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I'm going to start a special thread for this, but while on the topic of Fandom, EC and especially Russ Cochran (who was not only responsible for many of the EC Archive editions and reprints) I'd be remiss in failing to mention his latest publishing project in coordination with author, collector & comic shop entrepreneur Jake (Buddy) Saunders.

 

This impressive leatherette bound coffee table book, The Martian Legion, pays tribute to the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

 

IMG_3433-3634394798-O.jpg

 

It's available in five tiers, all embossed hardcovers, the top four of which are numbered with certificates of authenticity and medallions. More details are provided at link below...

 

http://www.themartianlegion.com

 

This can only be described as a labor of love from a true fan of the genre. I've just purchased mine from their site after viewing pre-publication copies at the OAFcon back in November. Highly recommended. (thumbs u

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My latest entry is somewhat more of a personal nature in that it's a not-so-short tale of a science fiction convention that wasn't.

 

Back in the mid-80's I'd started taking my art career seriously after producing fan art for years while trying to find the best vehicle for selling it ...that's locations, not out of the back of my car! lol

 

I'd settled into trying my hand at commercial illustration while still slogging along in various day-jobs, finally as a glorified lab-tech at a Fortune 500 company in Oklahoma (...with a bachelor's degree in fine art and literature). This particular job allowed me freedom for limited travel (accepting convention invitations) while receiving regular paychecks. Note: Before moving into free lance commissions I was considered one of the "golden boys" of the SW's hip 80's SF culture.

 

smiley-gen110.gif

 

In retrospect, this was both amusing and flattering... :blush: ..., but back then regional celebrity status was taken quite seriously in the SF community.

 

Around this time a Missouri based convention committee asked me to be their featured Artist GOH at NEXUS. It was a big deal because of their ambitious goals. Their guest line-up was world-class. Unfortunately, the convention fell through when the backers ran into funding & hotel contract issues.

 

Other conventions of varying stature have featured my work, but NEXUS didn't happen.

Here is the early NEXUS flyer to give you some idea of what the convention would've been like (art attribution unknown)...

 

Nexus87flyer.jpg

 

I've always preferred the freedom of selling art via commission as opposed to accepting freelance publishing jobs, but had NEXUS gotten off the ground my personal journey might've taken a different course.

No regrets here though, as I like the flexibility of commissions over the riggers of cover deadlines and creative interference.

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Ladies and Gentlemen

 

Please delete if not allowed,

 

but just wanted to pass along that I'm selling many Fanzines on this board currently, and since it's hard to get the word out Im posting this here.

 

Please stop by and take a gander at my collection.

 

Will make great deals for multiple purchases

 

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8421112#Post8421112

Edited by dbostejano
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Haven't been here in a while. Love the old fanzines! I wish I could post some pics of mine... maybe I can. Let me work on it.

 

But the talk of Bill Gaines reminds me of a story. I became something of a pen pal with the EC artist George Evans back in the early 70s, and he told me he had the original art for a story he did for 'MD'. (I think that was the name of it.) The story was called 'Janie Someday.' Now you have to realize that at the time, EC original art was simply not available. Period. Gaines supposedly had all of it. Well he was a guest at DCON '73... I bought the art from Evans and took it to the convention and put it in the auction. They kept taking it out of the auction because they were afraid Gaines would get hacked off. Finally I had a little confab with Gaines and Russ Cochran and they allowed me to put it back in the auction. Larry Herndon was sitting next to me and he kept bidding and across the aisle were Gaines and Cochran who kept raising the bid. It seemed clear to me that Cochran was determined to buy it. Finally Herndon said the hell with it and Cochran bought it for $160.

