Monday, February 05, 2007

July 16, 1969

I am a little ashamed that the Fortress Keeper posts more when he is down with the flu than I do when I am healthy (and just busy), so I thought I would share this little feature I found in Captain Action #3, (Feb-Mar 1969). In the midst of stunning Gil Kane artwork (although I swear I see some Wally Wood in there), came this:



If you can wade you way through the faux-Stan-Lee patter (complete with Don Adams shtick), you'll see it's the self-illustrated story of a young would-be artist (Sam Viviano, who now illustrates for Mad magazine, among other things) who paid a visit to the DC offices in September of 1968. He got to meet Carmine Infantino and others in what was apparently a real "gee whiz" experience for him.

The sequence spans two pages, and I can't imagine that it was very interesting even then, but this closing panel caught my attention:



What the heck happened on July 16, 1969?

Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon, launched that day. Rain Pryor was born on that day.

I thought it might have been the first official Comic Art Convention in New York, but Wikipedia says that was held on Independence day.

This was a little before I was involved in fandom, so although at that time (this would have been the summer after 7th grade, I guess) I still lived in Brooklyn, I have no idea what this is referring to.

Anyone?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My guess is that maybe DC had an "Open House" and gave guided tours to anybody who showed up, that day only?

Richard said...

I wondered about this even back in the day -- well, at least I assume I did, since I had that comic off the stands and remember reading this in total incomprehension -- certainly I wondered about it years later when I understood the concepts involved. My best guess has always been what David C suggests: some sort of open house or portfolio viewing at the DC offices intended for that date, though I never heard anything else to confirm that.