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Post by David A. Riley on Nov 3, 2010 6:31:11 GMT
And on other news. I will be the newest editor of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series. The official press release will be coming soon, so bloggers please refrain from posting this about till then. Congratulations, Johnny. I know of no one who deserves that more than you. Let's hope that when it starts up again the next series of the Pan Book of Horror Stories lasts for as long as the first! David
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Post by justin on Nov 3, 2010 13:03:05 GMT
Early draft of a piece on the fair I'm working on for The Fanatic 17, that hopefully will help put a but more "flesh on the bones". Although as you might guess from comments, some us are in less need of more flesh on their bones than others....
After a Saturday spent restraining, sorry entertaining, six children under the age of five at a Halloween party, I was glad of the extra hour in bed on the Sunday morning (due to the clocks going back) to prepare myself for a day of book-hunting and shameless gossiping at the annual Zardoz Book Fair. After a period of indifference from dealers and buyers, I’m delighted to report that over the last few years Maurice Flanagan’s annual event has undergone something of a renaissance. Possibly in this day and age where the second-hand book store is an endangered species and the majority of us probably purchase through an on-line dealer, it seems paperback fans are valuing the opportunity to interact face to face, which can only be a good thing.
Held at the Park Plaza Hotel, conveniently located around the corner from both Victoria station in central London and a decent watering-hole, the up-market hosts rather aptly confined the fair to the depths of the hotel, sending various lost paperback fanatics from the lobby down several flights of steps to the bowels of the building. Despite my rather dramatic description of the descent, the room in which the fair was hosted was light and spacious, if not unbearably hot for those sporting winter coats. Although the leather-clad head-to-toe Dem seemed unfazed!) After paying my £3 entrance fee, I was met with the eye-watering sight of tables lining the walls of the room stacked high with a myriad of paperbacks, their protective Mylar bags glistening under the artificial light, quickening the pulse rate of this particular paperback fanatic.
I arrived about 11, so the fair had been open for a good hour and was already very busy with pretty much every vendor enjoying buyers standing shoulder to shoulder. A number of the dealers I chatted with were delighted with the number of people that had turned out and stated that business was brisk. In my experience the default of any book-dealer is to be-moan the lack of customers, prices, the internet, charity book-stores etc so things must have been very good indeed to solicit such a positive response!
I was most impressed by the diversity of stock displayed- I had assumed it would be primarily SF but fans of crime, sleaze and juvenile delinquents in paperback would have also been very happy. As with any book fair, prices varied greatly with one dealer asking £10 for a Conan or an Ace ERB that another dealer on the opposite side of the room had priced at £3. It all adds to the thrill of the hunt in my opinion, and the fair was small enough that you knew you would be able to re-trace your foot-steps if you had unsuccessfully sought out a cheaper copy of a book in the room.
The majority of my money was spent with a Penguin and Pan specialist, Martin Heaphey of Rumble and Milan of Interzone. The unidentified Pan dealer boasted a truly diverse stock in addition to his core speciality, with a great selection of vintage crime and some interesting £1 box boxes. Here I snapped up the Milo paperbacks with the beautiful Bob McGinnis covers I’ve used to illustrate this article.
I’ve long been an admirer of Martin Heaphey’s Rumble zine, which flew the flag for JD and rock ‘n roll paperbacks in the 1990s, so I was delighted to meet the man himself- unmistakeable with a quiff and brothel-creeper shoes! In-between badgering Martin to update some of his Rumble articles for me to run in The Fanatic I rummaged through his stock and scored a number of Holloway House titles which I never expected to stumble across in the UK. He also had piles of rare (for the UK) sleaze titles from the US for £3 a pop, titles such as Hollywood Sex God and others sporting that distinctive Gene Bibrew and Eric Stanton art which I know were gobbled up by one collector- no names, no pack drill!
Milan of Interzone bought a typically eclectic stock to share, most notably in terms of his horror material, a genre that wasn’t that well represented by any other dealer. Although I already had the Nick Carters Milan had thoughtfully bought to show me, I was pleased with the deal he cut me on a very rare edition of Damnation Alley (another one of the joys of going to a book fair that the internet can’t replicate- discovering a book or an edition you didn’t know existed!) and a Black Lizard reprint of a classic Fred Brown thriller.
Of course I have to mention the man himself, Mr Zardoz aka Maurice Flanagan, and his tables. Unfortunately every time I visited his table Maurice was absent (probably hiding around a corner, unable to cope with my normal maniac rambling about men’s adventure series!) but his stock was absolute heaven for any SF pulp fan, with stacks of reasonably priced UK pulp magazines. Even for me, who doesn’t collect that type of material, it was difficult to resist the temptation to pick some up for their beautiful Josh Kirby cover art. I did pick up a number of bargains from Maurice, specifically a number of paperback related zines such as the afore-mentioned Rumble, Books are Everything and Hip Pocket Sleaze.
