I have been a fan of Fred Hembeck's work... for quite a while, and only recently started to let some of my own personal collection of his works go up for sale.

One item that I don't have is the book that was released in May 2008, by Image Publishing.  The book was released as "THE NEARLY COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS".

Which would be darn near complete, because this Omnibus features 912, (yeah 912!), pages of material written and drawn by cartoonist Fred Hembeck.  Not to say how long Fred has been at this, but the features included in this Omnibus were pulled from the past three decades!

The Omnibus itself is divided into seven sections:

Section One: "Little Freddy: Growing Up In The Silver Age of Comics". The 'origin story' of Fred Hembeck in 12 pages.

Section Two:  Which would be one of my favorite sections! All seven of Fred's early eighties Fantaco books, 276 pages worth: HEMBECK: THE BEST OF DATELINE:@#$%; HEMBECK 1980; ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE BRIDE OF HEMBECK; THE HEMBECK FILES; BAH, HEMBECK; JIMMY OLSEN'S PAL, FRED HEMBECK, and DIAL H FOR HEMBECK.   These have been long out of print magazines (OOP).

Section Three: A miscellaneous section that brings together all the Dateline:@#$% strips that were not printed in the Fantaco collections, plus later ones.  Fred's work for other fanzines such as THE COMIC READER, COMICS SCENE and Fred's contributions to the once annual AMAZING HEROES SWIMSUIT SPECIAL, showing 124 pages of art!

Section Four: Contains 60 pages of material from Fred's years as a member of the comics apa, CAPA-alpha, back in the early eighties.

Section Five: Fifteen different strips are printed here, ranging from a single page all the way up to ten pages.  

Section Six: Fred's work in the mid-nineties including Dateline:@#$%! This section has 210 pages collecting ALL the strips done during that period for THE COMICS BUYERS GUIDE, COMIC BOOK ARTIST, COMIC BOOK PROFILES and more.  

Section Seven: This collection is of items Fred has drawn since the 1990's to today. Too numerous to list!

The Omnibus also has a Foreword by Stan 'The Man' Lee, plus an Introduction by Jim Salicrup, and last but not least... an Afterword by Al Gordon!

Note From Make It So Marketing: Michael first set up as a dealer at the 1972 San Diego's West Coast Comic Con. To the left is a photo of Michael, Howard & Tina at the Skirball February 2009. Click that photo to see 'Our Current World Of Pop Culture'!                   Each comic / comics book. Graphic Novels or magazine in our eBay Featured Store is individually graded by Michael, inventoried, priced, bagged and boarded, before being listed for sale!

Part 3: Curator's Talk  From The ZAP! POW! BAM! Exhibit's Guest Curator Jerry Robinson

Thursday, March 5th, 2009 At 8:00 PM...  Is the special Curator's Talk being held at the Skirball.

The Opening Day for this exhibit was on Thursday February 19th.

As seen in Part 1 & Part 2, Tina and I have already been to this Exhibit and had a great time!

However, we will not be able to attend this special Curator's Talk, which has Mark Evanier inteviewing Jerry Robinson...

 The ZAP! POW! BAM! Exhibit's Curator was at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con International, where Mark Evanier interviewed him along with other guests at the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel held at that Con.

The Photos shown in this blog post are from that special panel which I wanted to share with you. 

If you have not heard Mark Evanier host a panel or program before, you are in for a treat if you can make this special Curator's Talk!  Mark is able to get the person he is interviewing to be comfortable and open up with great stories to share!  With Jerry Robinson being there at the beginning of the Golden Age Of Comics I'm sure you'll hear some great tales of what it was like to be there during the early years of Batman as well as other Golden Age characters!

The special program is one night only:

March 5th 2009 at 8:00 PM

At the Skirball Cultural Center at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

Cost for the special program is:

$10 General Admission, $8 Members, $6 Students

For those not able to attend this special Curator's Talk, but are in the Los Angeles Metro Area any time up until August 9th, 2009, this would be a good place to go see with your family.   It is varied enough in exhibits to entertain the young through older in years, and not too 'geeky'!

Details for the ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938–1950
On Exhibit From February 19 - August 9, 2009

ADMISSION To the two special exhibits about Comic Books are included with Museum admission:
$10 General; $7 Seniors and Full-Time Students; $5 Children 2–12;
Free to Members and Children under 2; Free to all on Thursdays. 
Note: There is a current special Wells Fargo check and credit card discount. Check the web site before
going to print out the discount coupon if you hold either of these two cards!

http://www.skirball.org/index.php?option=com_ccevents&scope=exbt&task=detail&ccmenu=v2hhdcdzie9u&oid=34

For those of you that are new to our blog today, we have an ongoing online 'Comic Con and Pop Culture Convention' ourselves here at "Make It So Marketing Inc.", what with our daily blog posts,  and new listings of items for sale in our online eBay Featured Store! 

Thanks again to all of YOU reading our current and archived blog posts!

Note From Make It So Marketing: Michael first set up at the 1972 San Diego's West Coast Comic Con. To the left is a photo of Michael at the 1973 SDCC - San Diego Comic Con that was held at the Sheraton Hotel, Harbor Island, San Diego. Click that photo to see 'Our Current World Of Pop Culture'!                   Each comic / comics book. Graphic Novels or magazine in our eBay Featured Store is individually graded by Michael, inventoried, priced, bagged and boarded, before being listed for sale!