• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

FANDOM
3 3

504 posts in this topic

"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.

 

On the other hand, I always marvel at how much work it must have taken to put out a fanzine in the day. You touched on that in the interview re mailing stuff out, but beyond that, so much that we take for granted in layout, editing, even just getting copies of covers/art for clean reproduction... so much more difficult then.

 

As you implied about selling it to Groth and you and other participants basically moving on with your lives, I can imagine sort of being ready to move on from it after a few years. The zines that had done long runs by the 70s, like RBCC and Comic Reader (though were passed from editor to editor in most cases) really are impressive.

 

There is SO MUCH EFFORT in some of these 60s/70s zines, it really is amazing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

 

Houston conventions (late 70s and early 80s) were very similar to the Philly conventions that I have gone too. NYC conventions are a little different cause the crowds are bigger and sellers are crammed together and ...well it is NYC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

On the other hand, I always marvel at how much work it must have taken to put out a fanzine in the day. You touched on that in the interview re mailing stuff out, but beyond that, so much that we take for granted in layout, editing, even just getting copies of covers/art for clean reproduction... so much more difficult then.

 

As you implied about selling it to Groth and you and other participants basically moving on with your lives, I can imagine sort of being ready to move on from it after a few years. The zines that had done long runs by the 70s, like RBCC and Comic Reader (though were passed from editor to editor in most cases) really are impressive.

 

There is SO MUCH EFFORT in some of these 60s/70s zines, it really is amazing.

 

This is true. I guess 'simpler' doesn't always translate into 'easier.' Things we can do now with a computer and keyboard used to be ridiculously expensive and time-consuming. Printing photos (anybody remember ruby lith?), typesetting copy, making headlines with press-on letters, and of course the time and effort spent mailing the copies.

 

We kept TNJ pretty basic for the most part... just did the editorials and articles on a typewriter and the whole thing was pasted up so it was 'camera-ready,' as we said back then.

 

I remember using a composing service for some of my other fanzines. That was expensive too. I imagine desktop publishing has put all of those places out of business.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I imagine desktop publishing has put all of those places out of business.

 

The process has changed radically even since just the 90s. No more doing film separations, no moving material around via fedex (/mail/etc). Soon, we won't even need to scan stuff.

 

No racing to make the last fedex drop-off deadline of the day. Upload files to the printers and you're done.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another memory of an early 70s Houstoncon (I think)... I was collecting movie posters at the time, and particularly Marx Bros. material. Robert Brown had a table and he had two original lobby cards from Horsefeathers (1932). Very rare, but at the time, he was asking $40 each. We dickered back and forth and finally he told me he also had the complete set of Love Happy lobby cards. This was the Marxes last film, and not nearly as desirable of course, but he said I could have the two Horsefeathers cards for $35 apiece if I bought the set of Love Happy cards for $5 each. So I ended up with the two Horsefeathers cards and the entire set of Love Happy for $110 total, which was a hell of a deal (especially in retrospect). And I was flat broke the rest of the convention.

 

I'm guessing the HF cards are worth about $1000 each now, and the Love Happys a hundred or two apiece. And no, I don't still have them. I wish!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Deep thought for the day- it's fun to go back and reminisce about what you did when you were 15 or 20 years old but I wouldn't want to just live and re-live that period. You've got to move on, I think. It's like the Monkees... they get, or got, to talk about and remake those two years the rest of their lives. I'm really kind of glad things happened, which I thought were bad luck at the time, that enabled me to move on and do other things, like writing for newspapers and writing books. Granted, nobody was dangling millions of dollars in front of me! I loved it all when it happened, but life is a lot bigger and more involved than just going to conventions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Deep thought for the day- it's fun to go back and reminisce about what you did when you were 15 or 20 years old but I wouldn't want to just live and re-live that period. You've got to move on, I think. It's like the Monkees... they get, or got, to talk about and remake those two years the rest of their lives. I'm really kind of glad things happened, which I thought were bad luck at the time, that enabled me to move on and do other things, like writing for newspapers and writing books. Granted, nobody was dangling millions of dollars in front of me! I loved it all when it happened, but life is a lot bigger and more involved than just going to conventions.

 

I think most folks do move on to a greater or lesser extent, but enjoy revisiting past experiences. What I find sad are folks who've moved on and changed to the point where they're no longer recognizable. I'm sure you know or have known folks who fit this description. Furthermore, those changes may be for the better or worse dependent upon their life experiences.

 

An example of the latter that comes to mind is a former friend from my junior & senior high school days who was the gentlest, nicest kid I ever knew. No one ever had a bad word to say about him nor could imagine doing so, he was just that likable. But I lost touch with him for about thirty years.

 

Today he's serving life in an Okla. penitentiary for killing a kid in a botched robbery at the pharmacy where he worked about 10 years ago. After wounding the boy he tried to chase down his accomplice. Failing that, he returned, calmly reloaded his gun and repeatedly shot the kid dead, all caught on the drugstore camera.

 

What happened to the gentle guy I grew up around? He'd never have committed such a vicious act. (shrug)

 

Upon reflection, in situations like this a lot can be said for moving on, but I'd rather remember my former friend as what he was like at 15 or 20 years old. While it's true that we can no more escape the past than relive it, sometimes memories retain virtues that elude us when trying to understand current events.

