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Collecting comic books in 1970
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33 posts in this topic

Don't know anything about George Henderson's "Dark Side" unless it was related to King Features taking him to court for copyright infringements related to reprinting Alex Raymond's works without permission.

On the CBC site that aired this video, here are some facts on George Henderson:

  • George Henderson was born in Stratford, Ont., around 1929 and raised in Montreal. At the age of 18, both his wife and child died during childbirth. Following this he enlisted in the armed forces.
  • Trained as a paratrooper, he served for 12 years in Germany, Korea and Indochina. After leaving the army he worked a string of odd jobs, including trucker and carnival stuntman, before launching a career as a writer of soft-core sex novels.
  • After three years, Henderson ditched his writing career in the mid-1960s to open a bookstore on Toronto's shabby Queen Street West. Though he sold all types of books, Henderson specialized in his passion: pulp novels, movie magazines, silent film ephemera and Big Little Books.
  • In 1967, Henderson relocated his shop to Markham Street and renamed it Memory Lane Books. It was around this time that he took on the nickname "Captain George" - a nod to a famous humour magazine Captain Billy's Whizbang.
  • A larger-than-life personality who brimmed over with stories about old movies and superheroes, Henderson quickly earned the unofficial title of the "Patriarch of Canadian Comics" from his customers.
  • In addition to his popular store, Henderson also supervised a mini-publishing empire that specialized in the interests of his customers. With titles like Captain George's Comic World, Captain George Presents and Captain George's Penny Dreadful, the self-made publications included stories on old movie serials, comics, sci-fi and featured reprints of classic newspaper strips.
  • Copyright issues eventually brought an end to his books, but in retrospect they seem to have laid the groundwork for "zine" movement of the early 1990s.
  • Henderson was also responsible for Canada's first comic art gallery, The Whizzbang Gallery, located a few doors from his store.
  • Well-spoken and poised, Captain George became something of spokesman for the burgeoning comics community thanks to his frequent appearances on television and radio.
  • To many fans, Henderson will be best remembered for nurturing - and legitimizing - interest in comic books as art. In July 1968, he produced the country's first ever comic convention the Triple Fan Fair, which celebrated comics, science fiction and classic cinema.
  • Over the years the event drew the likes of Stan Lee, Isaac Asimov and Kirk Alyn, the first actor to play Superman on film.
  • Henderson died in Toronto on Feb. 10, 1992 at the age of 63.

 

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The fan that was interviewed in the 1st clip provided by the OP is George Olshevsky.  He is an author of many things, including numerous Comic Book indexes that were published in the mid-1970's through the 80's.

Most, if not all of us, have seen Olshevsky's work without knowing it.

Here's a link to some of his published works:

George Olshevsky (comicbook.com)

(thumbsu

 

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14 hours ago, 01TheDude said:

image.thumb.png.4ba3a8a9acac267dbf9678e7c2668259.png

That is a stack of Thor 135 the guy is holding-- which has a cover date of Dec 1966. So I wonder if this video was from earlier than 1970. I guess it could be part of a warehouse find but sure does seem like that is right as I see the Oct 1966 X-Men issue #25 right near it.

I just question that the comic collecting is being done in 1970 or the 1970s-- seems more like at least the late 1960s

That seems more like what reading and collecting would've been like here in the UK in the 60s, when Marvel Comics were imported more or less fully, before we had numerous stops-and-starts to the distribution from the mid-70s onwards.

Very interesting video.

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Ok, maybe I've opened a can of worms, but in Toronto comic collecting circles there were rumours of George being inappropriate with under-age. I heard this from several sources and the main reason he has never been honored by the Shuster Awards, the Canadian comic book awards.

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19 hours ago, comicnoir said:

Ok, maybe I've opened a can of worms, but in Toronto comic collecting circles there were rumours of George being inappropriate with under-age. I heard this from several sources and the main reason he has never been honored by the Shuster Awards, the Canadian comic book awards.

Interesting.   I reside in Toronto and I’ve been collecting since ‘82.  Been going to the Beguiling since the early 90’s (formerly Captain George’s), and all of the major conventions from the early 80’s to the early 2000’s and I’ve never heard any rumours of this type about George.

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On 12/22/2020 at 9:25 PM, Savoyard23 said:

This made my day!  So weird - but cool - to see guys flipping through boxes of 'moderns' from the late 1960s.

Makes me want to find that place, frozen in time. 

Or, recreate it.  Maybe that's what this collecting is all about.

Yeah, that says it all for me, that's the power of nostalgia in a nutshell....

and thanks to the OP for posting it, first time I have ever seen him, and GA books in a rack.... :whatthe: lol

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17 minutes ago, crassus said:
On 12/22/2020 at 6:25 PM, Savoyard23 said:

This made my day!  So weird - but cool - to see guys flipping through boxes of 'moderns' from the late 1960s.

Makes me want to find that place, frozen in time. 

Or, recreate it.  Maybe that's what this collecting is all about.

Yeah, that says it all for me, that's the power of nostalgia in a nutshell....

and thanks to the OP for posting it, first time I have ever seen him, and GA books in a rack.... :whatthe: lol

your just in it to sniff the pages...., :baiting: 

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1 hour ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Interesting.   I reside in Toronto and I’ve been collecting since ‘82.  Been going to the Beguiling since the early 90’s (formerly Captain George’s), and all of the major conventions from the early 80’s to the early 2000’s and I’ve never heard any rumours of this type about George.

Well, I was born in Toronto and lived here all my life. The Beguiling was not in the same building as Memory Lane, it was across the street and a little north. The rumours exist, whether they are true or not I can't say.

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On 12/23/2020 at 3:37 AM, PetuniaGrimm said:

Imagine going back in time and walking into his shop when the video was recorded.

"Hi, what can I get you?"

I'll take everything you have

"What"?

Every copy of everything you have in the store

Gotta play it cool.. come every day and buy regularly 

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