Super Stuff in the Bronze Age

Monday, May 23, 2022

Searching for comics in Portsmouth, 1970s style: Part One

This is Part One of an on-going series dedicated to those wonderful newsagent shops of our misspent youth

Map derived from © Google

by Nigel Brown, Ian Baker, and…. we invite others to add to these recollections of hunting comics in Pompey!

“It’s been eleven years since we first posted an item on hunting for comics in Portsmouth in the 1970s (The Mad DC Comic Hunt July 2011). Enough new information has now come to light to enable us to revisit those golden days of the Bronze Age.

“Our cruel fate, as pupils of Portsmouth Grammar School in those less enlightened times, was to endure three compulsory hours of Saturday morning school, ending at 12 noon. On the upside, our limited rugby and cricket sporting skills exempted us from Saturday afternoon sport. This enabled us to undertake our own, out-of-school, enthusiastic cycling activity where the route was marked out by possible sources of comics, old and new.

“Our bicycles weren’t the mechanistic marvels of today, with their electronic shifting, lightweight carbon frames, disc brakes and high performance tyres. Clunky heavy frames resting on thick rubber tyres were the order of the day.

[ Comment from Ian: “This was true for me until my 14th birthday in July 1973, when I became the proud owner of a green Carlton Corsa racing bike, which opened up the prospect of cycling further afield, beyond Portsea Island”.]

“We would empty our school haversacks of schoolbooks and other detritus (a weekly purge that perhaps other schoolboys did not benefit from), arm ourselves with the week’s pocket money – in my case 60p (about £ 8.50 in 2022 value) – and set off on our quest.

“Thinking about it now, we probably did more exercise biking around Portsmouth on Saturday afternoons than if we had been press-ganged onto the school’s rugby or cricket ground!

“Our route was determined from our starting-off point. From my parent’s house in Ashburton Road, on the western side of Southsea, we would head towards Castle Road, then northwards to take in Gibbs in New Road, with the farthest target being North End with the shop close to Angerstein Road. We would then sweep down southwards, in an easterly direction to check out the shops on the eastern flank of Portsea Island, ending up at Ian’s parent’s house in Nettlecombe Avenue on the eastern side of Southsea. If we set out from there, the route was in reverse, back to Ashburton Road.

“Our reward for this effort was ever-growing comic collections. In those days, just over a decade after the debut of the first Marvel Silver Age comics, to come across a ten-year-old comic (not impossible) meant finding early issues of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the like, on offer for one to three pence each (14p to 42p in 2022 value). Alas, we tended to stick to what we perceived as ‘the titles we collected’ and thus many an early issue now sold for hundreds of pounds was spurned in place of the odd mundane DC bought just to ‘fill-a-gap’.

“Nevertheless, that wasn’t the point. The point was that it was all great fun at the time.” – Nigel

For clarity, we have divided up Portsea Island (a rough vertical oval shape) into different sectors, as shown on the map at the top of this page.

The southern area is below the A2030, and the vertical midline consists of that made up by Lawrence Road, Waverly Road and Fawcett Road.

We start our journey in the South East sector; [you'll need to click on the map below to see the locations of our key stops in this blog entry]

South-East

Stop #1: The Book Exchange, 26 Devonshire Avenue, Southsea

The shops’ attraction was that it had a high turnover of second-hand comics, and had a great selection of paperbacks. Considering the number of comics we got there I am now surprised that we did not bump into other local comic collectors.

“This was a second-hand bookshop that we frequented more than any other place in the 1975/76 period. It was run by an elderly couple. The husband seemed to suffer from emphysema, and passed away around 1975. According to commentary on 'Memories of Bygone Portsmouth', his name was Mr. Smart.

"I picked up my first Doc Savage paperback there, #7 The Monsters. It was the worst possible condition - creased, water-stained - but I was captivated by the iconic logo and superb cover by James Bama” – Ian

Stop #2 : Small Newsagents and grocery in Cromwell Road, opposite Eastney Royal Marine Barracks

The Shop was on the far right of this photo

"I first became aware of this shop in the late 1960s as a place where a loaf and a pint of milk could be bought on a Sunday evening, in those days when Sunday shopping was tightly regulated. My Dad was a model steam locomotive enthusiast, and often we would return from his model engineering society in Southampton on a Sunday evening to pick up some provisions. The spinner rack was just inside the door on the right. The shop’s claim to fame is that you can almost see it in the film ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ in an early scene set inside the entrance of Eastney Royal Marine Barracks.

