Well, we are back from that show, and the third blog that I want to post is about seeing one of the actors that I really enjoyed watching on another one of Irwin Allen's TV Shows... David (Al) Hedison of 'Voyage to The Bottom of the Sea' fame!

I was up in Kodiak, Alaska when this show first aired.  Trust me, it was a BIG HIT among those of us that enjoyed 'sci-fi' type of TV Shows!

The original series ran from September 14, 1964 – March 31, 1968 on the ABC Network.  We still had a black and white TV set in Alaska, but that was OK because the premiere episode was shown in black & white, (even though it was filmed in color)!

I soon picked up the Gold Key Comics that featured this TV Show... they were favorites of mine for years!  Here's the link to the GCD where you too can see the front covers of the 16 issue run.  The comics were published from December of 1964 until April of 1970, just before I graduated High School.  That was a long time period of time for the comics being printed, although there aren't that many issues in the run as they were published almost on a quarterly basis!

David of course is known for much more than just 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', but hey, this is a comic book oriented blog, LOL!

David, shown to the left during his 'Voyage' days, was also in a great Sci-Fi film, 'The Fly', back in 1958 when he was known as 'Al Hedison'!

For a complete list of David's appearances both on TV and in Film, please see this IMDB page.

BTW, to show you how popular Irwin Allen's TV Shows were... The third season of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' ran simultaneously with two more Irwin Allen-produced TV series: the second season of Lost in Space and the premiere, (and only) season of The Time Tunnel. 

(Not too subtle hint about a future blog post... I also have photos from this same convention of a certain actress who starred in Time Tunnel to post here!)

My thanks go out to Diane Kachmar, who is pictured at the top left of this blog post.  Diane is the co-author of a book with David Goudsward titled 'The Fly At Fifty', which has a foreword by David Hedison.

Diane C. Kachmar is also a University Librarian at Florida Atlantic University. She maintains www.DavidHedison.com where YOU can purchase David Hedison signed photos, etc. 

BTW, Diane is the author of Roy Scheider: A Film Biography (2002). You can also visit her on the web at Author's Den. She is one busy gal as you tell!   

For those of You that couldn't attend this convention, I'll be blogging about more media guests and comics creators in the days to come...

If You can't wait for my posts, you can check out more of who was there at Wizard World Anaheim by joining their Facebook Fan Page right here for one,  AND / OR You can go direct to their web site to see who else appeared there at: Wizard World Anaheim.

Again, my thanks to Diane and her husband, John Kachmar, for being so nice to me during my time at their booth with David Hedison!     

AND my thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now over the 3,100 total posts in number! 

Well, we are back from that show, and the second blog I want to post is about seeing one of my favorite cartoonists, Scott Shaw!

Besides being a cartoonist, Scott is also a storyboard artist, writer, animation producer, lecturer, designer, art director, and comic book creator... whew!

Scott was there at the very beginnings of the San Diego Comic Con!  He also worked at the San Diego Zoo for a few years, just like his dad did. 

If this sounds familar to my long time blog readers, that's because my dad also worked at the San Diego Zoo at the same time Scott's dad did, and Scott and I worked at the Zoo during most of the same years, but he had an early morning shift, while I was there later in the morning.  Whereas he was one of the early organizers at the Con, I didn't start as a dealer at the El Cortez SDCC location until 1972.  But I digress...

Scott and his son, Kirby, were located in the Artists Alley section of this Wizard World, which was at the far end of the con after you walked in the entrance.

So, it being the first afternoon of the con, I gravitated to that area, before the media guests were fully set up and ready to go.  With a 'Press Pass' I was able to see several persons before the doors opened and they became swamped with attendees.

Scott and Kirby were already set up, and I had a good talk with both of them, as seen by the above two photos that I am publishing here.

Scott, whose partial credits of his works are found via this link, had several of those works displayed on his table for sale. One that I had seen briefly at an earlier Comic Con International: San Diego show at a booth next to Scott's there, was one that I picked up this time. 

Why?  Well, I enjoy reading 'promotional comics', those comics that are published to help promote a company's products or services. 

This one was "The Adventures Of Captain Rochester", A Rochester Electronics Publication. It was issue #2 of the title.

The artwork on the covers and the interior pages were illustrated by Scott Shaw!, so naturally I had to read it!

The script was by George Karalias & Paul Gerrish, art by Scott Shaw!, coloring by Tom Luth, with lettering by Dan Nakrosis.  Edited by George Karalias & Scott Shaw!

I found this issue to be chock full of information, and a fun read!  Which is why I enjoy reading 'promotional comics' like this!

So what is the background and theme for this comic book title? Here's what I found from the web site: 

Captain Rochester and the Quest for Traceability, Authorization and Quality.

"To combat the increasingly severe problems caused by counterfeit and sub-standard semiconductors, Rochester Electronics joined forces with the Semiconductor Industry Association to establish the SIA Anti-Counterfeit Task Force. In addition, Rochester continues to participate in international anti-counterfeit efforts, including the Reliable Electronic Component Suppliers Classification program in China (RECS).

To further this cause, Rochester Electronics introduced Captain Rochester - a strong and entertaining industry hero who promotes safe and secure methods of dealing with the procurement of semiconductors. As an icon, he has come to be a symbol of what is right about the industry. As Smokey the Bear is to preventing forest fires, Captain Rochester is to preventing customers from making mistakes in buying counterfeit or sub-standard devices. As new plots and adventures unfold, Captain Rochester will do more than battle against the "dark side" of the industry - he will interact in positive and beneficial relationships with other characters who will represent real-world allies dedicated to facilitating the purchase of legitimate semiconductor products."
 

