As promised in the letters column of Comics Buyer’s Guide #1661 (January 2010), here are five posters from the Chicago Comic-Con.
In a response to a letter from R.C. Harvey, I wrote that I acquired these five posters from the freebie table at a 1991 or 1992 Chicago Comic-Con and my friends and I picked up examples of each poster offered.
Based on copyrights on the art or the art choices themselves, as well as the rising price of admission, it would appear that the earliest posters are from 1977 and 1978. My best guess is that the Spider-Man poster, featuring art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito that I’m pretty sure came from the treasury-sized Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man that was published in 1976, is from 1977, since that’s the first year Harvey said the show was held at the Pick Congress. The Bill Gaines poster would then come from 1978. (It’s possible that I have those two switched in order as I wasn’t at either convention, they have the same admission price, and there’s no copyright on either poster.)
There’s no doubt that the Star Wars poster, featuring The Empire Strikes Back, is from 1979, as it bears that copyright.
(More to come in the next post.)
The Magazine
Rounding out this group of posters are ones from 1980 (based on the copyright on the Mike Grell art) and 1982, which, thankfully, had the year as part of the show dates. (There’s a suggestion for future convention planners. Include a year with each poster so later historians can figure out when things happened.)
If anyone has more information on these dates or can provide more data on the Chicago Comic-Con’s history, we’d sure appreciate it. The show is fast closing in on its 40th anniversary, so it’s not too early to start assembling such information.
(On a personal note, I have a special fondness for the show as it was the first comics convention I ever attended. Thanks to my friend, John Mundt, who asked me to ride along with him and his family in 1991. My college friends and I had considered going several times, but the expense and time involved prevented our attendance. Ah, the opportunities we missed.)
Those are cool posters to still have, Brent. I remember going to several of the shows at the Pick-Congress, and having to move between a bunch of little rooms to see all the dealers. It was an improvement when they moved to the Ramada, even if it was out in the suburbs. It was really convenient for me–and was only a few blocks from where I worked–even if I did have to drive rather than take the el.
I didn’t start saving the programs (if there were programs) until the last Comic-Con and first Wizard World days in the mid 1990s. And you know you’re talking to comics fans when we talk about stuff from 15 years ago as being “recent.”
I’m proud of the fact that my history of comics collecting in Chicago includes all three of the big convention guys; I lived a few blocks from Larry Charet’s store when I first moved to Chicago, and his store probably kept me interested in comics after college when there wasn’t much going on (late 1970s). Then I bought a house within a couple miles of Joe Sarno’s store, and I ended up working a few miles from one of Gary Colabuono’s Moondog’s stores. Likewise, I sadly got to shop all of their going-out-of-business sales.
They still all three set up (or at least hang out) at the show each year, and Gary is on Facebook. You could contact him to see what background he’s got on the show’s origins, along with what Joe posted at his site.
— Craig Shutt
P.S. I love that “Art You Can Read” slogan on the final one. Is that supposed to be a benefit? It sounds like somebody was trying to make comics sound sophisticated and cool, but I don’t think it really gets the job done.
— Craig Shutt
That “Art You Can Read” event was a charity benefit as it says on the poster, where original art was auctioned off to those in the room. I bought my first piece of original art, a Conan page, with only the Cimmerian’s forearm in one panel, for $10. They threw in a free T-shirt promoting the then-upcoming T2. I later sold the page to one of my high school history teachers who was a huge Conan buff.
George Hagenauer was in charge of organizing that part of the show for many years.
Hey Brent
A couple of things – first thank you for running my only published piece of original art- I drew the Gaines portrait on that psoter- the rest was a collage made up of images clipped from a brittle old Mad paperback.
Second those are my file copies of the posters that you own. 1991 was you frist trip to Chicago – 1991 was when we moved (2 weeks after the con) to Wisconsin. A few of the posters iahd multiple copies of so I took them down and put them on the freebie table.
The posters were my idea and started with the first con at the Playboy hotel. I ran the Benefit Art Auction which supported first the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago and then Literacy Volunteers of Chicago (this the Art Yo ucan Read slogan)- when I left Alterantive schools to found Literacy Volunteers of Chicago they gave me the auction as a going away present! I’l lwrite abotu the auction in a future CBG module but the posters first grew out of the auction and then we did them for the con and some years we did one for the con and the auction.
Mike Gold (yes the co-founder of First comics, DC editor and in a prior life yippie PR guy for Abbie Hoffman) tag team con publicity – he did the main work and I through the non-profit where i worked did the auction publicity which included pasting up posters all over the North side.
We did 100-200 copies of each poster. Some I laid out and designed some Mike did – a few were collaborations. Of the ones you have I did th Spiderman, the superman/Doonesbury one and the bill Gaines one. The StarWars was a collabroation- it was also the only one for whic hwe did not use original art – that is the inside cover of a marvel mag blown up if my memeory is correct. Starslayer was Mikes.