“I got Shazam #1 and early issues of Swamp Thing there, more notably issues #1 and #7, and early DC Shadows by Mike Kaluta.” – Ian

“That shop was a little out of our way, but was worth the effort. I recall it would have DCs for sale that we didn’t often see elsewhere. Perhaps it was because others were snapping up those comics in the other shops before we got to them, leaving us to find the more commonly distributed titles in Albert Road and the larger newsagents.” – Nigel

Stop #3: Post Office/Newsagents, Highland Rd, somewhere on the block between Adair Rd and Kassassin Street

The block in the photo was a neat little row of shops back in the 1970s, one of which was a newsagents, and another was a second hand shop. We're unable to determine which shops exactly with the distance of 50 years. Portsmouth was so full of second-hand shops in those days; they could be a goldmine for a comic collector.

“I believe that the shop was actually a joint Post Office/Newsagents, opposite the old Police Station in Highland Road." - Geoff

"I picked up a Bantam Doc Savage paperback #20 ('Secret In The Sky') in a second-hand shop along that row on Tuesday April 20th, 1976. It was the Easter holidays and I was enjoying a run of finding "Doc's" in various second-hand shops that week, locating numbers 14, 21 and 22 elsewhere in the city." - Ian

Stop #4. I.D. Williams, Newsagents 109 Highland Rd, between the Gravediggers Arms and the corner of Winter Road

"I think I went to this shop because schoolfriend Paul Thompson (who lived in Essex Rd) made me aware of it. It was one of two local shops for him, the other being Southsea Newsagents at 161 Winter Rd. Like most of our comic haunts, this was a DC shop. I have no special memories of it." - Ian

Stop #5: T.E. King – Newsagent – 6 Highland Road, Southsea

T.E. King - the shop with the green shutter today

“This was the location of my first exposure to American Comics in the 1964/65 timeframe. I used to go there every week with my Dad where he used to pay his paper bill, and buy me a copy of ‘Treasure’ when I was aged 3-5, and then ‘Ranger’, ages 6 plus, which later amalgamated with ‘Look & Learn’. All the American Comics at 10d each were hanging on clothes-pegs from wires strung across the ceiling. They were colourful and out of reach. I distinctly remember seeing a Jimmy Olsen comic with a large T&P 10d stamp printed on the cover.

“This must have been around the time when Batman trading cards came out, and my Dad would buy me a packet from The Cabin tobacconist and sweetshop just further along Highland Road.

“I suppose the Batman TV craze got me interested in Batman comics, and I think I collected comics in the range of Batman #186-200 starting around then (Nov 1966 – March 1968), before losing interest and collecting Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 cards, and getting Fantastic and Terrific each week. It wasn’t until after I met Paul Thompson at PGS when we were in the 3rd Form that I started getting interested in comics again, as he was a great Superman fan. I got back into comics around Batman # 233 (July 1971).” – Ian

“I remember this being a major stop on our route, as there was always such a large and reliable stock of DCs for sale, and it was fairly close to your house on Nettlecombe Avenue. I think they had two spinner racks of comics. I distinctly recall being outraged when, at these racks, I first saw that DC comics were now priced at the princely sum of seven and a half-pence each!

“On the plus side, I did buy the classic Batman # 251 Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil ‘The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge’ at this newsagent in the summer of 1973.” – Nigel

Stop #6: W.T. Churchill, 3 Festing Buildings, Highland Rd, same side as Fine Fare, opposite The Festing pub [The shop was originally 5 Highland Rd]

“A DC shop, this is now a ‘One Stop’, I think. I remember getting knocked over by a woman on a push-bike as I ran across Highland Road to see the latest comics. The tale is recounted in this blog at http://superstuff73.blogspot.com/2020/12/key-comic-book-memories-justice-league.html . On that occasion I ended up with JLA #99, but I previously remember getting JLA # 94 (Jan 1972) there, where most of the art was by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella, but Neal Adams drew each page with Deadman on it.” – Ian

Stop #7: Gardener’s Newsagents at 164 Albert Road opposite Tesco

“A DC shop, always the first shop to get comics on the last Thursday of the month. The first comic I bought there was Batman #233 (Batman Giant), immediately to be followed by those Batmans in the range # 234 onwards, which of course were the best Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil issues. Funny how you could always guarantee getting Batmans and Supermans and World’s Finests there, whereas some of the more obscure newsagents hidden away in Eastney seemed to have the more obscure DC titles. I have strong memories of seeing World's Finest #207 and Action #406 on the spinner rack.

