Old Comic Shows - Before the Days of the Mega Conventions

[Conan_Aficionado]

see, this is why i stick to memes, simple concepts. Stop complicating my simple concepts.

[divad]

 

It actually works the other way around . . .

 

 

I knew I'd get you back on that one: Completed eBay sales and GPA are good tools, but they are buyer-biased tools. They don't tell you if you are paying too much, they only reassure you that you are paying what others have paid for remotely similar items. Seriously? If you only paid GPA or EBay sold prices, you'll never get the books you really want.

 

but, isn't it given that if you are paying inline with what others are paying, you are paying a fair market value, and isn't a price that's inline with the market a just price. I just assumed that when you say "paying too much," it infers that you are paying above and beyond fair value.

 

I don't know bro, stop making me think, where is my advil.

 

The key here of course was the phrase "similar items". We all know that the truly discerning collector gets the best copy (at least in his eyes), while the other buyers are merely pawns. FMV isn't defined by what the average buyer pays for the average copy. It's really defined by what the refined collector is willing to pay for the absolute best copy (that he can afford). This applies even to graded books. Just because the label says 9.6 or 9.8 W doesn't make the books equal. The real out-of-whack stuff these days are the SS books - can anyone really determine the FMV for these manufactured collectibles?

[Flatliner1313]

 

It actually works the other way around . . .

 

 

I knew I'd get you back on that one: Completed eBay sales and GPA are good tools, but they are buyer-biased tools. They don't tell you if you are paying too much, they only reassure you that you are paying what others have paid for remotely similar items. Seriously? If you only paid GPA or EBay sold prices, you'll never get the books you really want.

 

but, isn't it given that if you are paying inline with what others are paying, you are paying a fair market value, and isn't a price that's inline with the market a just price. I just assumed that when you say "paying too much," it infers that you are paying above and beyond fair value.

 

I don't know bro, stop making me think, where is my advil.

 

The key here of course was the phrase "similar items". We all know that the truly discerning collector gets the best copy (at least in his eyes), while the other buyers are merely pawns. FMV isn't defined by what the average buyer pays for the average copy. It's really defined by what the refined collector is willing to pay for the absolute best copy (that he can afford). This applies even to graded books. Just because the label says 9.6 or 9.8 W doesn't make the books equal. The real out-of-whack stuff these days are the SS books - can anyone really determine the FMV for these manufactured collectibles?

 

When determining what I'm willing to pay for an SS, I take in to account the creator's signing fees (if any), how difficult it is to Obtain (Stan Lee on one end of the scale, Barry Windsor Smith at the other end), The book, the condition of the book, and if it's something I'd be able to obtain on my own.

[That Ron Dude]

There is a fellow named Bill Schelly who had a business called Hamster Press. He wrote and edited several books, one called, "The Golden Age of Fandom" where he gets into the earliest conventions, mid '50's at peoples homes, and another where he writes about his life as a young comic fan, meeting other young fans including Jim Shooter, the applying for work at DC and Warren eventually coming to realize that the world of professional cartooning was not like an extension of fandom, but a demanding and often frustrating job. I loved both books but it was as though he was writing for a very small market and each and every reader would be just like me.

 

I started attending conventions in 1970. I went to the Detroit Triple Fan Fare that year, driving from Toronto with four other friends then to the Phil Seuling convention in New York the following year.

 

I miss the conventions too. I have no idea what the friends are doing now.

 

Here are a few differences between then and now.

 

I think there were only about five hundred people in all of North America who would drive to another city and stay overnight for the holy comic book.

 

We were the five hundred ugliest people on the entire continent. If you added Paul Levitz's pimples to Dave Sims pimples, it added up to a whole lot of pimples. I look good standing next to either of them. We were all guys except for Paty, Maggie and the Vartinoff sisters. Not even one of us could name an NFL quarterback, a big league pitcher or the last name of a hockey player whose first name was Bobby.

 

Comics were something without a history. We didn't care who Bud Sagindorf was. We cared about who was drawing the big books at Marvel. All in Colour for a Dime was the only book on comic books that existed at the time. There was one comic book store in Toronto, a rat hole called, "Memory Lane". I am sure other major cities also had rathole comic book stores. Memory Lane bought for two cents sold for five. ECs were two bucks. FF#1, if he ever had it, was $7.50.

 

We hated Howard Rogofsky's guts. It was felt that no one should ever make a living off of fandom let alone sell a drinking cup used (and I think signed) by Frank Frazetta for $15.00. I turned down a JIM #83 at $3.50 at that first Detroit convention.

 

Don Heck was perceived to really, really suck. A big convention might have three guests of honour. It might have other guests but maybe not. There were only one or two conventions accessible to someone from Toronto, each year.

 

A dealer was generally someone selling out his collection. Bargains were to be had on Sunday. There were no comic bags, boards or boxes.

 

Young fans wanted to become Big Name Fans like Tony Isabella and John G. Fantucchio. My dream was to get a letter saying, "Ron, we would like you to do a drawing for our fanzine". That letter never came.

