My friend Bob Foster, who I haven't seen since the big Animation Guild party last Friday, sent me this. "SDCC" stands or San Diego Comic-Con, one of many names the Comic-Con International had before it became, now and forever, the Comic-Con International…
Speaking of people who hesitated to attend conventions but changed their mind for some reason…
I remember when Dick Moores came to SDCC (1975). I was sitting at his table at a banquet. (Inkpots?) I understand he'd never been to a convention, and had done very little comic book work (mostly on Disney and Warner Bros. characters), certainly no superhero comics. But he'd been a very good comic strip artist since 1931 when he assisted Chester Gould on Dick Tracy, wrapping up his 55-year career on Gasoline Alley. He didn't think anyone would know who he was, but when his name was announced and the room gave him a thundering ovation he wasn't expecting, there were tears in his eyes. I'm glad he got to experience the love and appreciation the fans had for him.
Yeah, there was a point where I thought the Inkpots were kinda silly. I didn't even show up to receive mine in…I think it was their second year, 1975, and a lot of my friends and I made jokes about them. One was that the people at the front table would welcome you by saying, "Here's your badge…here's your program book…and here's your Inkpot Award." But then there came a couple of instances like the one you describe where it was obvious they did a lot of good, if only as an excuse for an audience to applaud someone who deserved applause but had rarely heard any. I can think of no less than a dozen examples but the one that comes first to mind is Fred Guardineer.
Fred drew comic books almost from the time there were comic books. He was in Action Comics #1 and that was nowhere near his first job. In 1955 when the industry went into recession, Fred got out and worked for the post office for the rest of his working days. He had very little contact with the comic book community until 1998 when Dave Siegel located him in a nursing home and got his family to bring him down to the Comic-Con to see the event and to be on the Golden Age Panel. Even before the panel, Fred was astonished to learn how many people remembered and loved that work he'd done so long ago.
When the panel started, I presented an Inkpot Award to Joe Simon and a pretty-crowded room — maybe 500 people — stood and cheered. Then I whipped one out for Fred. He was a last-minute addition to the convention and the panel so he really wasn't expecting it… and the room erupted again, even louder than they had for Joe. It wasn't that they didn't love and respect Joe…but Joe received lots of honors in his long career. This, everyone sensed, was the first and maybe last time to applaud Fred Guardineer.
Fred was in a wheelchair. As the crowd clapped, he started to struggle out of it to get to the podium as Joe had. I whispered to Fred, "You don't have to get up." He whispered back to me, "No, this is the first time I ever got an award and I'm going to stand for it." I'm not sure what was wrong with his legs. Maybe it was just being 85 years old. All I know is he made it to the lectern mike to say thanks and I was holding him up by the back of his pants. He was crying and I could look out and see his family — a daughter, a son-in-law and some grandkids, I think — and they were crying. He later told me it was the greatest moment of his life. (He later made it to a couple more cons before passing away in 2002.)
I have about twenty-five very special Comic-Con memories I will never forget. One was standing there, holding Fred Guardineer up by the back of his trousers while he made this wonderful speech for the greatest moment of his life. It was one of several moments where I decided that maybe awards like the Inkpot weren't such dumb ideas after all.