"This newsagent was owned by Mrs King. I had a paper round there in the 1975/76 timeframe.” – Ian

Well, that wraps up Part 1 of this journey around the newsagents of Portsmouth & Southsea in the 1970s.

We'll post Part 2 in a while. In the meantime, if any readers have memories of comic collecting in Portsmouth, please add to the comments section below.

Thanks! Nigel & Ian

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Man-Bat Madness - Neal Adams as Colourist

Neal Adams is justly celebrated as pre-eminent comics penciller and inker of his generation, but his talent as a colourist is often overlooked. The power of a colourist to set and change the mood of a comic story is not generally recognised ; there are some great talents today (Jacob Philips’ exemplary work on That Texas Blood comes immediately to mind, as does Greg Smallwood’s current work on The Human Target mini-series) whose colouring skills raise the quality of the underlying pencils to new heights.

But back in the Bronze Age, the colourist was often not credited. And that was the case with Detective Comics #416, Man-Bat Madness, written and drawn by Frank Robbins, and coloured by Neal Adams.

Adams and Robbins had jointly created Man-Bat with editor Julie Schwartz , and until this point Adams had pencilled each story in Detective Comics featuring Batman’s misunderstood foe. When Frank Robbins wanted to pencil his new Man-Bat story, Adams volunteered to color the issue.

The was to be the last time that Neal Adams worked on Detective Comics in any capacity until 2014, and for my money, is the best, most evocative coloring job on a Batman story in the Bronze Age. As far as I’m aware, it is the only time Adams is credited as coloring another artist’s work in the Bronze Age. I absolutely love the color scheme - greens and yellows and grays with splashes of red - which really add to the eerie vibe of the story.

I remember being shocked and dismayed to open Detective Comics #416 in 1971 and saw artwork that I then considered a mess, so far removed from the lithe athleticism of Adams’ own pencils. The subsequent letters page in Detective Comics #420 commenting on this issue pretty much split 50/50 for and against Frank Robbins’ artwork, and the editorial response to one letter pointed out that Adams had colored the issue. At the time, I sided with those deploring Robbins’s style, but now I see it as so revolutionary, Robbins’ pencils and inks so full of life and dynamism, and understand how the colour choices added so much to the mood of the comic image.

I think the page above is my favourite image. This page of Batman pursuing Man-Bat on the Gotham subway is a prime example. Batman highlighted in the yellow glow of the subway car is particularly striking.

Robbins went on to draw four more issues of Detective Comics in the Bronze Age, plus one more unpublished Batman story - a drugs issue - but the coloring never again reached the heights of Detective #416.

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Unpublished Comics Unlimited #38 cover

Back in middle of 1976 Alan Austin mentioned that he was planning to do a Sword & Sorcery special edition of his monthly fanzine Comics Unlimited, along the lines of the previous Batman and Shadow specials. If you remember, the early to mid 1970s had experienced a resurgence of the Sword & Sorcery genre, on the heels of interest sparked by the Lancer(US) and Sphere(UK) paperback editions of Robert E Howard’s original stories, and subsequent new content by Lin Carter and L Sprague de Camp.

This interest was most visible in the comics world through the Conan, Ka-Zar, Savage Tales and Savage Sword of Conan books from Marvel.

Ultimately Alan decided to abandon the project of devoting an entire issue of C.U. to the subject, for fear of alienating some of the readers; he gave his reasons in the editorial of Comics Unlimited #39.

However, prior to that decision Alan had asked our SuperStuff pal Geoff Cousins to submit a draft cover for the subsequently abandoned edition. We'd all had some success at having our artistic swipes accepted as spot illos in Comics Unlimited, but here was Alan asking for a cover submission from Geoff!

