Imagine that you’re 16 and collapsed in the film room of an early ’70s Phil Seuling Comic-Con, dazed from a day storming the dealers room and attending panels. You’re with your friends enjoying Star Trek bloopers and installments of old Captain Marvel serials and maybe even Bambi Meets Godzilla—

—when all of a sudden you’re staring up at Berni Wrightson’s junk!

Not at all what any of us were expecting from the 1971 experimental short film The Orchid by Samuel R. Delany, now up on YouTube in a restored state thanks to filmmaker Eric Solstein. If you’re patient, in addition to a brief glimpse of Chip himself, you’ll also see such comic-book and SF names as Frank Brunner, George Alec Effinger, Alan Weiss, and Mary Skrenes.

I’m glad for the chance to see this again after all these years, because all my younger self took away from the film at the time was “WTF!” long before any of us ever thought “WTF!” There’s lots of intriguing imagery here beyond the junk of people I was trying to get sketches from back then. I just wasn’t ready to see it.

If you think you’re ready, click away!

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In addition to the Jazzy Johnny Romita and Valiant Val Mayerik originals I picked up in 1974 that I’m currently in the middle of auctioning off to fund next year’s trip to the Melbourne Worldcon, I put four other items on the block today.

Check them out below!

First is the signed and numbered Abyss promotional portfolio with artwork by Berni Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, Bruce Jones, and Mike Kaluta. Those are the Kaluta and Wrightson plates below. I picked up this rare set at a Phil Seuling July 4th con sometime in the early ’70s.

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