Or maybe I should’ve titled this post, “My First Comic Convention.”
Well, let’s first take a look at the scans below; the full Creation ad, followed by a blow-up of the Manhattan show details…
Okay, so, I clearly recalled the first convention I ever attended was in the fall of ’86, as it was just as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home hit theaters. I also remembered the ad above pretty accurately, and dug it out of my copy of X-Factor #12 — which was cover dated January 1987, but as you probably know, comics were cover dated months ahead of the actual street date. (The cover date was sorta the newsstand “expiration date.”) So, that X-Factor #12 aligned with the fall of ’86.
Anyway — per my quick collecting bio on the Star Wars 107 blog — I was “all in” collecting comics in ’86, and that Creation schedule above hit my radar. The Manhattan November 28 – 30 show at the Omni Hotel was, “The biggest convention of the year!,” and hey, the dates were Thanksgiving weekend.
My dad was a sport and drove me to the convention from NJ, and he wandered around (okay, sorta tolerated) the show as well. But he really likes Star Trek and all that stuff, so made it okay. Some vague memories:
- Standing on line to enter the show, there were tables of promotional giveaways…including some pseudo-naughty mini one-sheets / foldouts for horror B-movies. Why didn’t I hold onto that stuff?
- Trek, Trek, and more Trek. Creation made its name with Star Trek stuff, so I guess the shows by the mid ’80s had evolved into a more even Trek / Other Sci-Fi / Comic Book mix. But I didn’t know that going into it, so yes, this was my first encounter with a mass of Trekkies. (And I WILL call them “Trekkies” and not “Trekkers.”)
- My dad commenting (and correctly so) that a lot of these people needed a shower.
- I attended a panel of Marvel’s New Universe creators, and seem to remember one of the creators going off on a tangent to talk about how great Star Trek IV was. (I hadn’t seen it yet, as it was released only days earlier, on 11/26/1986!)
- Comics, comics, comics! First time I’d been to any kind of comic show, let alone with so many dealers. Some of the “wall” books — that’d be the out-of-reach more expensive back issues, that dealers had on walls behind them — I remember seeing a lot of John Byrne X-Men, as well as the hot independents of the time.
Well, I know this is the obvious thing to write: but yep, it was an experience. Wish there was an archive somewhere of photos, and even better, video of the show! Maybe one day they’ll surface on the new Comic-Convention Memories blog.
More info / resources:
Creation’s official site is here, and we did a great interview with Carl Potts, whom you see was a featured guest at that ’86 Thanksgiving show.
And again, I so associate this convention with Star Trek IV. Cuz not only did it happen right on top of that movie opening, but less than a month later, Shatner hosted the infamous Saturday Night Live Christmas “Get a life!” episode…