I came across Geoff’s original submission in the SuperStuff files (Alan had returned the artwork to me for some reason) which I have published below for the first time anywhere!

Conan © Conan Properties International. Original cover drawn for Comics Unlimited #38

I decided to try colouring it for my own amusement, which I have included below. (Geoff has approved this).

Conan © Conan Properties International. Colourised cover for C.U. #38

Conan © Conan Properties International - alternate colourisation by IEB

So, in an alternate timeline, this might have been the cover of Comics Unlimited #38.

Monday, May 9, 2022

Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention - Con Report

It’s been thirteen years since I last attended the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, one of the premier cons in the US that focuses on pulps and related ephemera. It’s a big 3-day event held at the upmarket Westin hotel in Lombard, in the Chicago suburbs. Since it was a beautiful Spring day on Saturday (May7th 2022) I decided to head over to Lombard to see how the con had changed since I last attended in 2008.

I had paid $25 for a 1-day membership, which entitled me to attend the dealers rooms, the panel discussions, the films on show, and the painting gallery. A 3-day membership cost $35.

Upon arriving my welcome back contained a copy of Windy City Pulp Stories #21, an annual book published especially for the con by Black Dog books of Normal, Illinois. In addition to reprinting some rare pulp stories by Dashiell Hammett and Robert E Howard and others,it lead with a very interesting historical essay by Will Murray on the Fall and Rise of Fiction House, a prime mover in the transition of the sedate dime novel to the fast adventure stories of the pulps. The idea of this book, providing content and context to stimulate further interest in the hobby seems a very sound one to me, and could be transferred to the comic-con world as well.

I spent a very enjoyable few hours wandering around the dealer tables. What struck me immediately about a Pulp con (as opposed to a Comic-Con) was the both the attendees and dealers are in general significantly older than their Comic-Con counterparts. These are people who probably first encountered pulps through the 1960s and 1970s reprints of Doc Savage, The Shadow, Conan, Tarzan and that stimulated their passion for those characters, which in turn made them seek out the original pulps.

Entering the main ballroom, at first glance it seems similar to a comic mart, but this time the long boxes are full of pulps in Mylar bags. Immaculate pulps are displayed on stands and it is quite a sight to see the bright painted covers of The Shadow by George or Jerome Dozen on display, along with the Spider and The Avenger, amongst others.

The Adventure House dealer's table.

Part of the Adventure House stand.

Of course, copies of Astounding Stories and other seminal SF pulps are also to be found alongside the more character-driven pulps.

In addition there were quite a selection of Golden Age comics from a few dealers, along with a good selection of DC and Marvel comics from the 1970s that featured comic adaptations of famous pulp characters (eg Ka-Zar, Conan, John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, etc) .

But it is not all pulps. Mass-market paperbacks from the 1960s and 1970s were also on sale - those cheap sci-fi and cheap-thrill paperbacks with frequently sleazy covers that really filled the vacuum left by the pulps after they died in the late 1940s.

A typical $2 box

I saw no price gouging at all. There were a few slabbed CGI-authenticated pulps but usually valuable stock was displayed in the usual Mylar bags, and available for inspection. Comics for sale were in the $3-$5 range. I saw good quality Doc Savage Bantam paperbacks for sale as low as $1 each. People were there to enjoy themselves and meet old friends.

I wound up having an enjoyable discussion with Will Murray (foremost authority on Doc Savage and the writer of a score of Doc Savage novels since the 1990s, writing under the original house name of Kenneth Robeson). Mr Murray is in process of arranging the publishing of a revised and updated version of his “Duende History of the Shadow”, a book I first bought back in 1979. I’ll be first in line to get the revised book. For anyone interested in the history of the pulps, I can particularly recommend three of Mr Murray’s non-fiction books - “Writings in Bronze” (essays on Doc Savage), “The Rise of The Shadow” (essays focusing on the background to the character and the original radio show), and “Wordslingers” (a history of the Western pulp, which I found fascinating).

I ended up buying a few old Avenger paperbacks for the re-acquisition nostalgia value, a couple of 1970s “Weird Heroes” anthologies by Byron Preiss, and two of the most recent Doc Savage novels by Will Murray. I returned home a happy man.

Part of my haul.

