Trivia #37

I've been such a slacker this month that I've missed the window for a trivia quiz which would give everyone enough time to answer, as it's already halfway through the month and San Diego is next week. So instead, here are some San Diego-related trivia stories just for the hell of it.

1. The Omnicom you're reading now is the second one online. The first was a mailing list back in the olden days, started by Vernon Harmon. That was the dawn of the web, the mid-90s. The welcome page is still up, as well as the main navigation page, but none of the links work any more. I spoke to Vernon not too long ago and he said that the archives are lost, and even the Internet Archive doesn't have a cached version. I met Vernon at the 1995 San Diego Comic Con where he had dressed up as Wildfire.

2. The 1995 San Diego con was my first year going (here's my trip report). I got online in 1994 during Zero Hour, and by the next year I had met enough people on Compuserve and the Legion mailing list that we all decided to meet up for dinner one night. I think, but am not sure, that was the first of the "Legion Dinner" meetings that took place at San Diego and Chicago into the early 2000s. One night it was a bunch of fans with Phil and Jeff Moy, Cori Carani, and KC Carlson. Another night I was with a group of internet-based fans who met with the Interlac APA group (which included Tom & Mary Bierbaum), and everyone decided that was the first significant meeting of online and offline Legion fandom.

3. Many of the Legion fans went to both Chicago (pre-Wizard) and San Diego, and the Legion Dinner tradition was carried on there as well. I was not there, but the 1997 dinner was extra-special due to some guests. Mike Chary has the whole story.

4. At the 1995 San Diego and Chicago cons, "Legionnaires" artists Jeff Moy and Cory Carani were taking pictures of some of the fans. We didn't know until Legionnaires #43 came out (cover-dated 11/96) that a number of fans from the conventions were drawn into a crowd scene during the Legion tryouts. My collection isn't organized enough for me to find my copy, and I can't find the page online, but if anyone has theirs handy to scan, I can put the page (or panel) here.

5. At that 1995 San Diego con, I picked up a copy of Adventure 247 on the last day. It was way over my budget - it was $150, marked down because the dealer had just purchased a collection before the con and didn't want to take the time to price everything. Turned out that when I got home, I noticed that the centerfold was missing, and when I brought it to the dealer the next year, he gave me a discount that I could apply to other books I got from him (so I bought Adventure 267 and Action 267, the 2nd and 3rd appearances of the Legion). That was Mike Carbonaro out of New York. Years later I picked up a coverless copy of #247 that was also missing the outer wrap for cheap on eBay, so I cannibalized the centerfold from that one.

6. One year in San Diego I ran into Kevin Gould, who has been active in Legion fandom since the 1970s. He happened to be carrying a piece of artwork from Superman #247, which featured the Guardians of the Universe. (I didn't know it at the time, but it was Elliot S! Maggin's first story.) In an amazing coincidence, I recognized that page from one of the first conventions I had gone to, in New Jersey in the late 1970s. There was a table with artwork just piled on it, and I saw one page I liked but it was too expensive (probably like $20). At that con, I happened to buy the issue that page came from, which is why I remembered the page. Kevin told me that he bought that page at a convention in Houston (my hometown). He still has it, and Maggin has also inquired about it.

7. Most people who have a copy of All New Collector's Edition C-55 with the wedding of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl know how hard it has been to find a copy in decent condition. Hence, the (polite) nickname for it - "That Damned Tabloid", or TDT for short. For a while in the 1990s, it seemed like every Legion fan I saw had a copy of it, and they call brought them in to be autographed by Mike Grell and Paul Levitz. It was almost a rite of passage to be able to see the two men and get them to sign the cover.

8. Last year, I stopped at the DC booth to chat with Paul Levitz for a minute. I told him how I had wanted to be an astronaut, and if I ever do get to fly I'd take my Legion flight ring with me. If you remember, the box for the ring says "Warning: does not enable the wearer to fly". I wanted to have my picture taken in space wearing my flight ring, flying, to prove him wrong. He thought that was a pretty neat story.

So in lieu of guessing trivia questions this month, how about some convention-related Legion stories of your own?