Comic Art Convention

The Comic Art Convention was an American comic book fan convention held annually New York City, New York, over Independence Day weekend from 1968 through 1983, except for 1977, when it was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and 1978 to 1979, when editions of the convention were held in both New York and Philadelphia. The first large-scale comics convention, and one of the largest gatherings of its kind until the Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, it grew into a major trade and fan convention. It was founded by Phil Seuling, a Brooklyn, New York City, teacher, who later developed the concept of comic-book direct marketing, which led to the rise to the modern comic book store.

Not to be confused with United Kingdom Comic Art Convention.
Comic Art Convention
StatusDefunct
GenreComics
Location(s)New York City (1968–1976, 1978–1983)
Philadelphia (1977–1979)
CountryUnited States
Inaugurated1968 (1968)
Most recent1983 (1983)
Organized byPhil Seuling

The New York Comic Art Convention's growth in popularity coincided with the increasing media attention on comics that had been building since the mid-1960s, feeding off the then novel notions of comics being a subject worthy of serious critical study and collectibility.

History

Antecedents

Circa 1961, enterprising fans including Jerry Bails, Shel Dorf, Bernie Bubnis, and future Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas began following the pattern of the long-established science fiction fandom by publishing fanzines, corresponding with one another and with comic-book editors (most notably DC Comics' Julius Schwartz), and eventually arranging informal and later professional, commercial conventions.[1] Among the first were the 1964 Tri-State Con (a.k.a. the New York Comicon)[2] and that same year's precursor to the Detroit Triple Fan Fair[3][4] (officially established in 1965).[5]

As Seuling described his convention's genesis, "In 1964, about a hundred people found themselves in a New York City union meeting hall, a large open room with wooden folding chairs, looking around at each other oddly, surprised, not really knowing what they were there for, a bit sheepish, waiting for whatever was going to take place to begin. ... It was the first comics convention ever [and t]hat one-day assembly ... grew step by step into an annual tradition in New York and then elsewhere."[6]

In 1965, the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors, led by Dave Kaler, hosted a convention at New York's Broadway Central Hotel,[7] continuing that tradition in 1966 and 1967. The so-called "Academy Cons" featured such industry professionals as Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Mort Weisinger, James Warren, Roy Thomas, Gil Kane,[5] Stan Lee, Bill Everett, Carmine Infantino, and Julius Schwartz.[8]

Seuling's shows

As Seuling told it, "In 1968, I became involved in [staging] my first convention."[6] The 1968 show, officially known as the International Convention of Comic Book Art, was co-produced with SCARP, the short-lived Society for Comic Art Research and Preservation, Inc.[9] Guests of honor at the 1968 show were Stan Lee[10] and Burne Hogarth[11]

The 1969 convention, the first official Comic Art Convention, was held Independence Day weekend at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City, and the guest of honor was Hal Foster.[12] Admittance to the convention cost $3.50 for a three-day ticket, with daily passes at $1.50.[13] Admittance was free with a hotel room rental, which cost $15-and-up per day.[13]

The final three years of the 1961-1969 Alley Awards, sponsored by Alter Ego magazine and the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors, were presented at the Comic Art Convention.[14] After the demise of the Alley, later years featured the Goethe Awards[15] (later renamed the "Comic Fan Art Awards").[16]

The 1971 show featured Guests of Honor Jerry Iger and Will Eisner, and their sale of hundreds of pages of original Golden Age comic book art, mostly from Fiction House (a prominent client of the Eisner & Iger comics packaging studio). As comics historian Robert Beerbohm remembers, "Iger & Eisner had brought in a few five-foot tall pallets of original comic book art, mainly Fiction House. Using a forklift. Many multi thousands of pages. The Lou Fine covers, etc., went early on for bigger bucks... [In] the last few hours they made the art $10 an inch."[17]

In 1973, Seuling persuaded Dr. Fredric Wertham, author of the industry-changing 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, to attend what would be Wertham's only panel with an audience of comics fans.[18]

The 1974 show featured a panel on the role of women in comics, with Marie Severin, Flo Steinberg, Jean Thomas (sometime-collaborator with then-husband Roy Thomas), Linda Fite (writer of The Claws of the Cat), and fan representative Irene Vartanoff.[19]

By 1984, as his comic-book distribution business occupied more time, and as other comics conventions, most notably in San Diego and Chicago, became larger, more prominent, and more commercial- rather than fan-driven, Seuling segued the Independence Day-centered Comic Art Convention into the smaller Manhattan Con, which took place in mid-June.[20]

Seuling died unexpectedly in August 1984, and the Comic Art Convention/Manhattan Con died with him.

Legacy
Program book featuring Swamp Thing art by Berni Wrightson (as he then spelled his first name).

The Comic Art Conventions provided the primary nexus for fans and the largely New York City-based industry during the Silver Age and the Bronze Age of comic books. As well, many of the Golden Age creators were still alive and in attendance at panels and for interviews, which helped lay the groundwork for the medium's historical scholarship.