I was also impressed by the stock carried by The Talking Dead, which included boxes of US pulps such as Weird Tales and a huge variety of SF and Fantasy paperbacks with SF specialists DAW Books particularly well represented. For me the prices of their paperbacks were a little high-end (I’m not suggesting they weren’t accurately priced as their condition was glorious, just a little high for my budget) and I was surprised that quite often only a few pounds separated the paperbacks and the pulp magazines. Maybe the paperbacks were the right price and the pulp magazines too cheap? But certainly you would be unlikely to pick up much of their stock in a typical UK book-store, and I wonder if I’m a little bit spoilt by being able to visit the US once a year where I believe I have a fighting chance of picking up similar paperbacks at a lower price. I think they sum up a specialist book fair- dealers know their stock so you’re unlikely to score a bargain, but were else are you going to find so much quality material in one place?
There were a couple of other dealers where I thought their prices were prohibitive without the stock being uber-rare, a specialist in ERB and REH had pretty much every title you could want, including some nice Krenkel and Frazetta Ace editions, but I did wince at some of their prices. Another dealer had a number of crates of 1970s paperbacks in lovely condition including Softcover Library and New English Library sleaze titles, but their uniform pricing of £5 a shot had me fleeing and desperately clutching my moth-filled wallet. Maybe I’m just a skin-flint?
The subject of condition came up in a conversation I enjoyed between Milan and Mr Rumble, in that Milan commented that he noted the difference in condition of vintage US books compared to the UK. Mr Rumble pointed out this was probably because paperback collecting in the US had been a recognised hobby since the 1970s, whereas it’s only just starting to become more widespread here in the UK. So shops, dealers and buyers in the US had long recognised the value of paperbacks as something other than a totally disposable medium, combined with the larger print runs means richer pickings for US collectors. Whoever thought a book fair could be so educational?
There were less signings from authors than in previous years- primarily down to the rather sad fact that so many of the guests had passed away or were too advanced in years to attend. I’ve never been a big fan of getting books signed so the absence of this element was not something that I missed, although of course I wish everyone good health!
Blah, blah, blah
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Post by dem bones on Nov 10, 2010 8:13:27 GMT
that nails all the important stuff admirably, Mr. M. I've never been big on autograph hunting either, but those signings were a wonderful opportunity to meet authors and editors under unusually relaxed circumstances. For me, the first one i attended in 2005 was the best for that with Michel Parry, Hugh Lamb, Mike Ashley, Sydney J. Bounds (R.I.P.) and Pan cover artists Sam Peffer & Roger Hall among those present, correct and up for a chat. The following year .... nobody. crushingly disappointing. Glad to see Messrs. Flanagan, Heaphey and Milan receiving their due. How about a nod of appreciation to Antiques Roadshow superstar Peter Chapman who mans the desk and patiently replaces your entry ticket every time you lose it when you nip off for a drag/ refuel? Something i think contributed to it's success this time was they'd advertised it a whole lot better than has sometimes been the case post 2005. Amazing what a few attractive postcards can do to draw a crowd!
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Post by severance on Nov 20, 2010 15:22:11 GMT
Made the elementary mistake of getting there appreciably later than most - so while I was browsing for books, nearly everyone else was already in the pub - and by the time I got to the pub, most people had either already left or were on the brink of doing so ie: JohnnyM. Still, had time for the briefest of chats with Dem, AndyB and JustinM. As for books, only got the 1 horror - Tigerman of Terrahpur by Errol Lecale. The other 9 were U.S. crime/thrillers from the 50s/60s by Charles Williams, Wade Miller, Thomas B. Dewey et al. One dealer had a load of early Hank Janson's at £50 each waaay too rich for my blood. Next time I'll endeavour to get there a touch earlier...
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Post by andydecker on Nov 20, 2010 20:14:53 GMT
The other 9 were U.S. crime/thrillers from the 50s/60s by Thomas B. Dewey et al. One dealer had a load of early Hank Janson's at £50 each waaay too rich for my blood. Dewey is fun to read. Very meat and potatos writer, nothing groundbreaking, but most of the time entertaining. 50 for a Hank Janson is a bit steep, or?
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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2010 9:18:27 GMT
it was good to see you again, Sev. some of those prices are strictly Abe-b**ks if you get my meaning. the very first Zardoz i attended, one crew of dealers were moaning about how everyone was spoiling it by undercutting them. they were selling stuff for £80 that you and i would maybe go to a tenner for at most. trade was slow to non-existent from what i could see.
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