 

I guess my reason for mentioning this at all, even in the FANDOM thread, is that my former friend attended a convention or two in Oklahoma back in the day. Alas, fandom as I know it wasn't a life changing event for him. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know they say you can't go back and that is probably true. Life goes on and things change. But the people I have met through this hobby are what makes it fun. A lot of that has taken place at cons. I try to explain to non collectors that once you go through the doors you are on another planet where every body is smiling and happy. No body is worried about their problems. For a few hours or days life is good and fun. That is what cons really mean to me and that has not changed over the years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting thread...as I've spanned the generation of buying comics from the newsstand

and then in the late 70's rediscovering comics with my sons, both at conventions and through

"Comic Book Stores",...it's a pleasure to hear others experiences!

Keep it going.

 

mm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still love shows as much as ever..... but I'll always have a soft spot for shows in the mid 70's when I first started going. It seemed so much simpler then.....and 20 bucks would get you almost anything...... I had no thoughts at all back then as to whether I could get my money back if I had to. It really was just a hobby back then and I just miss that innocence. I'm not trying to be snobbish...... and I'm eagerly looking forward to the May Richmond Show.....I just wish my old pal from the 70's, Timmy Leaf, was around. We moved away, as did he, and I have no idea what became of him. The last show we went to I remember his quandary over whether 30 bucks for a VG copy of AF 15 was a smart thing to do...... so I guess, even then, thoughts of the future were in the present. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the things that have changed the most are the prices and paying for autographs. You used to go to the pool at the El Cortez and have people like Kirby, Eisner and others sign your books and tell you stories of the old days. I remember packing 8 people into a hotel room and eating at Denny's so you could spend all your money on comic books. We used to have poker games using comics as chips. If you were lucky, somebody stole some beer from their old man. I have autographs from most all the greats that I just walked up and asked for. Of course now they aren't "authentic" and slabbed but I know better. One of these days I should post some pictures. Sometimes it pays to be old huh Cat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the things that have changed the most are the prices and paying for autographs. You used to go to the pool at the El Cortez and have people like Kirby, Eisner and others sign your books and tell you stories of the old days. I remember packing 8 people into a hotel room and eating at Denny's so you could spend all your money on comic books. We used to have poker games using comics as chips. If you were lucky, somebody stole some beer from their old man. I have autographs from most all the greats that I just walked up and asked for. Of course now they aren't "authentic" and slabbed but I know better. One of these days I should post some pictures. Sometimes it pays to be old huh Cat?

 

....I'd like to think that there is an "Earth 2" jimjum12 that grew up on the West Coast and lived within a couple of bus rides of Cherokee Books, etc., etc...... GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

......I remember when Adams X-men cost as much as X-men #1 at shows...... Adams was HOT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Jimjum, West Coast was a wonderful place to be a comic collector in the early '70's. We also had a lot of small comic gatherings at Women's clubs and such. There were plenty of good used book stores as well. Wish you could have been here. Not so much now comic fandom wise...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

was even more wonderful in mid '60s. The pre OPG days were one long discovery of glory that could be procured with 'paper route $'... By early '70s had shifted to collecting any and all PB SF anthologies. Got fun books and a library of the great SF short stories from the golden age... at a cost damned close to 0.

 

bestsf.JPG

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember one early '70s day at Bargain Books in downtown Diego that turned things around with pennies changing hands. I had never read anything BUT SF, and finally bought this.

Well the first story was a great ghost yarn by Theophile Gautier (no longer have book) but “tales of pallid beautiful vampires draining the veins of ardent boys: of lovely faded ghosts of great ladies descending from shadowy tapestries to coquette with romantic dreamers” sums up TG pretty well. Later in book, ‘The Legend of St. Julian’, by Gustave Flaubert, is, in my opinion, one of the half-dozen greatest weird novelettes of all time. (was reprinted in Weird Tales 1928 I think)

Thus began the discoveries of hidden gold in the ‘straight stuff’…

Ahhhhh – thanks for the jog on the nog…

 

pocketfrench.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the things that have changed the most are the prices and paying for autographs. You used to go to the pool at the El Cortez and have people like Kirby, Eisner and others sign your books and tell you stories of the old days. I remember packing 8 people into a hotel room and eating at Denny's so you could spend all your money on comic books. We used to have poker games using comics as chips. If you were lucky, somebody stole some beer from their old man. I have autographs from most all the greats that I just walked up and asked for. Of course now they aren't "authentic" and slabbed but I know better. One of these days I should post some pictures. Sometimes it pays to be old huh Cat?

 

Only if I start charging more for autographs! lol

 

 

 

From my perspective things have changed a lot since the good old days when we packed ourselves into hotel room floor space like cordwood. I'll be the first to admit that I may be a little out of touch with how much frustration younger fans go through today, but I'm still havin' fun, so what do I know...

 

http://www.comicpalooza.com/guests/artists/

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are more smiling faces from Comicpalooza two years ago...

 

bfdf2bbe-2a1e-4655-bb12-cebcecf0f5bc_zps3cbb8e1d.jpg

 

First, Flex Mentallo flexing his mighty mental biceps for the pappirazi (above) :headbang:

 

176ed807-b64c-4692-b153-5f97a38dfb7f_zps1fa6fca9.jpg

 

Followed by the most brilliant legal mind at the booth keeping a genuinely frightened Hulk in line with a toxic crop dusting maneuver that would've made Gator proud!

 

....................I would post more, but that's the last straw. (:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a convention film room shot from the Wayback Machine. I believe that's film collector Hal Crawford behind the paperback...

 

earlyconphotos-29.jpg

 

At San Diego con in the early days, we used to sleep in the film room if we couldn't get or afford a hotel room. They would run films all night and we would slump in the back in the dark. Oh, good times!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
3 3