So, it was a very enjoyable morning and afternoon. I did not get the opportunity to return in the evening for the Saturday panel sessions (the son of artist Norman Saunders - famed for his Mars Attacks and Batman trading card paintings - was due to run a session), but I will be sure to return next year.

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Three boys and three typewriters: the secret origin of SuperStuff

[Thanks to regular commenter McScotty for posing the question...."Was SuperStuff a real fanzine?" My good pal Nigel Brown, co-editor, co-founder of this blog, and regular columnist, took up the challenge of telling the SuperStuff story... ]

by Nigel Brown

It was Ian Baker’s idea to do our own comics fanzine. I came up with the name SuperStuff, no doubt inspired by my favourite comic book character.

We’ve already described how it was, fifty years ago, when we hunted down American comics books all over Portsea Island (‘Mad DC Comic Hunt’ and ‘Comics Shops in Portsmouth (Upcoming blog entry)’).

To set that time in context, that was just before Marvel decided to enter the UK comics market with their own comics (they had earlier allowed reprints in Fantastic, Terrific, Pow! Wham! and Smash! comics in the late 1960s).The Mighty World of Marvel # 1, a UK comic, arrived in September 1972. This was successful enough for them to follow it up early the next year, with the appearance of Spider-Man Comics Weekly #1 in February 1973. (I remember we were pretty scornful of these comics when they first appeared, comparing them to the full colour and up-to-date American originals that were still available in newsagents, and as back-issues in second-hand shops.)

A more epoch-defining event in the SuperStuff story occurred that following Easter, on April 22nd 1973, when Ian Baker received his first issue of Alan Austin’s Fantasy Unlimited #14, having seen an advert for it in Exchange & Mart.

I subscribed soon after, and together with Ian we began to send postal orders off for back-issue comics to ‘fill those gaps’ in our comic collections.

It took another year before we produced our own comics fanzine.

Shang-Chi swipe © Marvel. The rest © SuperStuff.

SuperStuff #1 debuted in May/June 1974 (with an optimistic March cover date). It was, frankly, the best imitation of Fantasy Unlimited that we could manage… but so what? We had tremendous fun doing it. If we could have only transferred a small part of our enthusiasm onto our schoolwork I’m certain our schoolteachers would have been impressed by our diligence and energy!

As Alan Austin has described himself in his book about his life in comics (Comics Unlimited: My life as a Comic Collector and Dealer ), a major problem with producing fanzines is the duplication required for any kind of wide circulation.

Alan himself eventually solved this problem by acquiring a second-hand Gestetner Roneo No.2 duplicator. We never got that far, using two pieces of carbon paper with our typewriters to produce three copies in total of our own fanzine. Three sheets of carbon paper rendered the last page too faint to be legible. (Ian recalls experimenting with four carbon papers, but he had to hit the keys on his old Remington typewriter so hard that his Dad would call upstairs: “Stop that racket!”)

After the debut of SuperStuff #1, we were away. A second issue followed shortly afterwards.

Although I was the ‘editor’ of the first issue, in truth it was a total joint effort. We would each type up our own pages, then put them all together to make up the fanzine.

Once SuperStuff was established, it became an outlet for our creative energies and we produced further issues down the years. Some I produced wholly by myself, others were typed out by Ian and our other comics-collecting friend, Geoff Cousins. A healthy rivalry developed between us, leading to greater efforts to produce bigger and better fanzines, although still with circulations of three!

At least we knew our readership.

The SuperStuff contents were a mixture of comic and science fiction paperback reviews, along with some original fiction and articles (many of which were swiped from sources as varied as other fanzines, the comics themselves and, as I recall, even The Radio Times). We did come up with the odd original article, or took what was there and rewrote much of it to fit in with our own opinions.

Ian remembers that the paper we used for SuperStuff originally came from school, so the most expensive outlay was the carbon paper and the photocopies (5p) for the covers, first done at the Portsmouth Main Post Office, then later in the Main Library by Portsmouth Guildhall.

Here’s what we produced; see the end of this blog entry for a selected list of the contents of each issue.

SuperStuff covers #1-#10. Characters © their respective publishers

I was pleased enough with SuperStuff #7 to send one of my precious copies to Alan Austin. He wrote back with a encouraging letter (that I published in the letter column of SuperStuff #9) but – more importantly – he asked if I had any material he could use for his own fanzine, by then named Comics Unlimited. I sent him a reworked article I’d written for my other fanzine Fantastic Voyages #2 (A Chronology of the Planet of the Apes), and he published it as the cover article in Comics Unlimited #36 (May 1976).

