Forty years ago today, I attended my first comic book convention. It convened at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City…a building which is still hosting comic conventions. I've stayed there a few times since 1970 and it hasn't, sad to say, changed all that much. (It was built in 1919 as the Hotel Pennsylvania. It changed ownership in 1948 to become the Statler Hilton and later went through another name or two before reverting to the Hotel Pennsylvania. Every year or two lately, they announce it will soon be demolished and replaced by something bigger and better…but it's still right where it's always been. It also still has the same phone number it's had since the thirties when seven-digit phone numbers were introduced: PEnnsylvania 6-5000.)
Perhaps you're wondering why, since I've lived in Southern California all my life, my first comic book convention wasn't a San Diego Con. That's because forty years ago today, there hadn't been any multi-day comic conventions in San Diego…or anywhere else in this state. The first one in San Diego, which was called the Golden State Comic-Con, was held August 1-3 of 1970. It became an annual affair which has since morphed into the Comic-Con International.
A few days before the 1970 New York Con, my then-partner Steve Sherman and I flew to New York and checked into the Statler Hilton. A day or two later, our friend Mike Royer flew back and joined us in a hotel room barely large enough for one of us. We were there about ten days, during which we attended the con. Between that and our visits to comic book company offices, I — a lifelong comic book reader — managed to meet a pretty high percentage of the writers, artists and editors whose work I'd been following for years.
Our first day in Manhattan, Steve and I spent the day at the offices of DC Comics, which were then located in an austere building at 909 Third Avenue. Among the folks I met in person that day were Julius Schwartz, Carmine Infantino, Dick Giordano, Nelson Bridwell, Joe Kubert, Murray Boltinoff, Sol Harrison, Neal Adams, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Robert Kanigher, Murphy Anderson, Gerry Conway, Denny O'Neil, Mary Skrenes, Mark Hanerfeld, Mort Weisinger, Sal Amendola and Byron Preiss. Julie Schwartz took us to lunch at a restaurant where the food wasn't very good but the waitresses wore short skirts and would bend over often.
The next day, we had an 11 AM appointment to go to Marvel and meet Stan Lee and the folks in the famed Bullpen. Around 10, someone called from the office and said Stan had an emergency appointment and like it or not, we were rescheduled for 2 PM. With several hours to kill, Steve and I went wandering around New York and something amazing happened at the corner of Madison Avenue and E. 52nd Street.
We were touristing about when we heard someone yell, "Mi amigos!" We looked and there, having spotted us from across the intersection, was famed cartoonist Sergio Aragonés. This was many years before Sergio and I became good friends and frequent collaborators. I think I'd met him twice in Los Angeles and wouldn't have dreamed he'd remember me at all, let alone recognize me across a busy New York street. We scurried over to say hello to him and explained we were in town for the upcoming convention and to visit comic book company offices. He said, "Are you going to visit MAD Magazine?" We said it hadn't occurred to us but yes, certainly, we'd love to visit the MAD offices. "Where are they?"
He pointed to the building we were standing in front of and said, "Right here! Come…I will give you a tour." As we walked into the lobby, I held the door for a little, sad-faced man who was walking out with an art portfolio. I later realized it was Wally Wood.
Sergio took us upstairs gave us a grand tour. We met William Gaines, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, Jerry DeFuccio, John Putnam and others of the Usual Gang of Idiots. Artist Angelo Torres was there and Production Manager Leonard Brenner let me hold and examine the original art to the first issue of MAD. I remember Sergio saying, "You may look at it but you cannot keep it." And I replied, "Hey, if I had a gun, I could keep it!"
That afternoon, we went to the Marvel offices, which were located at 635 Madison. The official address of the company was 625 Madison but the comic book division was squirreled away — hidden in a futile attempt to avoid fannish invasions — in a building down the street. In surprisingly-cramped offices, we met not only Stan Lee but also John Romita, Marie Severin, Roy Thomas, Larry Lieber, John Verpoorten, Herb Trimpe, Frank Giacoia and Bill Everett. The following day, Steve and I spent a few hours with Steve Ditko in his studio.
The high point of the trip — the convention — commenced on Friday, July 3, forty years ago today. That morning, I met in person, my pen-pal of several years, Tony Isabella. We went to breakfast with Al Williamson, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin and spent the day meeting other folks in the comic industry, as well as fellow fans I knew through correspondence and the fanzine network. The latter group included Martin Pasko, Alan Brennert, Gary Groth, Martin Greim, Guy Lillian and Bob Beerbohm. Over the three days of the con, I also met Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Jim Steranko, Joe Sinnott, Gene Colan, Archie Goodwin, Tom Sutton and a few dozen others. It was a three-day conference but so much happened and so much was new and exciting that it felt like three weeks. Today, a four-day con in San Diego feels like it's over in about four hours.
That con and many others in New York were run by a gentleman named Phil Seuling who, for reasons I explained here, was very important in the history of the American comic book. Since then, I have probably attended somewhere around 200 comic book conventions, including many that were larger and more professionally-run. Not to take anything away from any of them but just as there's something special about your first love or your first kiss or your first anything, there's something special about your first comic book convention. At least there was for a guy like me. It was like landing on a distant planet, realizing it was where you belonged and instantly fitting right in. I later worked with many of the people I've namedropped here and some are still good friends.
I'm sure you had some days in your past when you could almost feel your life changing for the better. Mine changed that week in New York…but it really changed forty years ago today, high atop the Statler Hilton.