If you worked at Marvel or DC in the mid-’70s, and were not lucky enough to have connected with a counterpart at your competitor who was willing to trade you a weekly package of all of their company’s comics for those published by your own (as I sadly was not), you surely ended up at Ed Summer’s Supersnipe Comic Book Emporium.

I can’t count the times someone in the Bullpen would cry out, “I’m heading up to Supersnipe” as the day wound down, and we’d march en masse from 575 Madison Avenue to 84th Street and Second Avenue to squeeze into the tiny store (seen above in an image borrowed from Sean Howe’s blog) that was the comics shop of the day. And when I say tiny, I mean it. In my memory, no more than half a dozen people could squeeze inside at a time, as most of the narrow store was behind the counter.

This was long before the Forbidden Planet superstore made its appearance, so early in the history of comics shops, in fact, that it was perhaps the first comics shop in Manhattan, and according to some, the first comics shop in all of New York City. Yes, there were plenty of used magazine and book stores back then that had comics sections, but this was the first store entirely dedicated to them.

Ed named his business after Supersnipe, a comic published in the ’40s about “the boy with the most comic books in the world.” (Something I think we all wanted to be.)

Though I never got to know him well, he was always a friendly guy the multiple times per month I’d see him, and when I’d run into him at NYC-area conventions. We’d only talk comics, so I never learned until later about a whole other side of him, a cinematic side much more important to the wider world. It’s one hinted at by the wonderful photo below, via the 13th Dimension blog.

What’s going on there? Why, it’s just Ed in the ’70s introducing his old friend George Lucas to Frank Frazetta!

But he did a heck of a lot more than make introductions. He was also the associate producer of (and uncredited writer for) Conan the Barbarian, a marketing consultant to both Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope and Phantom of the Paradise, and much more, which I’m sure others will write better about at length.

But to me, he’ll always be the guy who connected me with my fix a couple of times each month, back when I was a newbie to the Marvel Bullpen, and my whole life was in the process of changing.

Thanks for everything, Ed! You’ll be missed.