I?d not been to one of these particular shows before, so I didn?t have any expectations.
The British comic contingency was very well represented with several dealers being led by The Book Palace, amongst others. And the room was buzzing, literally packed with people. There was barely room to move. I managed to meet a few traders and make some contacts that?ll help me with my IPC/Fleetway collection.
There was an awful lot of frenzied buying going on from other collectors who were much more organised than me, all brandishing their ?want? lists, and at times you were definitely jostled out the way in their haste to get the elusive comic. Certainly when I arrived, at 12:15, it wasn?t an environment for quiet and casual browsing, people knew what they wanted, and they targeted dealers/boxes like a laser beam.
When I left about 14:30 people were still arriving in large amounts.
In terms of my purchases, I bought 18 issues of Monster Fun at only 50p each ? some with centre pages still intact ? and I stumbled on a pile of fantastic and excellent condition 1970s IPC/Fleetway summer specials that I instantly snapped up. Stuff from Krazy, Cheeky, and so on. Really chuffed with these.
There was a reasonable amount of comic art, but sadly it was of no interest to me. I had hoped to get some, but apart from a couple of Buster front covers from the 1980s, there was nothing else specific to my interests. Actually though, this was a good thing as I didn?t fancy carrying it around London all day.
As suspected in an earlier post, there were a lot of American comic, trading card and sci-fi toy stands at the show, which is of no interest to me personally, but overall, yes, it was a good day out, and I?m very glad I made the effort. I?m especially pleased with my purchases and already looking forward to the next show.
Pensky
