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By: Joe Sarno
Chicago had a history of putting on bad
Comic Conventions! Outstanding Science Fiction Conventions, but bad
Comic Conventions. In the early 1970's Nancy Warner had put on four
consecutive Nostalgia shows. The ads for the very first 1972 show read:
"Nostalgia '72, Chicago Comic Con". The 1973 show ads read: "Nostalgia
'73, 2nd Annual Chicago Comic and Nostalgia Convention", and that is
the way it was billed for the next two years.
In early 1976 I was contacted by Nancy
Warner about the possibility of taking over the contract for the 1976
show at the Playboy Towers. She wanted out! I was advised that Leroy
Szidik had also been contacted. At the time Lee was putting on a number
of successful one-day shows in Dolton, Illinois on the far southeast
side of Chicago. It would just be a matter of who said "yes" first.
I had been involved in two consecutive
World Science Fiction Conventions, first one in Chicago in 1962 and
then one in Washington, D.C. in 1963. I had also been involved in a
number of one-day shows and one mini-con in the late 1960's. I knew
what kind of work this would endeavor. So I contacted Larry Charet and
Ross Kight asking if they'd like to help to put on a comic book
convention. Larry had suggested that we bring in Mike Gold as an
advisor and the first meeting was held in my store at 3916 W. Lawrence
Avenue in early March 1976. I had said "yes" first and Nancy Warner
handed over the hotel contract at that time. No money changed hands,
though Nancy offered to sell us the con's mailing list for $500. We
refused, as we wanted to start everything from scratch.
Basically our job was to overcome
Chicago's reputation of being a bad con city. The attendance of the
Nostalgia Con had gone down each year. Starting at about 2,000 people
in 1972 and dropping to under 1,000 by 1975. Dealers from outside
Chicago generally avoided the show because they just couldn't sell
enough to meet expenses.
While I wanted to point Chicago in the
direction of the Detroit Triple Fan Fair (our first flyer for the con
indeed referred to it as a Nostalgia Show), I was voted down by
committee. In these very early stages George Hagenauer was brought in,
and the Comic Auction for the benefit of the Alternative Schools
Network was also born.
Mike Gold, who had plenty of contacts at
D.C., (and that would eventually work for that company), suggested and
helped us in obtaining the appearance of the newly appointed D.C.
Publisher Jenette Kahn. Of course, we had to have Stan Lee! Stan waved
his usual standard fee, and charged us a lower amount for his
appearance. Other special guests that first year included Mike Grell
and Tim Conrad.
Our intention that first year was to
simply put on the best con we could, but we were concerned about the
Playboy Tower facilities which were rather small. So we may have held
back a bit on our advertising. We knew we would probably lose money
that first year and we did.
The following year we signed up for the
larger Pick-Congress Hotel, and brought in Bob Weinberg. We made money
that year, not much but we made money.
In the insuing year my own situation had
changed. I had moved out of Chicago to Des Plaines, a nearby suburb. I
didn't drive and traveling time into Chicago on public transportation
for our monthly (and as the con drew closer, weekly) meetings was
beginning to be a strain on me. Also I had a young family, my kids were
3, 7, and 11 years old, and my store was already taking time away from
them. The convention was then held in August and the last two or three
months before the actual convention was when the most demands were made
on my time. So it was that I decided to bow out at the end of the 3rd
year in favor of Mike Gold.
And finally in reference to our first
flyer on the convention: I had wanted to call the show The Chicago
Comic Art and Nostalgia Convention. Mike Gold and Larry Charet thought
a more succinct name should be used and offered Chicago Comicon. And
that was the humble beginning of what is currently the world's second
largest ongoing comic book convention, which is now called Wizard
World, and held each year at the Rosemont Convention Center.
THE CHICAGO
COLLECTION by Joe Sarno
On a warm, sunny afternoon
(Wednesday, May 28th, 1975) a gentlemen by the name of Bill,
who was in his early 50s came into my store (then known as The
Nostalgia Shop) at 3905 West Lawrence Avenue and showed me a half dozen
early Timely Comics which he was interested in selling. He had with him
a copy of an article that appeared in The Chicago Tribune section in
October 1974 about the store, which is how he found out about me and
the shop. He had also seen a television segment with Shelly Long
that appeared on a local magazine show called SORTING IT OUT in
February 1975, which reinforced his commitment to bring the books to
me. Anyhow, I went out to his car where a large wooden crate took
up most of his trunk space. In the crate were 150 or so Timelys
in file folders, including Captain America # 1, Human Torch #1 (2), and
Marvel Comics # 1. The books were in all in excellent condition
and I told him that he had several thousand dollars worth of books, and
that it would take me a few days to get the money together. We
set a tentative date (which was confirmed by phone a few days later) to
pick up the books and complete the transaction.
