Silver Snail 1979?

The other day,

while I was casting about on Facebook,

I ran across this photograph.

Tom Stormonth, Ron Van Leeuwen, Mark Askwith and Carlos Outside The Silver Snail at 323 Queen St West in 1979 by Robert Myres

Personally, I would take issue with Robert's memory about when this was taken.  If only for the fact, that I have no memory of Mark Askwith, in connection with the store, until after they moved to 

367 Queen Street West, in 1983.

That was when Mark became the manager and Ron, while still overseeing the store, ran Andromeda Publications, the distribution part of his empire.

So, to clarify my thoughts about the photograph, I am fairly sure that this was probably taken in late 1982 or early 1983.

Does anyone else have a better guess?

Incidentally, Ken Steacy, one of the original, "fan turned pro", frequenters of The Snail, had this to say about the location:

"Were we ever this young?  Right upstairs (above the store) was MARS & CO, a studio that was occupied by Dean Motter, John Allison, Paul Rivoche, Ken Steacy, Cullen and Oueltte.

At the time, we used a local courier service, called Rabbit and we loved to call them up, just to ask,

 "Can you send a Rabbit to MARS?"

We were all, so much younger then.  The days seemed longer and the future seemed brighter.

Sketches & Things

The image below, came as a surprise to me because I had never asked a simple question : where did Larry Mahlstedt

suddenly appear from, when he became Keith Giffen's

favourite inker?

The short answer is, that he was a student at the short lived John Buscema Art School.

It is interesting to see that while Bob Hall also got a showcase moment, on the page (from an issue of FOOM)

another name is missing...

Tim Sale!

Arguably, Tim Sale is probably the highest profile, comic book artist, to have attended the John Buscema Art School

and yet, he wasn't one of the selected few, for this page.

I am now going to indulge myself and add a couple of pages of my own doodles.

These are pretty typical of the type of thing that I do and I have covered a lot of paper in this way.

Just exactly what I am accomplishing, is a moot point and while there are a number of ideas and characters, that I return to, time and again, there is nothing remotely complete.

"Dead Guy", the one with a hole right through him, was an attempt at zombie humour and he has cropped up in my sketches, many times, as has the robotic nutcase "539",

who is seen here, teasing him.

On a different topic, a long time ago but not very far away, there was a comic shop, Beaver Comics, in Barrie, Ontario and it was run by a man who had a passion for Gene Day's art. 

I remember his display, at a convention in the early Eighties, where he was selling a lot of Gene Day originals, not long after Gene had died.

Anyway, I had looked for information about him and his old store because he too, had died, in the early Nineties.

I never had any luck and then, on an unrelated search, I found this:

and it made my day!

Finally, here is an unusual item from the mid-Seventies.

A Barry Smith, predating his addition of the "Windsor", 

and an unused cover for Marvel Comics, The Tomb of Dracula.