Heidi on the 'Bay

That Ron Dude · February 24, 2008

Sometimes feminism is a word that to me means "fairness for women" other times it means to me "power for women". Beautiful women often have sexual power over men, that's no secret.

Treena had a comic years ago in which a panel bothered me. It showed her at the offices of Marvel comics. She depicted herself as a sweet, young thing. The guys in the office all wanted to show her around. I remember that one of them looked like Roy Thomas who had long, light hair at the time that swept over his forehead from a high peak on one side.

I wish I could find the comic to see just how close my memory of it is. Like most of us I have thousands. I don't even know the title.

She seemed to be depicting their visible sexual interest in her, a young woman that they didn't even know, to be a bad thing. As a teenager or a very young man I was beginning to notice that a lot of women talked about the creeps that came on to them and how the creeps were rebuffed. I would later, notice or find out that they didn't rebuff all the creeps, just the ones they told you about. And don't get me wrong, this doesn't apply to all women but it applied to an awful lot of the women I knew when I was in my first years of university.

So who was the creep Trina didn't tell us about? Maybe there wasn't one at the time. Maybe he was a peace corp worker, who took her out three times before even trying to kiss her. Maybe it was a comic artist with a lot of power. How would I know?

I do see some conflict with posing for a skin magazine and feminism. I see the little vignette about the comic geeks at Marvel coming on to her as being a poor depiction of human nature that, if anything, causes unneeded feelings of guilt in her largely male target audience. Still, she was just a kid and is bound to do things that are regrettable when seen against an unknown future.

Who knows? Maybe the photos for the skin magazine are what propelled her towards feminism. Maybe that nasty little panel that has bounced around in my mind for some forty years propelled her to enter to the difficult, male dominated world of comic books.

Or maybe they were both attempts at acquiring power through her sexuality at an early age.

She has has gone on to make a niche for herself in the world of comics.

Boba · February 26, 2008

I wonder if there will ever be a documentary movie about the happenings of those early comic-con days. Some pretty crazy things were going on.

That Ron Dude · February 26, 2008

Even a movie set at a comic convention would be a riot. It was the tail end of the hippy period and there were things going on that couldn't be done today. My friend James Waley has an hysterically funny story about going to the New York Seuling convention, dragging a bench into the Hilton bathroom, using it to baracade the door while sleeping on it. Storyboard that. Another friend, Bill Paul, used to used the local porno theatres as his hotel room. We were geeks. I was the biggest geek of all. But we were creative, intelligent and imaginative geeks. Like Treena, and hopefully like Heidi, we found our niches.

Money was important but it wasn't everything. People used to say that no one would ever make their living off of fandom. Were they wrong. Still, this notion got people doing things that no one in their right mind would try if it was just for the money.

And I don't think I would be going to far to say that we were the enthusiasts who kept a dying part of popular culture alive to the point where comics today dominate film, have a book written about them that has won a Pulitzer and in the case of Maus and Cancer Year have in themselves won Pulitzers.

Boba · February 26, 2008

Oh yes, good ole Phil Sueling. His cons were always a blast. The best part was seeing how many people we could sneak into a single hotel room. I do beiieve that someday a movie will be made.

Boba · August 30, 2008

Well, there's another one on ebay....

An Illustrated History of Hiedi Saha

That Ron Dude · August 31, 2008

Thanks Bob. Okay, I propose a pool, with 1st prize a no-prize. What do you think it will go for? I am going to throw in at $651.02.

Boba · September 1, 2008

It seems to have stalled - I think maybe $590

brasseye · September 1, 2008

Well, there's another one on ebay....

An Illustrated History of Hiedi Saha

....and a nice little write up to go with it (thumbs u

Seller's description

I present to you the ultra-rare, the sought-after, the famous, and in some

circles, even the infamous "Heidi Book."

Many things have been said about the Heidi Book over the years, but one

thing we can hold as true is this -- it is one of the rarest and most collectible

Warren magazines. No one seems to know for sure how many copies were

printed, though most estimates tend to hover at around 500. Of these 500,

there seems to be no record of how many were actually sold to the public.

There are speculations that most of the copies were recalled and destroyed

for one reason or another, but whether or not that is true, normal attrition

rates for a run of 500 magazines would mean that relatively few have survived

to this day.

As to the book itself, it's certainly an oddity coming from a company that specialized

in black and white horror comics. The contents deal exclusively with a young

female fan -- Heidi was thirteen in the Sheena pictures -- and it shows her

growing up to become a lovely young lady who modeled outstandingly well done

costumes at various conventions, who met many famous personages in the

fantasy and science fiction field, and so on. It wouldn't be until later in 1973, when

she modeled a brilliant Vampirella costume at the New York Comic Art Convention,

and later at the Worldcon in Toronto, that she would do anything one could really

relate to Warren comics.

The Heidi Book thus comes across as something of a promo piece for Heidi, the

kind of thing that might be compiled for prospective agents, assuming the average

hopeful had a major professional publisher behind them. It is often said that

Heidi was pushed into her costuming and other fan/entertainment activities by an

ambitious stage mother who wanted to make Heidi a star, despite Heidi's

lack of enthusiasm for these activities. This might be true, and it's also true that

Heidi soon stopped her convention activities and, presumably, pursued a normal

life.

It's also at least conceivable that the Heidi Book was meant to appeal to drooling

young fanboys like myself. I was fourteen when I began to see the ads for the

Heidi Book and for her Sheena poster. These knocked me completely off-kilter.

