Heroes Convention 2005

I had a lot of fun today at the Heroes Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. As always, Shelton put on a great show with an impressive list of guests. There were plenty of great Golden Age books for sale from an impressive array of dealers.

I spent some time talking to the great Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck storyteller, Don Rosa. Don had some wonderful Golden Age cover re-creations in which he inserted the famous residents of Duckburg in place of the usual heroes. Of course, I had to get Don to sign his rendition of Detective 27 featuring Scrooge and Flintheart Glomgold. Use your imagination! There will be an interview with Don in the next podcast.

The other highlight of the day was the panel featuring Nick Cardy, Gene Colon, Herb Rogoff, Roy Thomas, Jim Amash, Marv Wolfman and Howard Chaykin. These notable comics professionals covered all manner of topics in a two-hour discussion. The quote of the day came from Nick Cardy, responding to a comment from Howard Chaykin. Howard had commented about Nick's great ability to draw men and women in romance comics in the 1950's. Nick replied, "I had no problem drawing women. I did a hell of a lot of research!"

I enjoyed two other comments from the discussion. The first was an exchange between Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas in which they concluded that to each fan of comic books, the Golden Age of Comics occurred when they were twelve years old, regardless of the actual calendar year. The second came from Howard Chaykin describing his love for comic books. He said that he remembers the "musty, moldy" smell of old comics from a refrigerator box of comics he inherited when he was a child. He remarked that to this day, that smell brings fond memories and makes him want to dive into a pile of comics like Scrooge dives into his money bin. To me, that comment perfectly describes the feeling most of us have about old comics.

Later in the day, I stopped by the ACTOR booth and learned about this extremely important effort by comics professionals for the benefit of Golden Age and Silver Age comics professionals in need. I would encourage you to visit the ACTOR Comic Fund Web Site and support this worthwhile effort.