Planet of the Apes Chronology republished in Comics Unlimited #36

This was the second SuperStuff era-inspired article to see print in another fanzine. Previously, I’d had an article I’d written in SuperStuff # 1 (about Kirby’s 4th World) appear in the fanzine Eon #2 (May/July 1975).

EON #2 reprinted the Kirby 4th World article from SS #1

Geoff Cousins had a contribution published in one of Alan Austin’s fanzines, with a Silver Surfer illo in Fantasy Unlimited #27 (June 1975), and he also drew a Conan cover (unpublished) for Alan Austin's abandoned Sword & Sorcery issue of Comics Unlimited, which would have been #38.

Not that Ian Baker’s name was lacking in Fantasy Unlimited, either. He often contributed a wide range of interesting questions to the popular ‘We Want Information’ feature that Alan Austin ran.

Looking back, Ian notes now that we pretty much achieved our aim of producing a new SuperStuff every school holidays from March 1974 to May 1976, which covered eight issues.

1974 to 1976 was really the heyday of our fanzine-producing, but I decided to produce a SuperStuff swansong in 1984.

By then, I had access to Alan Austin’s own Gestetner 160 in the basement of his Islington shop, Heroes. He was generous with his time and patience and, along with his encouragement and advice, I managed to print enough copies of SuperStuff #11 (August 1984) to go on sale to the public.

We had begun SuperStuff as an imitation of Alan’s own Fantasy Unlimited fanzine, and now I determined to make this final SuperStuff a true tribute, printed on the same hallowed machine that had printed Fantasy Unlimited.

The main feature was an interview with Alan himself. I also was lucky enough to commission an original Baragrin strip for SuperStuff, generously provided by Patrick Marcel and Jean-Daniel Breque. SuperStuff #11 also featured articles by Ian Baker and others such as the leading Portsmouth Star Trek fan and founder of S.T.I.G. (Star Trek Information Group), Ross Carter.

Alan Austin sold SuperStuff #11 in his shop Heroes, and Paul Hudson in Comics Showcase was also kind enough to allow a box of SuperStuff for sale on his shop counter in Covent Garden.

I can’t recall how many were sold, but an issue has turned up on eBay. If anyone still has a copy I’d advise them to hold onto it as one of the rarest genuine fanzines of that era!

That was intended to be the end of the SuperStuff story, but thanks to advances in technology since those days, SuperStuff has come alive again as the blog Superstuff73… as much fun to produce, I admit, as those type-written carbon-copied fanzines of yesteryear.

©Nigel Brown

List of SuperStuff issues 1-10

SuperStuff # 1

March 1974 cover date (May/June 1974 interior date)

Nigel Brown editor. Nigel Brown, Ian Baker contents

This featured articles on Kirby’s 4th World, World’s Finest Comics, Marvel’s Shang-Chi and various comic indexes, ending on a page with our spare comics for sale.

SuperStuff #2

April 1974. Nigel Brown editor. Nigel Brown, Ian Baker contents

This featured a Neal Adams biography, along with articles on C.C.Beck, DC’s Plop!, Marvel’s Iron Fist, and a feature on the best Batman artists.

SuperStuff # 3

Summer 1974. Ian Baker editor. Ian Baker, Geoff Cousins contents

This issue was more TV orientated, with an interview with Burt Ward of the Batman TV series and a piece on Star Trek, alongside articles about Iron Man, Robert E. Howard and a biography of Walter Gibson.

SuperStuff # 4

March/April 1975. Ian Baker editor. Nigel Brown, Ian Baker, Geoff Cousins contents

This had articles about the origins of some Marvel super-heroes, Kirby’s Forever People and an interview with Arthur C. Clarke.

SuperStuff # 5

July/August 1975. Ian Baker editor

We featured Kirby’s O.M.A.C., Ditko’s The Creeper, the best way to store comics, and an index of the first Bantam paperbacks reprinting Doc Savage pulps.