My brother Rich and I
traveled into LaPorte, Indiana on June 1st, 1975 with over
$6,000 in cash. We met with Bill and his wife and looked over the
books, which were in file folders in two large wooden crates.
However, two of the books I had seen the previous Wednesday, Marvel
Comics # 1 and Captain America # 1 were not to be found. It seems he
had a lapse of memory or something, and found them in a drawer in his
bedroom. Bill also had fifty or so beautiful movie magazines in
mint condition, some radio premiums and movie posters all from the 1940
1944 time period. I purchased all this material for $5,600.
There were close to 300
comics in the initial buy, and all but a dozen or so could be called
Near Mint to Mint (Ray Beldon, Alan Wong and Bill Welles would see the
books that same day and superlatives like Newstand Mint and Pristine
Mint were bandied about). When we got home my brother using the
Overstreet Price Guide would guide them out at around $21,000, but he
used the mint price for all the books. I later figured that the total
worth at that time was closer to $15,000/$16,000.
As near as I can remember
there were complete runs of just about every Timely title from 1940 to
the 1943/1944 period. He also had about 40 M.L.J.s including the
first seven Archie Comics, and a run of Batman from issue # 3 to #
27. His Mystic Comics run was from #5 thru #10, the Daring
Mystery comics also did not start with # 1. The Marvel Mystery
Comic run ended around issue # 56 (though may have been higher, as I am
working from memory and here it is 25 years later).
I sold some of the books
that same day (June 1st) as a number of Chicago collectors
were made aware of the fact that this deal was coming down, and waiting
at my house for us to arrive with the books (it was a Sunday).
Among the primary purchasers of the Marvel Mystery Comics was Bill
Welles, and George Olshevsky would later purchase many of the books
from him. (Bill came into my store a few years ago and gave me 5
X 8 color photos that he had taken of the first 17 issues that he owned
from that run though a different #1 was purchased by him after the
initial buys). Ray Beldon got many of the Batmans and Larry
Charet, Alan Wong and Ross Kight purchased several of the Captain
Americas (and its possible that Alan Wong may still have some of these
books). A young man by the name of Bob Troch, whose father owned
Troch Fuel Company in Chicago, would later buy some of the higher
numbered Marvel Mystery Comics and I understand that he sold some of
these in New York around 1985. The mint run of Archie Comics were
sold to a Professor Emerson who I believe was teaching at M.I.T. at the
time. The Captain America # 1 was sold to a store owner named
Terry who owned Unicorn Comics in Villa Park around 1990. I
under-stand that he has since sold the book. I also sold a
Captain America # 2 from this collection about the same time to a young
man named Jim Shude, who sold it a few months later at Chicago Comicon
when he was innocently showing it to the Sparkle City people and asking
about restoration work. This book was only V.G. and I sold it to
him for $600. Jim sold it at this convention for a grand.
Of course many of the books
were sold to George Olshevsky, whom I met at Phil Seulings July 4
convention in 1975. George would eventually buy my Marvel Mystery
# 1 (which was in good + condition, as a piece of the front cover was
missing). He made at least three trips by motorcycle from Canada
in 1975 and 1976 to purchase my books and would eventually purchase the
early Marvel Mystery Comics from Bill Welles.
But now, as the famous
local news commentator would say, here is The Rest of the Story!
Bill came from a fairly well-to-do family in LaPorte, Indiana where his
father owned an appliance store. His father had given him an old
filling cabinet, and it was in this that he kept his comics and other
treasures. Bill enlisted in the army in late 1944, and was
eventually sent to the European theater. When he returned he
started dating, got married, and got involved with his fathers
business. When his mother died in 1974 he was going through her
personal affects and found that she had been paying storage charges lo
these many years. When he went to check this out he found the two
large wooden crates full of his old comics. I must point out the
unique manner in which Bill stored his comics. The books were all
filed by title and month. Therefore when you pulled the first
file of Marvel Mystery Comics you found the November 1939, 1940, 1941,
1942, 1943 issues in that first folder. The December issues in
the next, the January issues in the next. The Marvel Comics # 1
was one of the few books that wasn't in mint condition, but he had
originally obtained that book from a friend in order to complete the
run.
