Comicon'79, Birmingham Metropole Hotel

I rediscovered some of the literature about the Comic Convention that Colin Campbell put on in 1979.

Colin was the owner and operator of "Biytoo Books", through which he sold imported comics, fanzines and art related books.  I bought a lot of things off him in those years and even worked on his tables at the Birmingham Comic Marts, it was a lot of fun.

So, because I lived locally to the Comicon venue, he asked me to be the head of security for the big show!  I should have said "No" but I was and still am, an idiot, so I said "Yes".

Given that I was pretty much of a loner, how the heck I thought I could find a crew of guys to help me out, I don't know... but I did it!  Thanks, then as now, belong to Nigel Whittaker, Mike Llewellyn, Barry Dawes and at least two other people that I can no longer recall.  I should have made more of an effort to tell you all how great you were at the time, because it's a bit too late now.  Mike Llewellyn got to protect Jim Steranko's portfolio for the entire convention, a job I'd like to think he enjoyed.

The only black mark on our record was the theft of several pages of original art from a display in the hotel lobby.  They were all early try-out pages by John Byrne and belonged to Colin Campbell.  The two displays were double sided, with art on both sides, and we were doing fine until the hotel decided to push the displays up against one of the lobby walls and when the time came to take down the displays, someone had crawled in behind them and stolen the pages.  I was mortified, but Colin was very understanding and chalked it up to experience.  Thank you Colin!

To the best of my knowledge, Colin Campell is now one of the owners of Forbidden Planet International.

The cartoon on the right is the work of my longtime friend Mike Robbyns.  He is a very creative guy and this was done way back in 1990, when he was taking a shot at becoming a syndicated cartoonist.  A dream that never came to fruition, but one that introduced him to a number of famous cartoonists and several became his friend too.

Mike is one of the nicest guys in the world.  He always manages to see the best side of everything and everyone, a less negative personality would be hard to find.

While he no longer cartoons like a demon, he still harbours his original dream of becoming an "animationist", better known as an animator, when he retires.  He may just surprise us all one day and actually do it.  I wish him the very best of luck.

When I landed in Toronto, in 1980, I was a Science Fiction Fan that moonlighted as a comic book buyer.  The Toronto Science Fiction bookstore, then as now, was Bakka and it sat right across the street from The Silver Snail on Queen Street West.  So, I thought I would continue to conduct myself as I had in England, Saturdays in the company of SF Fans, with a little comic book buying on the side but that was not to be.  Instead, I found Bakka to be a cold and cliquish place while The Snail was a much warmer and friendlier place to hang out in... so I quickly reassumed my position as a Comic Book Fan!

That is pretty much the way it has stayed, I still visit Bakka, now known as Bakka-Phoenix, once in a while but not as often as I should.  Have you heard that they will be mving in early 2010?  Their present location is on the south side of Queen Street, just passed Bathurst and their new location will be a building that they will own, up on Harbord Street, close to Spadina.

A few years back, Ron Van L., owner of The Silver Snail, had these coasters made up and given away...  I present one here for the edification of the few.

It's been a while!

I have been remiss in being a decent Blogger, to say the least and I can't honestly say that I will be much better in the future, but I will try.

I was going through some old papers yesterday and I ran across the only example that I have left from my earliest days as a comic book collector, at least as it pertains to buying them through the mail.  John, I forget his last name, sold me a heck of a collection of beautiful early Marvel Comics.  I first got in touch with him through an advert in the old Exchange and Mart, a weekly buy and sell newspaper, and he continued to sell me 10 to 20 comics each time he wrote.  I don't think that I ever passed over a single comic that he offered, why would I, when they were all in Mint condition!

I bought a lot of early Tales to Astonish, including the first appearance of Ant Man, Tales of Suspense, the first Iron Man, Journey into Mystery, the first Thor... but you get the picture.  There were lots of DC books too, works by Kubert, Ditko and Kane, there were a lot of comics changing hands and I wish I still had them all but, I was young and very foolish and while I still have some of the books I bought from John, most were left behind when I immigrated to Canada back in 1980.

