art on my trips to San Diego since his art was fairly common and not that expensive and I always figured I could pick some up next year. (Big mistake. I never did get any Kirby art.) So I always focused on trying to get Ditko art that was much rarer. To my amazement, Mike had two complete 10 page Incredible Hulk stories from Tales To Astonishdrawn by Ditko. I bought both of them for $400.00 each. I later met Mike in downtown Hollywood briefly and bought a few more pages from other Tales To Astonish Hulk stories for about $30.00 each. Mike and I were talking on the phone later and he admitted to having a complete five page Ditko story “I Must Find Those Who Lurk Below” which is one of the better Ditko stories. He assured me it wasn’t for sale and that he was “going to take that story to the grave.”
Late 1980s
In addition to Avon sci-fi comics and pre-Marvels as usual I was always looking for Charlton comics with Steve Ditko art. That led me in the late 1980s to my first meeting with dealer and fellow Ditko aficionado Conrad Eschenberg from New York. Conrad sold me a Charlton comic with Ditko art, Gorgo #11. I met Conrad a few years later in 1993 at Comicfest in Philadelphia where I bought a few nice Amazing Adult Fantasy Ditko books from him on time payments. That night in Philly my Air Force friend John Evans and I went to dinner with Conrad. He told us about a large theft of DC Silver Age original art from the Marvel Comics offices a few years before. Conrad said “no charges were filed.”
I always saw big time dealer John Verzyl at the show but I only a bought a few books from him over the years at the show since I was in the habit of visiting his store Comic Heaven in Alhambra to buy books. At one show John gave me a dealer’s badge which got me in for free. At that show he had an assistant who was selling a few books from John’s booth. I bought one of them, Marvel Tales #147.
I only saw Mylar Snug inventor, mail order magnate and author of the monumental The Photo-Journal Guide To Comic Books Ernie Gerber once at the show. I was on his mailing list and frequently salivated over the many comics he had from the Mile High pedigree collection which I never could afford. I remember John Verzyl saying to me once in his store that he wished he had Ernie’s mail order customer base. I had recently bought Ernie’s Photo Journal book by mail order. He told me that he hadn’t been pleased with the quality of the original color separations and that he wanted his book to be top notch so he went with another company, Cytek I believe it was, that did the best color separations in the printing industry. Each page in the book costs $700.00 for color separations. Ernie implored me to encourage my friends to buy the books and help him get out of debt. He had even mortgaged his house to finance the book. While we were talking a guy came up trying to sell Ernie an expensive Golden Age book. Ernie didn’t buy it. The book seemed to have a slight stigma attached to it as Ernie said “this is an Anderson book.” In later years living in Virginia Beach, Virginia I learned from my comic collecting friends there of notable collector David Anderson from Washington, D.C. I wonder if he is the same Anderson that Ernie was wary of?
Circa 1990 I met noted DC collector Gary Carter. He was set up selling the first few issues of his new fanzine Comic Book Marketplace. I stayed in touch with Gary and ended up writing several articles for CBM. I visited him once at his home in Coronado near San Diego and he gave me several back issues of CBM and sold me a few Charlton comics with Ditko art from the White Mountain pedigree collection. The last time I saw Gary in person I believe was at the Comicfest con in Philadelphia in 1993. I continued to write articles for Gary until he quit as editor of CBM when Steve Geppi bought the magazine and brought in Russ Cochran as editor. I lost touch with Gary after that. I hope to meet him again someday. He was a gentleman and a pure, hardcore comic book fan.
I think it was the same show where I met Gary that I walked by the booth of the discoverer of the White Mountain collection, Jerry Weist. I remember on top of one of his display racks was a large painted sign depicting a chain of snow capped mountains. I thought that was pretty good marketing. I also saw Jerry at an earlier show where he was selling back issues of his EC fanzine Squa Tront. I didn’t buy any which was another mistake. They are much more expensive today.
The U.S. Air Force packed me off to South Korea in 1991 and assigned me to Virginia after that so that was the end of my trips to San Diego. But I will always enjoy my fond memories of those glory days at the San Diego Con in the 1980s. Those shows were like a fantastic Valhalla for comic fans and the world will never see their like again.
Nice review of one of the largest comic conventions in the world, by a one of the nicest reviewers in the world!
Thanks Donald!
San Diego is one great convention
Thanks for writing Rick.