The reputation of the Convention spread throughout fandom via an annual write-up published in The Buyer's Guide to Comics Fandom by columnist Murray Bishoff. Besides reporting on convention events, Bishoff also provided fans around the country with a benchmark market report by surveying attending dealers regarding what was selling and whether prices realized were above or below those quoted in the de facto standard, The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

Will Eisner, creator of the Spirit in 1940, credited the 1971 Comic Art Con for his return to comics. In a 1983 interview with Seuling, he said, "I came back into the field because of you. I remember you calling me in New London, [Connecticut], where I was sitting there as chairman of the board of Croft Publishing Co. My secretary said, 'There's a Mr. Seuling on the phone and he's talking about a comics convention. What is that?' She said, 'I didn't know you were a cartoonist, Mr. Eisner.' 'Oh, yes,' I said, 'secretly; I'm a closet cartoonist.' I came down and was stunned at the existence of the whole world. ... That was a world that I had left, and I found it very exciting, very stimulating".[21]

Eisner later elaborated about meeting underground comics creators and publishers, including Denis Kitchen

I went down to the convention, which was being held in one of the hotels in New York, and there was a group of guys with long hair and scraggly beards, who had been turning out what spun as literature, really popular 'gutter' literature if you will, but pure literature. And they were taking on illegal [sic] subject matter that no comics had ever dealt with before. ... I came away from that recognizing that a revolution had occurred then, a turning point in the history of this medium. ... I reasoned that the 13-year-old kids that I'd been writing to back in the 1940s were no longer 13-year-old kids, they were now 30, 40 years old. They would want something more than two heroes, two supermen, crashing against each other. I began working on a book that dealt with a subject that I felt had never been tried by comics before, and that was man's relationship with God. That was the book A Contract with God....[22]

1974 program book featuring Joe Simon's original 1940 sketch of Captain America

Successors

Following Seuling's death in 1984 and continuing until 1988, Creation Entertainment continued producing large annual conventions in New York City, usually taking place over the weekend following Thanksgiving (Creation had begun hosting New York shows in 1971, and sometimes put on as many as a half-dozen New York City shows per year).[20] From 1993–1995, promoter Fred Greenberg hosted two Great Eastern Conventions annually at venues including the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the New York Coliseum. Other companies, including Dynamic Forces, held New York City conventions but all were on a smaller scale than the Seuling shows. Changes in the industry, popular culture, and the resurgent city itself since the troubled 1960s and '70s made large-scale comic-book conventions difficult to hold profitably. Jonah Weiland of ComicBookResources.com also noted that "...dealing with the various convention unions made it difficult for most groups to get a show off the ground."[23]

In 1996, Greenberg, at a very late point, cancelled what had been advertised as a larger-than-usual Great Eastern Conventions show, which the fan press had suggested[24] might herald a successor to the Comic Art Con. As a substitute event, promoter Michael Carbonaro and others on the spur of the moment mounted the first Big Apple Convention in the basement of Manhattan's Church of St. Paul the Apostle.[25] These small shows nonetheless attracted many comics creators and pop-culture figures, and by 2000 the convention had moved to the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street in Manhattan,[26] and by the mid-2000s were taking place at the Penn Plaza Pavilion at the Hotel Pennsylvania — the same location of the original Comic Art Conventions.[27][28][29]

In 2002, the first MoCCA Art Festival, focused on alternative comics and the small press, was held at New York City’s Puck Building; it has been held annually since. In 2006, the first New York Comic Con was held in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center; it also has been held annually since.

Dates and locations
Conventions held in New York City unless otherwise noted.
  • July 4–7, 1968: Statler Hilton Hotel, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue — as International Convention of Comic Book Art
  • July 4–6, 1969: Statler Hilton Hotel — Penn Top/Sky Top Rooms[30]
  • July 3–5, 1970: Statler Hilton Hotel
  • July 2–4, 1971: Statler Hilton Hotel
  • July 1–5, 1972: Statler Hilton Hotel
  • July 4–8, 1973: Commodore Hotel, 42nd Street and Park Avenue
  • July 4–8, 1974: Commodore Hotel
  • July 3–7, 1975: Commodore Hotel
  • July 2–6, 1976: McAlpin Hotel, 34th Street and Broadway
  • July 1–5, 1977: Hotel Sheraton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (no New York con this year)
  • 1978:
    • July 2–5: Americana Hotel, New York City
    • July 8–9: Philadelphia
  • 1979:
    • June 30-July 1: Statler Hilton Hotel, New York City
    • July 14–15: Sheraton Hotel, Philadelphia
  • July 4–6, 1980: Statler Hilton Hotel[31]
  • July 3–5, 1981: Statler Hilton Hotel[32]
  • July, 3-5, 1982: Sheraton Hotel, Seventh Ave. and 56th Street, New York City[33][34]
  • July 2–4, 1983: Sheraton Hotel, New York City — as International Science Fiction and Comic Art Convention (presentation of the Saturn Awards)

