I used to go to the comic convention in San Diego every year but it became less about comics and more about comic-like things. There are smaller conventions around the country that serve the same purpose anyway.
But while people were waiting hours in a hot sun to get Adam West's autograph, or whatever it is they spend $400 or more to do, I walked half a mile away
to go to a flea market, looking for “old” things.
As a teen and pre-teen, twenty years earlier meant the sixties. I could find things from the sixties cheap. Before
E-bay and even before most of the world knew old comics have value, you could still get things relatively cheap. Now people will charge $10 for a coverless moldy
Richie Rich comic and if you complain about the condition, they'll tell you that because it's in a bag that makes it worth more. Twenty years ago now is 1994, so most of the things people sell as nostalgia are
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or
Ren & Stimpy. I remember those things from when I was already an adult and working professional.
Being in
an old hippie town there are a few dealers still around and where can find things occasionally. My most recent find was some issues of
Evergreen Review. Evergreen was the anchor magazine for
Grove Press, the company that did all those hippie and dirty (for the time) books. This was the 55th issue from April 1968. I'll be reprinting all the cartoons and humor pieces I come across.
The first thing was a cartoon by
Georges Wolinski.
I didn't read most of the text pieces, but while I was scanning things, here's something that caught my eye so I thought I'd share it.
They had to have a certain amount of T&A to sell copies. But because they were for the most part a literary magazine, the nudity was in the context of early photography, or pieces like this.
Michael O'Donoghue was one of the founding writers of
National Lampoon and
Saturday Night Live, but before that he was a regular in
Evergreen They had an introductory masthead similar to
Playboy's “Playbill” that he was often in.
This cartoon here was by “McKee”.
Jan Kristofori from Czechoslovakia.
I think many of these cartoons came from magazines in other countries. Most have foreign names and/or only use one name, and I've never seen a lot of them anywhere else except in the
Great Cartoons of the World annuals.
Here's one by “Caballero”
Adolf Born
There are a few cartoons by
B.Kliban, one of my all-time favorites, that I don't recall ever seeing in any of the collections.
This one's by him too.
The next two are by “Paré”.
Here's an ad by
Jules Feiffer. It's a cartoon so I'll include it. It wasn't in the newspaper itself.
Another by Kliban
Tony Munzlinger.