 

People became friends with other fans who lived hundreds of miles away. We wrote letters back and forth. Because we were socially inept and usually hated around the school and neighbourhood, our pen pals sometimes seemed very close. With that closeness though, there also came fan feuds.

 

A lot of us went pro. A lot of us didn't. Some had parallel careers in art or writing.

 

No one knew what was coming. Some who got in on the ground floor became rich but they also took huge risks because we had no idea how this would grow. I also turned down good Frazetta paintings being sold by Frazetta himself, in his hotel room for $200 a toss. He was selling a large wash drawing of Vampirella for $70. Johnny Comet dailies were $35.

 

 

 

 

[divad]

Great stuff Ron, great stuff. (thumbs u

 

I particularly enjoyed this:

We hated Howard Rogofsky's guts.

[Limited66]

Great stuff Ron, great stuff. (thumbs u

 

I particularly enjoyed this:

We hated Howard Rogofsky's guts.

 

I love hearing these stories. Roger at the Time Machine in New York spins some good yarns about the old days of comic conventions and how they were mainly a bunch of hippies in a basement and Ditko original art was ridiculously cheap and Stephen from Metro would come in with a suitcase and buy up everything.

 

Bring on more oral history from the early days of fandom . . .

 

[That Ron Dude]

We weren't hippies. We were slobs who never cut our hair. The existence of hippies gave us an excuse.

 

Everything was cheap but you took a risk when you bought it. A friend bought a Superman #2 for $50 and sold it within a month for $45. Another friend bought a Johnny Comet for $35 and sold it perhaps a year later for $35. There was no ebay which made every one with a computer a comic dealer. The main way out was selling it to a store or through the mails. We didn't know if the hobby would go up or if we were a bunch of ne'er do wells who would never amount to anything just like our mommies said we were. I don't think anyone expected it to go up as much as it did.

[jools&jim]

 

The first convention I ever attended was here in Baltimore in the late '70s. Bob Layton was the only guest. I still have the flyer for it around here somewhere.

 

My older sister and her husband drove my buddy and I (barely in our early teens) down into the city to the old Lord Baltimore Hotel. I think we both had about 10 bucks each to spend (if that) -- I also brought some comics to sell/trade (a few doubles of "new" X-Men issues).

 

We were in awe of it all: table after table of old comics (mostly stacked, some in boxes), very few "wall" displays as I remember it, and the whole shebang was crammed into one medium-sized ballroom, with one adjacent room used for showing old black-and-white horror and SF movies on a home-movie screen.

 

Looking back, it was a pretty low key affair -- just lots of people walking around and browsing/buying comic books, which were of course the main attraction. I also remember being slightly surprised by the number of "old people" (i.e., twenties and up) in the room. The only people I knew back then who read comic books were kids.

 

That something like this even existed--thousands of old comic books in the same room, at the same time with us--was mind-boggling. Comics really were our booze back then (to borrow from Jules Feiffer), and the whole experience made us hyperactive and punch-drunk. I'm sure we drove my sister nuts on the ride back home.

 

The whole day was lost in a fog of expectation and excitement...I have no idea what we bought, but I do remember meeting Layton on the stairs to the lobby and having him sign an issue of Iron Man for me. I also remember that the dealers were, mostly, a scary lot -- my sister said they looked like carnival people, which I suppose was broadly true.

 

It was a great, landmark day for my friend and I: we were at the peak of our love for superheroes and comics. A few short years later, we'd both give up comics completely, discover girls and music...go to different high schools...drift apart...grow up. But on that day, it all seemed brand new to us, and it was thrilling as hell.

 

 

 

[That Ron Dude]

I was also astounded by the seeming huge size of the very early conventions though the ones I speak of had no more than five hundred people, the size of a one day local convention now. I put up a drawing a few pages back, which represents all those early cons. I found three pictures on the internet of very early conventions. I tried to get the feel of them. I will see if I can attach one of those pictures.

 

Found it.

 

This is one of the LATE, early conventions. There are some wall displays. Some dealers have boxes, some have stacks of comics.

 

[jools&jim]

 

This is one of the LATE, early conventions. There are some wall displays. Some dealers have boxes, some have stacks of comics.

 

This is EXACTLY how I remember the late '70s con I described above...

 

 

[Quake1028]

A local library is having one of those types of shows tomorrow. My wife and I have concert tickets for a show tomorrow night, but I might try to make it for a few hours as soon as they open.

[zosocane]

It was a great, landmark day for my friend and I: we were at the peak of our love for superheroes and comics. A few short years later, we'd both give up comics completely, discover girls and music...go to different high schools...drift apart...grow up. But on that day, it all seemed brand new to us, and it was thrilling as hell.

 

Epic. Ditto my experience.

[zosocane]

 

Great photo. My first con was Sheraton NYC in Summer 1979 and it looked very much like this; this photo is very repesentative of what heaven looked like to a 10-year-old with maybe $25 (if that) of accumulated allowance money and grandma gift money chasing low- to mid-grade Ditko-era Spideys.