See also

References
  1. Schelly, Bill. "Jerry Bails' Ten Building Blocks of Fandom," Alter Ego vol. 3, #25 (June 2003) pp. 5-8.
  2. Schelly, Bill. Founders of Comic Fandom: Profiles of 90 Publishers, Dealers, Collectors, Writers, Artists and Other Luminaries of the 1950s and 1960s (McFarland, 2010), p. 131.
  3. Duncan, Randy; and Smith, Matthew J. The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009), p. 183.
  4. Skinn, Dez. "Early days of UK comics conventions and marts," Archived 2012-02-01 at the Wayback Machine DezSkinn.com. Accessed Mar. 3, 2013.
  5. Schelly, Bill. Founders, p. 8.
  6. Seuling, Phil. 1977 Comic Art Convention program book (Sea Gate Distributors, 1977), p. 5
  7. Thomas, Roy. "Splitting the Atom: More Than You Could Possibly Want to Know About the Creation of the Silver Age Mighty Mite!" The Alter Ego Collection, Volume 1 (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2006), p. 99.
  8. Schelly, Bill. "The Kaler Con: Two Views: Bigger And Better Than The Benson Con Just Three Weeks Before?? (Part VIII of '1966: The Year Of (Nearly) Three New York Comics Conventions')," Alter-Ego #64 (Jan. 2007).
  9. Thompson, Maggie. Newfangles #6 (Jan. 1968).
  10. Carmody, Deirdre (July 6, 1968). "Comic Books Get Star Billing at Convention Here". The New York Times. Retrieved July 13, 2013. (Abstract; full article requires fee or subscription)
  11. Schelly, Bill. Founders, p. 107.
  12. Groth, Gary. "Editorial: Con Games", The Comics Journal #76 (Oct. 1, 1982), pp. 4-6.
  13. "The 1969 Comic Art Convention Progress Report". SplashPages.com. Archived from the original on April 14, 2005. Additional, February 20, 2011.
  14. Gabilliet, Jean-Paul (trans. by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen). Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books (University of Mississippi Press, 2010), pp. 250–251.
  15. "The 1971 Goethe Awards" (ballot), Graphic Story World vol. 2, #2 (whole #6) (July 1972), p. 29.
  16. Miller, John Jackson. "Goethe/Comic Fan Art Award winners, 1971-74," CBGXtra (July 19, 2005).
  17. Beerbohm, Robert (Jul 19, 2023). "JUMBO COMICS #1 debuting as Fiction House's first comic book offering..." Facebook.
  18. "Biographies: Fredric Wertham, M.D." Comic Art & Graffix Gallery. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011.
  19. Lovece, Frank (1974). "Cons: New York 1974!". The Journal Summer Special. Paul Kowtiuk, Maple Leaf Publications; editorial office then at Box 1286, Essex, Ontario, Canada N0R 1E0.
  20. Grant, Steven. (July 10, 2002). "Permanent Damage: Issue #43". Comic Book Resources.
  21. Groth, Gary. "Will Eisner: Chairman of the Board" Archived 2011-03-20 at the Wayback Machine, The Comics Journal #267, May 2005.
  22. "Transcript, Will Eisner's keynote address, Will Eisner Symposium". The 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels.
  23. Weiland, Jonah (June 10, 2005). "Battling Conventions? Talking with the NY Comic Con and Megacon Organizers". ComicBookResources.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2006. (Requires scroll down)
  24. "Newswatch: NYC Comics Convention Cancelled, Fans Irate," The Comics Journal #185 (Mar. 1996), pp. 18-19.
  25. Pate, Brian "Mike Carbonaro Retiring From Convention Promoting with Final 2012 NYCBM Show," Convention Scene (Mar. 30, 2012).
  26. "Big Apple Comic Book, Art & Toy Show". BigAppleCon.com. November 10–12, 2000. Archived from the original on September 30, 2000.
  27. "The National Comic Book, Art & Sci-Fi Expo". BigAppleCon.com. November 19–21, 2004. Archived from the original on October 13, 2004.
  28. "Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo". BigAppleCon.com. June 7–8, 2008. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008.
  29. "Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Epo". BigAppleCon.com. November 14–16, 2008. Archived from the original on September 30, 2008.
  30. "Old Comic Book Art is on Display Here," New York Times (July 5, 1969), p. 16.
  31. 1980 Comic Art Convention Official Program Book by Sea Gate Distributors, Phil Seuling, Robbographica Studios & Cat Yronwode
  32. 1981 Comic Art Convention Official Program Book by Phil Seuling and Gwenn Seuling/Sea Gate Distributors
  33. Haberman, Clyde and Laurie Johnston. "New York Day by Day: A Comic-Book Fourth," New York Times (July 5, 1982).
  34. "Happenings: Other Events," New York Magazine (July 5–12, 1982), p. 134.

Further reading
  • Ballmann, J. (2016). 1964 New York Comicon: The True Story Behind the World's First Comic Convention. Totalmojo Productions. ISBN 978-0981534916.
  • 1975, 1976, 1977 Comic Art Convention program books
  • The Comics Journal #46 (May 1979): Convention ad, inside back cover
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