That's pretty cool in my book! 

Scott had these issues for sale at his table. I'm not sure if he sells them via the mail.  I didn't pick up any for resale purposes, so we don't have them in our online store, sorry!

To see more info on this cool series, plus view a animated video of Captain Rochester, check out the company web site at:

http://www.rocelec.com/about/captrochester/ 

Plus, I've already posted links to Scott's websites before, but this blog keeps adding new 'followers' all the time, so here are just a couple of Scott Shaw!'s websites:

http://www.oddballcomics.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oddball-Comics/244154350651?ref=ts 

For those of You that couldn't attend this convention, I'll be blogging about more media guests and comics creators in the days to come...

If You can't wait for my posts, you can check out more of who was there at Wizard World Anaheim by joining their Facebook Fan Page right here for one,  AND / OR You can go direct to their web site to see who else appeared there at: Wizard World Anaheim.    

My thanks to Scott Shaw! and Kirby.  It was fun talking with you guys on Friday, and during the rest of the show. See you again, real soon!

AND my thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now over the 3,100 total posts in number! 

Well, we are back from that show, and the first blog I want to post is about meeting two of the stars of one of my favorite TV Shows from the 1960's:  Land of the Giants!

I know that several of you have only seen this series as re-runs, and maybe some of you haven't seen it all?!  So here is a brief history of the show:

Land of the Giants was an hour-long American science fiction television program lasting two seasons. I first watched it beginning on September 22, 1968 and viewed the final episode on March 22, 1970.

This was another of my favorite shows that was created and produced by Irwin Allen. He had several TV Shows that I enjoyed when I was in junior and senior high school.

I believe that this 'Land of the Giants' was the fourth of those science fiction TV series that he produced.

This show was aired on the ABC Network and was from 20th Century Fox Television. It isn't such a big deal now, but back then this series was filmed entirely in color.  Unfortunately it only ran for 51 episodes, lasting for two seasons.

On Friday I met Don Matheson and Deanna Lund at the booth.  Don Marshall, who also starred in the show, was also at this con. However I didn't see him until Sunday. 

Other stars that were on the TV Series included Gary Conway, Kurt Kaznar, Stefan Arngrim, and Heather Young. 

Besides the five issue comic book series from Gold Key Comics, of which issue #1 is shown at the top left, there were also three novels that Murray Leinster wrote in 1968 and 1969 based on this television series.  We sometimes get the comics and paperbacks in, but they don't last too long in our online store. There are several collectors that want these items from this popular TV Series!

The Land of the Giants booth at Wizard World Anaheim was a last minute addition, and I wasn't able to blog about the stars attending, prior to the con starting...

However, I am glad to have met both Deanna and Don, and found that Deanna has a couple of websites that she recommended to me that I am listing here.  She is also on Facebook, but does not have a Fan Page as of yet.  When she does, I'll update this blog post or run another one.

At the table, Deanna had a couple of promos from http://www.Giantslog.com and she also mentioned to me the http://www.DeannaLund.com which I am also listing here.   

For those of You that couldn't attend this convention, I'll be blogging about more media guests and comics creators in the days to come... If You can't wait for my posts, you can check out more of who was there at Wizard World Anaheim by joining their Facebook Fan Page right here for one,  AND / OR You can go direct to their web site to see who else appeared there at: Wizard World Anaheim.  

Special Thanks to Deanna Lund who spent extra time with me on the first day of the con going over all the material published above, plus more to be blogged about her in the months to come as she was also on the Batman TV Show that I have a book coming out out on.

My thanks to Don Matheson also.  I'll be blogging separately about Don Marshall, who I didn't see until Sunday.

AND my thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now over the 3,100 total posts in number! 

Today, I'm blogging about the fact that Facebook Friend, Tim Lasiuta, posted the above shown original artwork to to the cover used for Roy Rogers Comics #83 which was published by Dell Comics in November of 1954!

Tim came across the cover while researching for his upcoming book on an aspect of Roy Rogers, which hopefully I'll share here in several months with you.

The cover artwork was designed by Arnold C Holeywell, who designed at least four other comic book cover for Dell Comics in the period of 1953-54, as seen at this link: Arnold Holeywell at GCD.

Quite honestly, I had never seen the 'credits' for this issue or the other comics listed in the above link, so was curious as to what else Arnold had created.

It appears that Arnold retired from his Design Director position at Time-Life Books sometime in his career and went on to pursue his love of watercolor paintings.  He also worked in oil, of which I saw a couple on the web.

'Googling' his full name as "Arnold C Holeywell", I found about 16,600 listings!  The earlier pages of links listings showed a lot of entries for 'Field & Stream' magazine in the 1950's.  I could see from his paintings on the Dell Comics Covers, that he would have been perfect for painting those magazine covers also!

My thanks to Tim Lasiuta for sharing the above find on his Facebook member wall. BTW, Tim is currently the International Licensing Director for Jack Lake Productions, a Contributing Editor at Moonstone Books, as well as a Project Consultant for his own Tim Lasiuta Creative Services.  He definitely is a busy guy!

Oh, and an earlier work that I somehow missed is his book on Joe Sinnott, who is one of my favorite pencillers / inkers.  That book is titled "Brush Strokes With Greatness: The Life & Art of Joe Sinnot". Being a life long fan of the Fantastic Four, I don't know how I missed that one!