Number 745


Pappy and the Boy Commando tale of woe


At a San Diego Comics Con in the early 1980s I took a couple of comics to sell or trade: Boy Commandos #1 and Piracy #1, both of them practically the near-mintiest-close-to-mint Golden Age comics I owned.

At night my buddies and I hung out in a bar. I had a few too many (not hard to do, since I'm not much of a drinker). The next day, bleary-eyed, head thumping, with my buddies and an envelope containing the two comics I wanted to swap or sell, I headed for the convention floor. In my hungover state I left the envelope on a table somewhere while I looked around. I realized my error a bit later and went back, but by then I'd been at several tables and didn't know where I'd left it. I asked around, but, ah, what the hell...as my friend told me, "Give it up. Someone has your comics now; it's like finding gold."

It ruined that convention for me. A couple of months ago I was reminded of my fuzzy-headed mistake when I ran across an online scan of Boy Commandos #1. But in some ways it helped. It was nice to see it again, even in a digital form. I'm not in the business of selling old comics anymore, unless it's just "selling" them to you as an art form or fun diversion for a few minutes of your day.

Here's a toast to Boy Commandos #1 by Simon and Kirby, to the San Diego Comics Convention of bygone days, to hungover conventioneers. Cheers!