I had certainly seen plenty of pretty girls before. My school was loaded with them,

but not one of them was a member of the Science Fiction Society. Yet here was

Heidi, who to me was nothing less than the Brigitte Bardot of fandom. She entered my

pantheon of goddesses right alongside Elke Sommer and Lola Falana. I really

wanted the book and poster bad, but I was a fanboy, and to fanboys there are

certain priorities in this world, and one of those priorities was that spare cash would

be spent on Creepy and Eerie, not on a mail order magazine or poster. If I happened

to spot it at the local comics shop, that was one thing, but to order it? Never happen.

If only I had known!

It's also worth noting that Heidi's father, Art Saha, was an important science fiction

editor and a major member of New York fandom. Thus, Art Saha, and the alleged

stage mother, Taimi Saha, were well-positioned to promote their daughter to

entertainment industry professionals of various stripes, if that is what they wanted

to do. Certainly, it seems unlikely that the magazine just suddenly occurred to

Ackerman and Warren because they were "charmed" by Heidi at a convention. After

all, one of the pictures in the book shows Forry and Heidi when Heidi was about ten.

Thus, the truth about the Heidi book is that there are many truths, and many reasons

for why it exists, none of which are particularly important to a collector unless you're

intrigued by the human drama behind the book, as I am. Maybe someone will ask

Forrest J. Ackerman or other people involved and get a better accounting than all

the guesswork we have now.

In any event, what I offer here is a Heidi Book in Very Good Condition. There are

no tears, and no odor. This is very clean, with crisp pages. You can see a bit of

minor edgewear at the edges of the cover, and an impact rumpling at the top of

the spine. Otherwise, this copy is in excellent condition, benefiting from the slick,

heavy stock used on the interior pages.

I will be happy to provide enlarged copies of the pictures by email to those who request

them, and maybe one or two other pictures to represent other areas of the book.

I will not provide pictures of the entire book, however.

Boba · September 3, 2008

Well Ron, you were closer than me:: $667.00

You win a no-prize!

Nuff said...

That Ron Dude · September 4, 2008

Sarcastadon comes through once again!!! I will award myself a no-prize. You can always count on some guy waiting in the wings ready to out bid everyone else at the last minute on those big ticket items.

Boba · September 7, 2008

Well, either there were 2 copies for sale or the bidder reneged.

HEIDI ON THE 'BAY

emanuel maris-migration · January 14, 2009

Well, suppose I set the story straight[er], as to my reasons for writing the Heidi poem in the Creation '74 [Jan] program I editied and published for Malin/Berman's convention

I always harbored a little bit of attitude against entrants for a Costume Parade Prize who didn't personally make their own costumes [like 'buying' a prize away from those fans who wroked hard - or using steroids in a sports event].

However, I always was polite to the Saha's and their daughter, even when Heidi's mom pestered me for photo's of past events with Heidi.

The turning point came when Phil held a reception for the guests and workers of the '73 July Comic Art Convention [for which I ran the dealers room]. Held in one of the smaller ballrooms with large banquet-style round tables, one table was taken by Neal Adams and his Crusty Bunkers, and so on.

I witnessed the following up close:

Heidi's mom physically dragged an on-the-verge-of-tears Heidi into this reception, along with a cassette boom-box, which she turned on and nastilly [sic] ordered Heidi to pirouette around the room. Heidi refused. Her mom got louder and nastier. Heidi again refused and started crying. Her mom then slapped her hard

The conversation in the room stopped, all eyes on this embarrassing scene. The entire Adams table got up and walked out, followed en masse by most of the guests. the reception prematurely over.

I felt really bad for Heidi. And my suspicion of that person_without_enough_empathy of a mother's politic in USING her to vicariously live through her daughter was confirmed in spades.

So later that year, I saw a picture of a young girl in Gallery magazine who was reminiscent of Heidi - and all of a sudden an idea popped into my head [at that point I had already been commissioned to produce the Creation program booklet] on how to make a public comment that would force the issue, and perhaps foment a situation wherein her mother would cease such behavior.

"With a word she commands her 'bout the floor" [from my Stairway To Heaven parody]

Al Schuster [who started the Star Trek conventions, and was also the printer for many fan related publications in the comic and SF worlds, and also of this booklet] decided to put his ad directly across from this page - and he was a friend of the Saha's!

Many people/artists/writers, including witnesses to the reception travesty such as Neal Adams, came up to congratulate me for having taken such bold action. Others whom I had been friendly with beforehand, such as the Saha's good friend Gray Morrow, never spoke to me again.

At night of the first day, Art Saha came running up to me in the lobby screaming, "That's not my daughter!" and proceeded to throttle me against a wall, my feet off the ground. I said it wasn't, he accused me of using a 'spoonerism' [named after a certain preacher of the 19th century who would switch the first letters of two sequential words in his sermons to make a point humorously). Phil Seuling came to the rescue, and man-handled Art off of me.

(Phil did not attack me, Phil did not ban me from his conventions. Ahh, blogging is far worse - and more damaging - than the game of 'telephone']

The results are well known and can be seen by anyone by viewing the booklet - hopefully the less dim-wits amongst this blog can see that this attacked the manipulative mother, NOT the daughter.

Warren himself was tight-lipped, but civil. He came up to me and expressed his sorrow that my father had passed [a couple of days before the convention]. Future issues of Warren mags no longer advertised the Heidi book - he presumably had the rest destroyed as a result of the reception

Heidi herself understood - while walking away from her room on the eve of the second night, a few doors down from mine, one of her girlfriends peeled off from her clique and came up to me: "Heidi says 'Thank You'"

She knew [or hoped] her parents [mother and weak father] would never do this to her again.

emanuel maris-migration · January 14, 2009