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Yes, everyone was amazed that I had gotten it, and yes it was published in MD. As I'm sure you know, EC pretty much cancelled their horror titles in 1955 (I think?) and started a short-lived series of new comics... Aces High, Psychoanalysis (I wonder who thought THAT one up), MD, Extra!, and one or two others. I don't know how George Evans ended up with the artwork, but he did somehow and when he and I corresponded, I found out about it and bought it from him. Originally, I placed an ad (probably in the Buyer's Guide) offering it for sale for $1000. I had no cash buyers but I sure had a lot of people offering me the equivalent in trade... mostly rare Golden Age comics and such. When the minor furor erupted at the Dallas convention, I figured I'd better take what I could get at the auction, whatever it was. Gaines was a nice guy, but he made it pretty clear that the artwork was his property, and I'm sure it went directly from Cochran back to Gaines.

 

Yeah, I've got a lot of stories from back then and as my faulty memory recalls them, I will post them! Glad you liked it.

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Yeah, I've got a lot of stories from back then and as my faulty memory recalls them, I will post them! Glad you liked it.

 

Glad to see you back here, Mr. Bailey. For those who don't know, Gordon Bailey was one of the founders of Nostalgia Journal, which later became The Comics Journal after Groth & co. bought it.

 

Always great to hear the stories from those who were there.

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Thanks, Mark!

 

I remember the first issue of Nostalgia Journal was distributed at three conventions... New York, Dallas, and Houston. We printed 10,000 copies. We carried them ourselves to Dallas and Houston, but the copies for New York we shipped in refrigerator boxes. That's what they looked like to me anyway. It wasn't until the second issue that we actually started mailing out copies. Larry Herndon and I pretty much produced and distributed the first three issues ourselves. It was a lot of work, really.

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If you go to The Comics Journal on Wikipedia, at the very bottom of the article, after the footnotes, you'll see a link to 'History of The Nostalgia Journal,' which is actually an interview with me from a few years ago. It answers most of the questions most people have about that period. It's kind of the Reader's Digest version of TNJ's history.

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If you go to The Comics Journal on Wikipedia, at the very bottom of the article, after the footnotes, you'll see a link to 'History of The Nostalgia Journal,' which is actually an interview with me from a few years ago. It answers most of the questions most people have about that period. It's kind of the Reader's Digest version of TNJ's history.

 

Nice interview. It's interesting how active the scene was in the TX area... I think that's under discussed vs NYC and SD in that era.

 

I'm guessing #15 (Star Trek / Herbie cover) was one of your highest print runs... I think that's the one that I've seen around the most in recent years.

 

I'm surprised to read about the contention with Stan Blair, and a lawsuit even...! I hadn't heard about that before... though the early 70s fanzines definitely have an undercurrent of tension in them overall... a lot of worry over whether a price guide was a good idea, business disputes, who was charging too much for back issues, various fanzine rivalries, etc. Growing pains as the hobby turned into a business, I suppose.

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"Growing pains as the hobby turned into a business." Exactly. And so many people back then didn't want it to turn into a business.

 

So much of it now seems trivial or petty but at the time we were all caught up in it. And it really was a different, earlier time... simpler in a lot of ways, no computers for one thing. You could rent a hall somewhere, put up a few tables and have yourself a convention.

 

It was a lot of fun, no doubt... glad I was a part of it.

 

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It's interesting how active the scene was in the TX area...

For a period of time in the mid to late '70s Houston Con was maybe the best show in the country. And many of the collectors from that time are still active. That's one reason why some many cool books pop up around here.

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It's interesting how active the scene was in the TX area...

For a period of time in the mid to late '70s Houston Con was maybe the best show in the country. And many of the collectors from that time are still active. That's one reason why some many cool books pop up around here.

 

Texas was always a hot spot...... there were a lot of early movers and shakers in that Southwestern region. You're one of them. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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Oklahoma was always different. Still is, I think. Looking at some of the recent pictures, I was amazed at how many of the old fans not only are still around but are still going to conventions. I don't know that you can say the same about Dallas or Houston. But I don't really know. I'm not up on current events.

 

The OK fans and their conventions always seemed more home-grown to me, not as big city-ish. Dallas and Houston were more like the east coast or west coast conventions.

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