Comic Art Convention
Comic Art Convention | |
---|---|
Status | Defunct |
Genre | Comics |
Location(s) | New York City (1968–1976, 1978–1983) Philadelphia (1977–1979) |
Country | United States |
Inaugurated | 1968 |
Most recent | 1983 |
Organized by | Phil Seuling |
The Comic Art Convention (CAC) was an
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
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
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 Will Eisner and Burne Hogarth.[10] Featured speakers included Stan Lee,[11] Milton Caniff, Lee Falk, and Charles Biro. Professional guests included Neal Adams, Dan Adkins, Murphy Anderson, Dick Ayers, Vaughn Bodē, E. Nelson Bridwell, Nick Cardy, Gene Colan, Leonard Darvin, Sol Davidson, Arnold Drake, Creig Flessel, Woody Gelman, Dick Giordano, Archie Goodwin, Bill Harris, Larry Ivie, Jeff Jones, Gil Kane, Gray Morrow, Joe Orlando, Jerry Robinson, John Romita, Richard Sherry, Jerry Siegel, Leonard Starr, Jim Steranko, Roy Thomas, Sal Trapani, John Verpoorten, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood.[12]
The 1969 convention, the first official Comic Art Convention, was held
The final three years of the 1961-1969
The 1971 show featured Guests of Honor
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.[19]
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.[20]
By 1984, as his comic-book distribution business occupied more time, and as other comics conventions, most notably in
Seuling died unexpectedly in August 1984, and the Comic Art Convention/Manhattan Con died with him.
Legacy
The Comic Art Conventions provided the primary nexus for fans and the largely New York City-based industry during the
The reputation of the Convention spread throughout fandom via an annual write-up published in
Eisner later elaborated about meeting
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....[23]
Successors
Following Seuling's death in 1984 and continuing until 1988,
In 1996, Greenberg, at a very late point, cancelled what had been advertised as a larger-than-usual
In 2002, the first
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[31]
- 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: 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[32]
- July 3–5, 1981: Statler Hilton Hotel[33]
- July, 3-5, 1982: Sheraton Hotel, Seventh Ave. and 56th Street, New York City[34][35]
- 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
- ^ Schelly, Bill. "Jerry Bails' Ten Building Blocks of Fandom," Alter Ego vol. 3, #25 (June 2003) pp. 5-8.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Duncan, Randy; and Smith, Matthew J. The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009), p. 183.
- ^ Skinn, Dez. "Early days of UK comics conventions and marts," Archived 2012-02-01 at the Wayback Machine DezSkinn.com. Accessed Mar. 3, 2013.
- ^ a b Schelly, Bill. Founders, p. 8.
- ^ a b Seuling, Phil. 1977 Comic Art Convention program book (Sea Gate Distributors, 1977), p. 5
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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).
- ^ Thompson, Maggie (Jan 1968). "Conventions". Newfangles. No. 6.
- ^ Schelly, Bill. Founders, p. 107.
- ^ 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)
- ^ "The 1969 Comic Art Convention". Advertisement for 1969 convention looking back on 1968 con. RBCC. No. 63. 1969.
- ^ Groth, Gary. "Editorial: Con Games", The Comics Journal #76 (Oct. 1, 1982), pp. 4-6.
- ^ a b "The 1969 Comic Art Convention Progress Report". SplashPages.com. Archived from the original on April 14, 2005. Additional, February 20, 2011.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "The 1971 Goethe Awards" (ballot), Graphic Story World vol. 2, #2 (whole #6) (July 1972), p. 29.
- ^ Miller, John Jackson. "Goethe/Comic Fan Art Award winners, 1971-74," CBGXtra (July 19, 2005).
- ^ Beerbohm, Robert (Jul 19, 2023). "JUMBO COMICS #1 debuting as Fiction House's first comic book offering..." Facebook.
- ^ "Biographies: Fredric Wertham, M.D." Comic Art & Graffix Gallery. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Grant, Steven. (July 10, 2002). "Permanent Damage: Issue #43". Comic Book Resources.
- ^ Groth, Gary. "Will Eisner: Chairman of the Board" Archived 2011-03-20 at the Wayback Machine, The Comics Journal #267, May 2005.
- ^ "Transcript, Will Eisner's keynote address, Will Eisner Symposium". The 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels.
- ComicBookResources.com. Archived from the originalon September 1, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2006. (Requires scroll down)
- ^ "Newswatch: NYC Comics Convention Cancelled, Fans Irate," The Comics Journal #185 (Mar. 1996), pp. 18-19.
- ^ Pate, Brian "Mike Carbonaro Retiring From Convention Promoting with Final 2012 NYCBM Show," Convention Scene (Mar. 30, 2012).
- ^ "Big Apple Comic Book, Art & Toy Show". BigAppleCon.com. November 10–12, 2000. Archived from the original on September 30, 2000.
- ^ "The National Comic Book, Art & Sci-Fi Expo". BigAppleCon.com. November 19–21, 2004. Archived from the original on October 13, 2004.
- ^ "Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo". BigAppleCon.com. June 7–8, 2008. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008.
- ^ "Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Epo". BigAppleCon.com. November 14–16, 2008. Archived from the original on September 30, 2008.
- ^ "Old Comic Book Art is on Display Here," New York Times (July 5, 1969), p. 16.
- Cat Yronwode
- ^ 1981 Comic Art Convention Official Program Book by Phil Seuling and Gwenn Seuling/Sea Gate Distributors
- ^ Haberman, Clyde and Laurie Johnston. "New York Day by Day: A Comic-Book Fourth," New York Times (July 5, 1982).
- ^ "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
External links
- "Comic Art Convention" at the Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections Division: Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection, "Comi" to "Comic Art of"
- "Philadelphia's 1977 Comic Art Convention", The Comic Treadmill, December 5, 2004..