Comic book artist Mike Zeck—who drew the Drax the Destroyer/Thanos story I’d written that was published a lifetime ago in Logan’s Run #6, recently uploaded to Facebook some photos he’d taken at the 1971 Phil Seuling 4th of July Comic Art Convention. (They’re here, but unless you’re Facebook friends with him, I don’t think you can see them.)

I enlarged his pics of the dealers room until they were nothing but pixels, because I was on the hunt for a very special photo—one of me and Irene from the years before we met on my first day at work at Marvel Comics. I’ve always hoped that serendipity would deliver to me a photo of us in the same room at some early con, perusing boxes of comics, unaware of each other’s presence, blind to the future that lay ahead.

When I mentioned this to Mike, he sent along his outtakes, and though I didn’t find that Holy Grail of me and Irene, I did come across one photo which included me in the crowd. Check it out below and see if you can spot me.

Did you find me? Probably not. I’m a little … incomplete. So let me give you a hint.

Got it figured it out now?

You’ve all been so well behaved during my recent run of gardening neepery that I feel I owe you something special. So here—unseen as far as I know since it was first published 38 years ago—is Billy Graham’s take on the comics fan scene as printed in the program book for Phil Seuling’s 1972 July 4th weekend Comic Art Convention.

What’s that, you say?

No, of course I don’t mean that Billy Graham. I mean the other Billy Graham, the comic-book artist best known for drawing Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.

Give it a read and start getting in the mood for the San Diego Comic-Con, which is only—gulp!—10 1/2 weeks away!

All I was looking for was a clip of Larry “Bud” Melman greeting passengers at the Port Authority bus terminal with hot towels, but you know the way things work once you get to YouTube. I of course had to click on one of the recommended videos—Johnny Carson’s final TV appearance.

And because that second clip turned out to have been posted by Alan Light—no, not the Spin magazine editor-in-chief Alan Light, but rather the Alan Light who founded The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom—I ran across the fascinating (for those of us who bleed four-color ink) video below.

It turns out that on June 18, 1977, World Color Press held a celebration it called “Magazineland USA.” World Color Press, located in Sparta, Illinois, printed all of the comic books at the time, and when the company threw open its doors for a tour, Light was there with his 8MM sound camera.

When I press my nose close to the screen, I swear I can smell the ink.

Phil Seuling, who ran New York’s early comic conventions, can be seen at the 1:00-mark complaining about how non-fans were mistreating the books he’d brought for sale.

Wish I could have been there!

Last month, I shared a few covers from my 1971 fanzine Call It … Fate—but what’s inside turns out to be a little more important. Flipping through one issue, I found my convention report for the first of Phil Seuling’s Second Sundays, a monthly convention designed to part fans from their money during the gap between Phil’s famed July 4th cons.

Since I haven’t been able to find a write-up of that first Second Sunday anywhere else online, I thought I’d share it here. Though I don’t give the exact date of the event in the text, according to a calendar, it would have taken place November 14.

Here are the best scans I could get off the ancient hectographed pages. (Did I get my terminology right this time, Patrick?)

But since, even after you’ve clicked them several times to view full size, you probably won’t be able to read them easily, I’ve transcribed my 16-year-old self’s fanboy squealing. (Though were we even called fanboys yet back then?) (more…)