Back then for you young folks there were no computers! If yo uwanted to shoot some art yo u had to pay for a stat whcih cost a lot of money – likewise yo uhad to pay for typesetting. The tyoeset material and statted thigns are Mikes- for mine we culled through the art doanted to the auction and basically found a good photocopy machine and shot the art 100% for pasting up. The posters were essentilaly designed around wahtever piece fit o nthe page. One the King Kull pin up by John and Marie Severin was 11 by 17 so I just pasted up the lettering and lightly hinged it t othe art!
The lettering I did was using letraset- basically press on letters that came on sheets of plastic- some one donated a pile of it so I used it for the posters. Mike had a small budget and was a PR professiona lso he used real typesetting.
These things are rare as of the 100-200 95% or more ofthem were pasted up on trees at subway stops or put up in stores most are long gone I am not sure I even have a set as i sold a lot on ebay (some going back when ebay worked well for as much as $200- today $5-10 is the norm) when I was helping my daugther pay for school i nthe mid 90’s
A few of the posters the Star Wars and the Gaines were designed to highlight specific events at the con the rest were just whatever iamges came i nfor the auction
Here are a few more the Swan is from a later convetnion and is Mike’s layout thoug hI may have done production art on it. It features the balck Con logo I did- the original Chicago con logo was a detailed sparkly thing designed by Tim Conrad- worked well o nthe program books but did not work as well as a poster- so I colored it in carefully with some markers and like Spiderman black we had con sparkl yand con black!
The other two pieces are Capt Chicago comicon designed by Trevor Von eeden and sued on program books and posters. I own these two (of the three pieces of art Trevor did) bought of course at the benefit art auction
Bes t George Hagenauer
And since I have started selling off some of the ocn related materia lon ebay I figured iwould archive the images up her for people to enjoy
Here is the first con progrm book with a cover by Tim Conrad (whose star blazed bright for a short period of time!) He designd the Con log we used for years with al lthe sparkles!
Best thing in this book is Bill Martin’s short essay o nthe history of chciago fandom – thoug hhe cleaned up al lthe skid row parts (chciago fandom was heavily rooted in a series of skid row bookstores – it is where many of us conencted with each other for the first time and where the first stores were that sold collectible comic books)
Expect more as I dig them out including the 1984 con book wit hcover art by JIM SHOOTER!
Here a re a few more the first two are the one and Only (damn near killed to put it togehter and i spent most of the con collating) Chicago con art auction catalog- second is an art auction thank you note- I did one of these for every auction to notify artists after the auction on how much there art sold for – I used either donated art or art from my colelction for graphics (and i ntheearly ones photocopy machines did not have reducation modes so the art had to fit exactly the space of a quarter of an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper) The final one is the Wil leisnertribute booklet from 1996 whcih has lots of written and artistic tributes to Wil l who was guest of honor that year
And here is somethign really rare the 1973 con program book fro mnancy Warner’s Nostalgia con in Chicago- the precursor to the Chicago Comicon.
It has a list of con memebrship- probably 35 people who paid in advance- Frederic Wertham is on it ! (not sure if that is real or a joke- Chciago fandom was dominated inthe 1970’s by EC collectors- spafon was produced out of Chcaigo fandom- wertham was the ultimate evil- we also on one occasion did a ritual burning of books by jay disbrow because the art was so bad!) This was her second con- Russ Heath our only resident comic book artist at the time was guest of honor and the major thing of note in the program book is a nice 2 page spread by CC Beck (who wasn’t there but did a drawing anyway)
My major acquisition at this con was the attached Solomon kane splash by Ralph Reese which I bough tfor $50 instead of a Johnny comet daily byFrazetta with al ltalking heads- still don’t regret the decision- the kane is a far better more interesting piece of art
And here is the wrapraound cover for the 1982 Chicago Comicon that also featured Dr. Who.
For me there were 3 Chicago cons that basicaly were the con from Hell. The art auction program book (and some heavy wood art display boards that we soon repalced with lightweight cardbooard ones) made tah tcon a strain. I spent hours colalting the art auction books and we needed to carry dozens of these 50+ pound boards upstairs for the art auction room. The first big con in the Stephenscenter was the worst- the artist area got botched in set up and I was up essentially all 3 days of the con with virtually no sleep. Normally I was a volunteer this time the con organizers walked up with a check book and jsut said how much do we owe you. But if yo uwnat the co nthat most physically approximated hell it would be the Who con. It started out innocently enough- everyone on the con comittee but myself was a Who fan – the opportunity was to get almsot every major person as a guest. No one realized that would pull thousands more to the con than the normal midwest Chciago comic book fandom. The halls were totally jammed with people in floppy hats and scarves (in 95 degree Chicago July weather) The combined body heat took down the Pick Congresses air conditioning. We were watching books brown and curl at our tables, To give you a sense of how nuts it was the art auction display room was 50 feet down the hallway from the dealer room where I had my table. The hallway was so lined with Whoies waiting to get in to see season previews that to get to the auction I needed to leave a back door or the dealer room walk dow nto street level into the alley around the side of the hotel and then back upstairs by a back stairwell to add art to the auction dispaly (which essentially no one saw) and check on the volunteers guarding the art. It was acrazed con but one that any one wh owas there will always remember!
Joe Staton did the wraparound cover