Collecting Comic Books, A Personal History Part 4

For a lot of reasons, the passage of time being the main one, 

the transition through to the next phase of my collecting

life is rather vague.

Somehow, I rediscovered the Andromeda Bookshop,

sometime in 1974.  I have a suspicion that Alan, 

at the Japetus Bookshop on Corporation Street,

had stopped being my connection for new comics,

possibly because he could no longer get them.

This is Rog as he was in 2004 

at Concourse, The 2004 EasterCon,

held in Blackpool, England.

Whatever the reason, I began to be a Saturday regular at Andromeda.

By this time, Rog Peyton had employed a long haired young fellow, 

named Dave Holmes, to look after Andromeda's Comic Book business.

The comic area, once again, was in the basement and it was a reasonably compact 

little space but they had a few back-issue bins and a steady supply of the 

new American comics.  It was a good fit for me.

For a time, I remember that I continued to visit the Birmingham Market and the 

used books dealer there, who's tables also had piles of old comics and magazines. 

Pete Lennon was still in the picture too, still dealing back-issues out of his car. 

There was also a tall, well dressed, young man, whose family was originally from India, 

named VJ.  What those initials stood for, or whether his true name was Vijay, 

is a mystery to me now but he was someone that I met through my weekly visits to Andromeda 

and he also sold comics out of his car, usually down by the market.

As I recall,he had relatives who lived in New York and they were the source of 

his supply.  I remember buying the first couple of Marvel's black and white, magazine sized, 

issues of Kull and the Barbarians from him and I still have them.  They are dated for May of 1975,

so that pins down the time period that I dealt with him and it was a short association, 

because he faded away; I think he was a student at the University and he either graduated or 

continued his education elsewhere.

1974 or 1975 was also the year that I met Carl Brooks.

Carl may not be a household name but he can lay claim to being one of the few who attended the very first comic book convention held in England in 1968.  As far as I am aware, Carl is still an active collector, 

as Lew Stringer, on his wonderful Blog "Blimey!", has a photograph of him at the 2007 Birmingham International Comics Show.

Carl was the first person that I ever met who had complete runs of most of the Marvel Comic Book titles and he was the one who introduced me to "The Big Red Cheese", otherwise known as the original Captain Marvel.  Carl had an impressive collection of Fawcett Comics too.

A recent photograph of 

Pete Lennon

and other than putting on a little weight,

very much the same guy he is in my memory banks.

I met Carl Brooks through Pete Lennon, at one of the Comic Marts in London, run by Nick Landau.

Pete and I travelled down from Birmingham on the train and we ran into Carl and one of his friends, at their table in the Mart.  Carl was a small time dealer and he was getting up-to-date American Imports through a local American Forces base PX, which was a connection he had through Phil Clarke, I think.

The point is, that Carl invited me to his home, back in Birmingham and for a while, I used to get my new comic books through him.

Thanks to an old posting by Lew Stringer here is 

the photograph of Carl from the 2007 Comics Show. 

He is the man in the foreground, wearing the black jacket.

For several weeks, for reasons that I couldn't fathom, Carl GAVE me the books that I wanted for FREE!

He worked in one of the local factories, made a decent living and he was still living in his parents house, 

so I guess he could afford it.  After a while though, he, apologetically, asked for payment and I happily gave it to him.  From time to time, he and his pals would put together a bunch of books to take to a convention and sell, which I got to look through first.  That was how I discovered some of the great fanzines that had been published through the years and bought my first few issues of Squa Tront.

It was through Carl Brooks that I first met Phil Clarke.

On a cold and rainy english night, I rode my trusty BSA 250 over to the home of Phil Clarke and 

came away with Captain America #113 by Jim Steranko, a book that I knew existed but had never seen before!  I still have that same book in my collection, forty years later and the price that I gave for it, back then, was 13 Pounds or roughly $26 Canadian… about the same as it would cost today!

More to come, so be warned!