This one is for John, where ever he may be.  We only ever wrote to each other and most of that was business related but I remember him fondly and wish him well.

Remembering The Andromeda Bookshop

To my shame, on my first meeting with Rog Peyton, at the tender age of 16, I promised to buy comic books from his newly opened store and then promptly forgot to go back for over a year!

What a rat I was.  What is even more surprising and shows much about the man, when I eventually returned, he forgave me and allowed me to become a regular customer.

That all happened about 36 years ago, Andromeda had only just opened at the Summer Row location and I had just discovered Fandom.

I believe that it was a fanzine named"Thing", an adzine for fans selling comic books to one another, possibly published by Dez Skinn ( that I had sent away for, after seeing an advert for it in the old Exchange and Mart) which had introduced me to a couple of local collectors.  It has been a long time but I think they were named Derek and John and they had collections of the oldest Marvels I had ever seen.

The original six issue run of The Hulk stands out in my mind, among other heady delights.  They were responsible for introducing me to Peter Lennon, then dealing out of his car and pretty soon after, to Rog, as detailed above.  Within a year, these two likely lads had cashed in their collections and gone off chasing girls and here I am, half a world away now, still collecting, albeit not the same titles or in the same quantities.

Anyhow, by the time that I had returned to darken Andromeda's door once more, Rog had hired Dave Holmes to work in the comic dungeon that was Summer Row's basement.  Dave was a character and we got along and I became a regular, every saturday, for my comic book fix.

Andromeda became a hub for fans and I met several very talented people there over the years, I still have a couple of three inch high, painted figurines that I bought from the guy who had painted them.  Perhaps the one who affected me the most was the young Chris Baker, who came to sign his art work "Fangorn".  He was a prodigious talent and blasted my fragile belief in my own drawings all-to-hell!

Young Chris did very well in the end, I won't bore you here, look him up on Google and see for yourselves.

I bought a whole bunch of his early art, partly finished paintings and continuity strips, before I left England at the beginning of 1980.  I'll post some examples next time.

Eerie #69 Cover

For some reason the Blogger interface wouldn't let me add this image to the earlier post, so here it is as a separate posting.

Believe it or not, I bought ten copies when it came out and somewhere in the collection, most of them still remain!?

Ah, to be that young and stupid again.

Paul Neary and HUNTER

Is there anyone out there that remembers a talk, about the art of making comics, that Paul Neary gave in a small building in Birmingham's Cannon Hill Park?

If my memory is correct, the event was arranged by Phil Clarke in the Autumn of 1974 or the Spring of 1975.  The collected edition of Mr. Neary's "Hunter" in Eerie #69, cover dated October 1975, had not then been released in England, so I am fairly comfortable with the time and place being correct.

Any how, it was the first time that I got to see a living, breathing, comic book artist talk about the nuts and bolts of drawing and as such, it was a great thrill.  Truthfully, the only point he made at the time, that I can still remember, was about the very first page of the "Hunter" series that he drew.  He had made a cardinal error, being young and inexperienced, dividing that first page into two vertical panels and his editor told him so, in  no uncertain way!  Warren published the page as he had drawn it, I no longer remember why, but he had redrawn that page as a traditional Splash Page for the collected edition.  Magic stuff to me at that time.

It was fun, very innocent and naive by modern standards.  I'm pretty sure that Mr. Neary didn't make any money from being there and probably, neither did Mr. Clarke.  I haven't a clue what the tickets cost but knowing the times, probably 25 or 50 pence.

Pete Lennon was the first real comic book dealer that I ever met.  He was a real wheeler-dealer and I lost more than I gained, but I still have most of the items that I bought from him.

I believe that he took over the old Summer Row premises once occupied by the Andromeda Book Co., but that was long after I had left the country.

Does anyone know what happened to him once he closed that store?