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Heidi on the 'Bay

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Hey, if you like stories on Warren , here's another one.

 

My friend Marc Bilgrey had introduced me to a friend of his in Toronto named Mark Sigal,the co-publisher of the fanzine Comic & Crypt when Sigal came down for the July '70 Comic Art Convention in NY. I subsequently visited Toronto and became tighter with him and met his extended family of Torontoan comic fan friends - all great people - including Ron Kasman, Ronn Sutton, Ken Steacy et al. For a while myself, Marc, and my friend John Shike, were involved as the NY correspondents for C&C.

 

(We also did the rather well-known and oft-quoted pre-Fourth-World Carmine & Kirby double interview in Carmine's office -four hours yeow!- for C&C #5, which has since appeared in short chunks in places like Amazing World Of Infantino, and either Alter-Ego or Comics Journal or maybe JK Collector with either our names left off or badly mangled)

 

In that capacity, I set up an interview in early '72 with Jim Warren in one of my visits to his office. During that particular visit, I espied Billy Graham down the hall and turned to either Marc or John and said, "what's he doing here?"

 

We knew Billy, and he knew us, from our frequent visits to DC, and we were quite friendly with him. On this occasion we did not say hello, as one did not move from the reception couch for fear of verbal beheading from Warren's longtime keeper of the gates Anne -the 'unidentified woman' in the office photo in the Warren Companion. (Anne's full name is in the masthead of many Warren magazines, but as I write this the few I've grabbed from that era do not readily show it)

 

"what's he doing here?" because we knew Billy from frequent visits to DC. Well, Anne had overheard this remark. Billy, a really good artist at the time, and best known for his later work at Marvel, had just started his art-director job at Warren, unbeknownst to us. He was also an African-American, which mattered not one way or the other to us. [sadly he passed away in the late nineties]

 

Well, fast-forward to July '72, Sigal has come down from Canada for the convention and to do this interview with us. We get to the Warren offices at the appointed time, and Anne coldly tells us to wait. Finally, we are brought into Jim's office, and he's in his tyrant mode. Billy's sitting on the couch. He tells us that my 'racist remark' was overheard, and we're to apologize to Billy, and the get the F out!

 

I asked 'what racist remark' and he says '"what's he doing here?"'. I explain that it was not in the least racist, merely my surprise at seeing him at these offices when I had only previously known him from DC.

 

I turn to Billy and ask if he believes this. He doesn't say much, but smiles and rolls his eyes as if to indicate that this is all Jim's paranoia - he clearly doesn't think so, we were friendly before (and we remained so after). I believe - but cannot remember for sure - that Billy said something to Jim about how all this was unnecessary.

 

I apologize to Billy for having unwittingly created a situation that led to this ugly scenario. Warren doesn't rebuke me for altering the apology [was he testing me?]

 

To his credit, Jim was on the side of my angels in the social issues of the day [and still today]. UNfortunately, he rode so high on his horse,that he was ready to mangle innocent situations so he could parade his set of sympathies - or maybe this was his way of getting out of the interview?

 

(BTW - Further corrections to the Warren Companion could include putting Kenneth Smith's name into the index!)

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Thanks for sharing your stories with us Manny. I remember Mark recounting it just as you say, over thrity five years ago. If my memory serves me well, Mark told the story himself in an issue of Comic and Crypt. One of the readers wrote back STILL ACCUSING MARK of being involved in a racist incident. Obviously, he didn't know Jim Warren. Life is strange, though today, in different ways.

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I agree. Love the stories about the scenes behind the books that started it all, for me anyway. Man, it'd be great to have a Warren reunion at a convention. I wonder if Heidi would ever consider an appearance - or has that ship sailed?

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I believe this to be one of the best threads the boards has. And to think, hardly anyone knows it's here yet we've managed to get people that were directly involved at the time to post comments!

Totally agree! :cool:

 

oh and Happy Birthday BF! (thumbs u

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