SuperStuff # 6 (incorporating Nigel’s separate fanzine Fantastic Voyages # 3)

April 1976. Ian Baker & Nigel Brown editors & contents

This issue continued the Bantam Doc Savage paperback index, a retyping of a Batman TV series script, as well as an article about The Spectre.

SuperStuff # 7

April 1976. Nigel Brown editor & contents.

This was a Superman Special, featuring articles about the Golden Age Superman, a comprehensive origin of Krypton and Superman, as well as the second part of The Spectre article.

SuperStuff # 8

May/June 1976. Ian Baker & Geoff Cousins editors & some contents

This issue featured the changing images of women in comic books, along with articles about Red Sonja, the origin of The Batman, and the Alan Dean Foster Star Trek paperbacks.

SuperStuff # 9

July 1978. Nigel Brown editor & contents.

This featured articles about comic back-issue prices, the new super-hero TV series (one starring Wonder Woman, the other The Hulk), and an index of SuperStuff issues 1 to 8,

SuperStuff # 10

July 1980. Nigel Brown editor & contents

This slimmer issue featured comic and book reviews.

We also produced our own fanzines separately, towards the end of 1975:

Fantastic Voyages #1

August 1975. Nigel Brown editor.

Similar mix of contents to SuperStuff, with opinion column, comic information feature and comic quiz.

Fantastic Voyages # 2

Autumn 1975. Nigel Brown editor

Similar mix of contents to SuperStuff, with a Planet of the Apes chronology, Denny O’Neil interview.

The Light of Other Days #1

Autumn 1975. Ian Baker editor

An intended mix of Science Fiction paperback reviews and discussions of Black & White SF comics. This never got beyond the "ashcan" stage.

The Light of Other Days and Other Worlds

Winter 1975. Geoff Cousins editor

Amazing Science Fiction Stories # 1

April 1976. Nigel Brown editor & contents

Science fiction.

SuperStuff Special #1

September 1979. Ian Baker editor & contents.

An original Shadow story.

Friday, April 29, 2022

Meeting Neal Adams

[With the sad news today of Neal Adams’ passing at age 80, I thought I’d post this piece I’ve been holding back for a while. baggsey (Ian)]

My good chum Nigel Brown tells me that we first met Neal Adams in Forbidden Planet at their old premises in Denmark Street, London on June 16th 1979 at a signing that Neal Adams was doing to promote a Ms Mystic art portfolio. Nigel reminds me that we had to queue around the block to get in. My mate Geoff Cousins tells me the same thing ; that he has a note in his pocket diary from those days that we headed to London on June 16th 1979 and met the great man himself. Nigel relates how Neal signed one of his comics.

I have no strong memory of any of this. Well, perhaps an inkling of remembrance of the queue outside the shop. I have no idea why. Okay - at that time I was approaching twenty and my interest in comics had waned considerably, and I was getting into pulps and private detective fiction, but surely I would remember meeting Neal Adams? Surely I got something signed by him? But I have only the vaguest memory of it, and even the photo that Forbidden Planet published in their 40th anniversary magazine (reproduced above) does not trigger a strong memory.

So it was 30 years later, on the evening of Friday Oct 16th, 2009 that I came across an ad that the New York Comic Con was being held at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC over the next 2 days (I’d already missed opening day ), and on a whim I resolved to head to New York City the following Saturday morning on the off-chance that I could meet my teenage idol Neal Adams. I’d heard that he was working on a new Batman comic in collaboration with Frank Miller (which would eventually be Batman Odyssey (sans Miller)), and thought that this might be my one chance to meet the guy.

American Airlines had a promotion for return tickets from Chicago to New York for $69 return from O’Hare to La Guardia, so I took the plunge. I could get up early, drive to the airport, get a 6:30am flight, head to the con, have lunch, and be back home that evening. I mentioned my intentions to both sons (aged 17 and 15 at the time) and they voiced their desire to accompany their middle aged Dad (presumably to stop me getting lost).

So the following morning at quarter past 10am all three of us, having landed in New York, found ourselves in a taxi traveling past Long Island City and by 11:25am, I was shaking hands with the great man himself.

It happened this way.

When we got to the con, the doors had already opened, and as we entered the complex we were confronted by crowds of people in cosplay milling around. There were multiple Rorschachs (remember this was the year of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen).