[That Ron Dude]

I don't know which con that is. I got the photo off the internet. I imagine that I could find the source given a bit of time. Looking back, the 1971 Seuling convention was about that size and at the time it seemed to have an infinite number of dealers tables. There was no price guide, sketches were free if and when you could corner a pro, guys who were ancient (but not nearly as old as I am now) had golden age books for perhaps $8 each. I remember one guy with stacks of them under a plastic sheet to prevent damage and theft. Ratio of men to women was 10 to 1. Ratio of men to unattached women (most were wives of the old guys selling golden age) was 100 to 1. Ratio of men to attractive women was 1000 to 1 and there were only about 500 guys there. Every other year there would be a single, attractive woman.

 

The alternative for comics was the corner store. Toronto had dealer Captain George Henderson, a clever but ultra-strange man who had a dirty old store with dirty old comics in a dirty old section of town. You could find stuff there if your Mom would let you go.

 

I have no idea how people bought through RBCC. You had to send a stranger a cheque, hoping that no other stranger sent the same individual a cheque for the same comic before you did. I never tried. I wish I had.

 

Rogofsky was the first human being to realize that you could make a living off selling comics. Robert Bell was the second. Then came Passaic Book Centre and before you knew it the ad pages of Marvel comics had many more dealers who would send you a comic list for a quarter. I bought a Hulk #5 from Rook-off-ski for $3.75. It was probably a fine or better.

 

Very few paid attention to condition. The ones who did were anal retentive super geeks.

[mysterio]

I only started attending conventions in the late 1980s, so I wasn't able to attend any of the very early shows I'm enjoying reading about. I do have many fond memories of the early (for me) Chicago Comicons held at the Radisson before they went big and moved to convention centers. That was our Christmas in July every year, because then they were a fixture over the fourth of July weekend. As it was definitely pre-internet I got to see books I had never seen and could never afford (at least not while still in high school and jobless). I also got my first taste of working a booth there, which sounds great until you get there and realize that you'll be standing behind the booth and not walking around the show for 90% of the time. It was pure torture.

[TupennyConan]

This is a very cool thread but I'm going to let my participation in it terminate. I'm way too emotionally invested in putting on shows with King to be able to react well to anything critical, no matter how well meaning. I'm going to have to avoid all con reports, including those about my own. King can take it from here. He's the calmer one of us.

 

My apologies to Dale & Brian.

 

I'm going back to the WC now, all you CG freakshows!

 

 

[Dale Roberts]

This is a very cool thread but I'm going to let my participation in it terminate. I'm way too emotionally invested in putting on shows with King to be able to react well to anything critical, no matter how well meaning. I'm going to have to avoid all con reports, including those about my own. King can take it from here. He's the calmer one of us.

 

My apologies to Dale & Brian.

 

I'm going back to the WC now, all you CG freakshows!

 

 

Give yourself a break, at least you're passionate about it. What I said was never meant as a slam at you or Stephen as promoters, more a commentary on shows in general.

 

I love Tupenny. I love his wife & children. Tupenny's shows are family affairs; so much so that he travels his family to them. I know how passionate he is about his cons; so much so that it sent him to the ER with a heart scare after Indy. He's been a true friend, a loyal customer, & a near-shill cheerleader for me & my company & indeed my own family for a dozen years. He knows my wife & daughters; so much so that he's kissed them all, more than once. I'd do anything to support him, both publicly & privately.

 

I admire that he's come to the CGC Boards, the place on earth where anyone can find the top vintage dealers & collectors in our awesome hobby, to seek advice in good faith on how to improve his show for vintage books. Let's help him. That's all I want to do.

 

I admire how he's able to promote the hobby in a family friendly way. I've never seen so many parents with young children at a show & I understand Tampa is even more so; so much so that its reputation as a family event extends across the globe. 12 & under FREE. Wonderful.

 

This is the future of our industry. We all worry over the aging fanboy population. The LCS, no matter how cool & hip some of them may be, are still adult book stores. Publishers don't market to the youth any longer. Here we see the youth market coming out in massive force; so much so that the hobby hasn't seen kids & comics like this since WWII.

 

We all owe Tupenny & King a round of applause. Affordable admission. 12 & under free. Solid talent. Tons of fun. I'm very proud.

 

I'd never allow my own purse to color my judgment on this matter. Money can never blur my vision, my wisdom, my loyalty, & my friendship. Never.

 

& Indy is one of America's most gorgeous cities. Midwest charm at its finest.

 

I hope I can return one day to Indiana Comic Con & help it & our hobby reach all our of mutual goals.

[grunter]

I attended and set up a few times at the shows at the old 57 Park Plaza in Boston...mid to late 80s into the 90s. Early on it was pretty good. My 1st show attending was Teddy Van Liew's 1st show setting up. I made a few deals w him that day and still have one of the books. Went down hill a bit when Monkey Business or some such name took over. Guy who ran it was a bit out there.

 

God, I loved those shows.

Everything smelled like cigarettes. There was no one but the scary crazy Underdog lady in costume. And lunch was always a yellow box of "illegal" jelly babies and a can of Jolt cola.

 

I remember going to a show the weekend that "E.T." premiered. And the weekend right after "Best of Both Worlds, Pt. 1" aired.

 

Good times.