Here's a treasure of comic book history. Mike Towry, who was one of the founders of the urban sprawl we now know as the Comic-Con International, has posted audio from the very first one. They called it San Diego's Golden State Comic-Con back then and it was held in 1970 at the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego. There are speeches there from Shel Dorf, Ray Bradbury, Jack Kirby and others.
I was there for much of this, hanging out for a time with a friend of mine named Mark Hanerfeld, who was then functioning as kind of an unpaid (pretty much) representative of DC Comics. Mark later went on staff there as an assistant editor for a time but in 1970, he was just a fan who was friends with the editors there — Joe Orlando, mainly — and they let him hang around the office and suggest or do things in a kind of informal internship. Once in a while, they'd pay him to compose a letter column or to write advertising pieces. Here's a photo I took of him at a New York Con a few years later…
If his face looks familiar, it may be because Mark was the model for a character named Abel who was the host of a comic called House of Secrets. I was also with him once when he was approached for an autograph by a lady who thought he was the great trumpet player, Al Hirt.
Anyway, Mark was the spokesperson at that con for DC Comics — the only person present at all connected with the company apart from Mr. Kirby, who had just become an editor there and whose new books had yet to be published. Everyone assumed the firm had sent Mark out to the con but, in fact, Mark had come out on his own initiative and paid his own way there because…well, Hanerfeld just did things like that. He did a great selling and cheerleading job for DC in San Diego, then went back to New York and talked up the con to everyone there. The following year, others from DC Comics began to make the trek to San Diego…and of course now, most of the comic book industry journeys out for the convention. I thought someone should note that Mark Hanerfeld was the guy who started that among East Coast people.
There's a recording there of him introducing Jack Kirby. That was supposed to be me. Jack told Shel, "Mark's going to introduce me" and Shel got his Marks confused and before I knew it, Hanerfeld was doing the honors. That was surprising but kind of a relief 'cause I had (then) a lot of jitters about speaking in front of people, even a small group for a few seconds. Jack did, too. He never got to be truly comfortable in such situations and as you'll hear, he's awkward and nervous and his mind wanders a bit.
Mark Hanerfeld passed away in January of 2000. He was a guy with a large but defective heart that kept failing him the last decade or so of his life. Our last few phone calls were very sad and it was a special joy to me to hear the voice of the old, healthy Mark…the one I'd prefer to remember. And now I'll shut up and let you go click your way over to that page — here's the link again — and listen to some of it.