Spent this last weekend in Oklahoma City at the OAFcon (Oklahoma Alliance of Fandom). Bit of a reunion of sorts -- the 1970 OAFcon was the first comic convention I ever attended. Both times I went with my friend, comic dealer Bob Beerbohm (www.BLBComics.com). This time we were accompanied by his daughter Katie.
The big attraction of the show for me was the chance to finally meet my longtime friend in fandom, Bill Schelly. I contributed to Bill's fanzine Sense of Wonder back in the 1960s. He's gone on to be a well-known author on comics and comics fandom, as well as the biographer of silent screen great Harry Langdon . We've been in intermittent contact on the 'net in recent years, but we'd never met in person. Here's a photo of Bill and I (I'm on the left, Bill in the middle ) with Texas Trio member Buddy Saunders on the right.
The highlight of Friday was an hour or so in the evening spent with Bill and Bob, convention organizer Bart Bush, Grant Irwin and Larry Bigman -- six knowledgable guys having a conversation (and sometimes multiple simultaneous conversations) about comics. I've gotta get a copy of the beautiful book on Noel Sickles that was passed around the room.
On Saturday I won a door prize in the trivia contest by being the first one to shout out Roy Rogers' real name: Leonard Slye. Easy for me -- Rogers/Slye and I share a birthday. The prize was a nice little paperback reprint of 1921 Krazy Kat dailies. Later, I won a copy of the first issue of Harvey Comics Flash Gordon in the auction.
I probably wouldn't have bid, but longtime EC fan Roger Hill announced that the cover was drawn by Harvey art director Warren Kremer -- quite a departure from his Stumbo work! That made the comic a must-have -- and I made a beeline over to Hill after the auction to pick his brain about Kremer. Turns out he interviewed the great artist late in life. I'm hoping to track down the interview eventually.
I also got to talk with a lot of prominent longtime fans: Bud Plant, Craig Yoe, Don Maris, Jerry Weist, Robert Brown and my Comicart-l cohort from KC, Greg Huneryager. Quite a good time, actually. Once I get all the photos processed I'll do a little mini-feature on the con for my website.