Almost immediately I was button-holed by a number of art dealers who pressed their business cards on me (presumably assuming I was in the business). Although the NYCC is probably still the largest comic con on the East Coast (and probably has the largest number of well-known dealers) it is increasingly dominated by individuals in costume who have trouble discerning the line between reality and fantasy. This makes for an uneasy mix of professional artists and writers, long-time dealers and hordes of people for whom the Marvel and DC films dominate their waking hours (but have little interest in the comics themselves).

Anyway, having spent a while looking at original art on display behind glass display cases, we headed further into the arena along celebrity row, where actors of cult TV shows had individual booths.

We passed David Hedison of “Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea” fame in his own booth standing next to a model of the Nautlius on display. I didn’t ask if he’d made it himself.

Jackson Bostwick (Captain Marvel from the 1977 “Shazam!” TV series) looked lonely and depressed in his booth, with no-one stopping by. It probably didn’t help that he was lounging back on an orange plastic chair with his feet propped on the low fence at the front of the booth.

Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) was grinning, flexing his biceps, and posing with fans for photographs. Seemed a very approachable guy.

Silver haired, sharp-suited Jim Steranko was being interviewed in the main lobby by Mickey Dolenz of Monkees fame (wearing Pork-Pie hat) for a news segment.

Adam West, Julie Newmar and Adam West’s son were setting up their table getting ready for punters to pay $50 a time ("cash only please") for a photo with Mr West. [I cannot fault this approach, as both actors and comic artists rarely have Pension plans].

But we pushed further on into the hall, first past one of the many George Barris-designed Batmobiles, then past a table where Joe Kubert had a number of fans clustering around , and then further back to the Neal Adams table, where there he was. Surrounded by his books and artwork, and no-one, NO ONE, else around. He seemed glad at the prospect of someone to talk to.

What a great conversationalist! Full of energy and ideas. He was interested in why a Brit was there on a Saturday morning? Had I flown from the UK? What did my lads think of their dear old Dad being there? We got talking. I told him what an impact the splash page of Batman #234 (Half an Evil) had had on me as a 12-year old, how it had cemented me as a Batman fan and set me off on a lifetime of comic collecting. He told me some of his future ideas for Batman Odyssey - bringing in Deadman, having Deadman inhibit the Joker’s body in the Batcave ; the attraction of straightening out long-time continuity issues in the Batman canon.

That’s when Mr Adams asked me if I’d like to get a view of the artwork he was working on for Batman Odyssey, and invited me to come behind the table and sit down further to continue our chat. He then produced his art portfolio from under the table - basically a folder comprised of two bits of hinged hardboard, sandwiched between which were all the pages he’d drawn so far for Batman Odyssey #1. Some were still pencils ; others were partially inked. He let me read them all and asked for my opinion.

You can see the smile on my face in the photo below.

Mr Adams then mentioned that he had to head over to participate in a panel with Joe Kubert discussing their work during the Bronze Age, and would I like to sit in on it?

So we traipsed over to a break-out conference room and my sons & I spent a couple of hours first sitting in an audience of about 40 people asking Neal and Joe questions about the genesis of many of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Sgt Rock comics, and then Joe Kubert conducted an impromptu art class, developing a comic page in real time with input from the audience. Andy Kubert teamed with his Dad in the art workshop. Considering the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fans at the Center that day, I despaired that so few were motivated to attend these sessions by the masters of the Bronze Age.

After the panel and class wrapped, my sons and I grabbed a hamburger and then caught a taxi back to La Guardia and on to home.

As we left the Jacob Javits Center my last memory is of the long Adam West table with his son managing the queue of fans, holding a fistful of tens and twenties as he collected the funds before shepherding fans alongside the trestle table to meet his Dad and Julie Newmar.

I’d turned 50 that year and meeting Neal Adams in person was quite a transformative event for me. It re-ignited my enthusiasm not only for comics, but also for my day job - reminded me that anything was possible as long as I got on my hind legs and made it happen. I remembered how back in 1971 I’d pored over Brave & Bold #93 - the Batman….and the House of Mystery team-up issue “Red Water, Crimson Death” issue - and seen the drawing of one of my heroes in the ACBA ad - Neal Adams - and could never have imagined that one day I would meet the man who had made Batman real to me fifty years ago.