It should be noted here
that I was a very serious collector in 1975, but had begun trimming
down some of my collection by first selling all my
Big-Little-Books. It was very tempting to add these books to my
collection, which would have given me about 75 duplicate comics to sell
and recoup my investment. It was a difficult decision to make,
but I decided to sell this decision was based on a number of personal
reasons. In retrospect I have only one thing I would have
changed, and that was that I wished I had taken photographs of all the
books, and catalogued them before beginning to sell them.
Something I routinely do today.
Bill came into my store a
few more times with material to sell. The first time was about a
year later (I was in a larger store located and 3716 W. Lawrence
Avenue), and he brought a stack of girlie magazines such as Titter,
Flirt and Wink from the late 1940s (many with Peter Dribben
covers). There was also a Red Raven # 1 (in about V.G.) and a
couple of Fiction House comics. About a year later he brought in
a couple of boxes of soft porn novels from the same late 1940s period,
and a dozen more books including some M.L.J.s from the 1942-43 period,
and a Mystic # 3 and #4 all in about V.G. plus (though the pages as
always were white). In all I purchased about 320 comic books from
Bill. Today the collection would probably be worth a quarter of a
million dollars, and possibly more. heavy
sigh!
Im working from memory, but here is what I think was in
this buy. Complete runs: All Select Comics 1 & 2; All
Winners 1 11; Archie Comics 1 7; Batman 3 27; Captain America 1 34;
Daring Comics 6 & 7 (?); Human Torch 2 14; Kid Komics 1 4 (?);
Marvel Mystery Comics 1 54; Mystic Comics 5 10; Sub-Mariner
Comics 1 13; Tough Kid Squad # 1; U.S.A. Comics 1 11; Young
Allies 1 11. In the case of Captain America, Human
Torch, Marvel Mystery, Sub-Mariner, U.S.A. and Young Allies I am
guessing at the top number, as I know Bill went into the service
sometime in 1944. I definitely remember the All Select, Archies,
Batmans, and Mystics, but Im not sure of Kid Komics and Daring.
There were also a good number of M.L.J. titles, but with the exception
of Archie there were no runs as near as I can recall. These included
Zip Comics, Pep Comics, Jolly Jingles, Zip Comics, Top Notch Comics,
Jackpot, Shield-Wizard Comics, and Blue Ribbon Comics. Specific
numbers recalled by Ray Beldon include Zip Comics # 17, Top Notch
Comics 8 and 9, Jackpot Comics 1 & 4, and Pep Comics # 17.
Ray also remembers a couple of Fox titles including Science Comics and
Weird Comics, though I have no memory of them being in this group. Alan
Wong and Larry Charet may remember them, and Ill check on them at a
later date.
* S A R N O ' S L A W S *
Ten Commandments _and/or 10 Rules of Acquisition
1)
Keep prices reasonable and keep them uniform. We don't need every
excuse in the world to raise a price for one issue (really
there is nothing special about issue # 25, 50 or
75, so keep those prices the same as the previous issue).
2)
Keep family titles limited. How about just two Spider-man and
Batman titles each month, and maybe only three or four X-titles.
We certainly don't need another Superman or Spawn title, either.
3)
No Gimmicks! No glitzy covers, multiple covers, die cut covers,
etc., and no issue 0's or 1/2's. And retailer incentives are mostly not
an incentive in a marketplace that has seen sales (and stores) halved
in the past 10 years.
4)
No off size comics (digests, treasuries and the like). Comics
should be the standard 7 1/2 by 10 1/4 inches.
5)
Monthly books that are on time. We don't need weekly's, indeed,
if a publisher solicits more than one issue of a book in a month, avoid
it like the plague! Ideally a comic should be published 12 times
a year, be on time, and arrive four to five weeks apart.
6)
Comic books are best in, and should be, Full Color. All comics,
even black and whites should have full color covers.
7)
Discounts of at least 45% and full returns on the first three issues of
any comic, including mini-series.
8)
Mini series are out! And mini series after mini series after mini
series are verboten.
9)
A minimum of 32 pages per comic, and at least 24 pages of art and
story. We don't need pinups and double splash pages. If
we're paying two or three bucks for a comic it should take at lest five
minutes to read.
10)
And Sarno's First Law (ask Mike Gold about that) is now the last.
Comics should be numbered at the top of the cover and preferably in the
left hand corner.
Ten years ago at a Diamond Retailers meeting
in Lincolnwood, Illinois, and I passed out these 10 "Laws" to all the
publishers that attended. In the ensuing 10 years these laws were
not only broken, they were fractured and stomped on,
and totally ignored. And maybe that's why the comic
industry is in the trouble it's in today.
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