Oklahoma City’s gorgeous this time of year.
Okay, maybe not exactly gorgeous, but certainly cooler than it was a couple of months ago. So let’s call it tolerable.
On the morning of Oct. 3, I’ll be headed down the turnpike to OKC with my pal and partner in Reverse Karma Press, John McMahan, where we’ll join scores of our old comic-book, pulp, paperback, radio-show and movie-paper collecting pals for the big OAFCON 2008.
What’s that? Well, as my chum Bart Bush describes it in the press release, (written by another of my longtime buddies – and the proud co-editor of our 1971 fanzine TORTURE-MURDER PICTORIAL – Bruce Shults), it’s “more than 50 dealer’s tables piled high with comic collectibles and other childhood treasures . . . . Dealers coming from coast-to-coast will be mainly offering comic books and collectibles made before 1980. If you enjoy vintage items like movie posters, paperbacks, series books, sheet music, this show is for you. Former club members and long-time fans from across the country will be in attendance.”
OAF, you see, stands for the Oklahoma Alliance of Fans, a group of comic-book collectors who found each other back in the late ’60s. Through the untiring efforts of Bart and Robert “Bosco” Brown, dozens of us converged on OKC last year for the OAF 40th reunion, and once we got over the shock at what four decades of gravity can do to a person, we decided we still liked each other enough to get together this year and have a full-fledged convention (or “con,” to the uninitiated), the kind we used to have before people started buying and selling all their old junk – I mean, valuable nostalgic treasures — on the freaking computer.
McMahan and I have approximately 9,875 copies of Reverse Karma Press’ debut offering (in conjunction with Off Trail Publications, of course) SUPER-DETECTIVE FLIP BOOK left, and we’ll be happy to sign as many as you want or need. We even will have a few of the rare un-signed copies available. Reprinting two Jim Anthony – Super Detective pulp tales from the ’40s, it’s getting some nice reviews online and elsewhere.
So come see us. No matter where you live, if you’re into this sort of thing, it’ll definitely be worth your trip.
That’s OAFCON, set for Friday and Saturday, Oct. 3 &4, at the Biltmore Hotel, 401 S. Meridian in Oklahoma City. Admission is an incredibly low five bucks for both days.
For more about OAF and the convention, visit www.oafcon.blogspot.com.
And, if you can’t come to OAFCON and want a copy of SUPER-DETECTIVE, check the blog entry right before this one for instructions on how to order it from the comfort of your own home.
I recently attended another great convention, Pulpcon in Dayton, Ohio (see www.pulpcon.org for more). As always, it was great to get with my publisher friends John Locke and John Gunnison to work over some ideas for new projects (along with a box or two of wine), and to see other good pals who share my love of pulp lit of the ’30s and ’40s.
Among the latter are Don Hutchison, Nick Carr, and Dave Walker, who always set aside time to have a martini or two with me as we gaze out the big windows at the top of the Dayton Crowne Plaza and talk about long-ago writers and writing. Sometimes, the topics ramble away a little. Dave reminded me of a conversation we’d had, sitting in that same bar high atop the hotel, a year ago.
“You and Don started talking about the movie version of The Grapes of Wrath, and how great it was,” Dave said. “You were going over scenes, and talking about the nobility of the Joads, and how there were so many moving things in it – and you both were just about in tears.
“That’s when Nick leaned in and said, ‘So, what do you boys think about King Kong?’ ”
I heard some great lines at Pulpcon this year, but the most memorable one came from Rusty Hevelin, one of the original organizers of the event back in 1971. As I passed Rusty’s table, stacked high with pulps, in the dealer’s room, I overheard him say, “The closer I get to 90, the less stuff I need for my collection.”