San Diego 1985: Kudos to Kandor

Excerpt from Kudos to Kandor, an article by American comic book historian and retailer Bob Beerbohm published in Fanscene n.8 (Summer 2022 edition). 

You can read the complete article downloading the fanzine HERE, page 103-105.

 

You can enjoy the whole Fanscene archive HERE. 

Also check the amazing project by editor David Hathaway-Price HERE: a digital repository of the Comics Fanzines published in the UK! Great! 

Bob Beerbohm: My one encounter with Alan Moore was in 1985, during his first [and evidently only) San Diego Comic-Con appearance. He came up to me in my booth; first buying copies of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #63 & 69 from me. This led in to he and I having an intense, almost hour long Superman Emergency Squad conversation, replete with the bottled city of Kandor, Brainiac, Nightwing & Flamebird.

This lanky bearded Brit guy walks up to my tables, asking for every appearance of the bottle city of Kandor, Superman Emergency Squad, Nighwing and Flamebird, etc. He was remembering broken images and story lines from when he was a young guy; now seeking the American color versions.

[...] For much of our intense Morl-era geek out, I had no idea who this full guy with on accent was. I am rather glad for that lapse in knowledge at that moment in time, as it enabled me to go one on one, asI would any other 'normal' comic book collector.

[...] I had been a huge fan of WARRIOR published by Dez Skinn, importing from #1 onwards. Each next issue order I was simply doubling in number count. This went on for several issues until I settled in to topping out at 800 an issue. Mark Stichman, myself, plus a slew of regular customers/readers were all talking about why Warrior had gone so, for lack of better term, "hot". The one name which was intersecting every one's wavelengths was some guy named Alan Moore.

After about half an hour it began to dawn on me just who I was evidently doing a two person street fair impromptu comedy act with. There had been much laughter as he and I relived our almost exact same timeline memories of that fun stuff from late 50s through mid 60s. Innocents growing up quick, as realites of the world set in on those of us born 1950-‘I 954, being drafted in the USA.

The UK was beginning to comprehend an end of empire as the USA's took off... Alan and I laughed a lot about, back then, believing that those Weisinger edited "Imaginary" stories were just that. Because all the other issues of Superman's family of titles were of course "Real" !!

We were both being 7 to 9 or so there again, for a short period of time. With me having every issue but one on his want list [plus many others he had no idea then existed]. He also made a solid stab at most of my Bizarro appearances, like Adventure 285-299 (classic!) that I had on hand.

Eventually, we shook hands, then bowed to our ad hoc audience. [...]

The complete article is available HERE, page 103-105.