Four Day Geekend: Star Trek Lives!

It's Saturday morning, and I'm off to the wilds of Scarborough in order to spend some time with my friend Colin - AKA Cloin, the pretty Campbell brother.*

He picks me up at the subway, I get a tour of the new apartment and a cup of tea (served in a Star Trek mug, which turns out to be exactly on theme), we socialize for a bit, and then we head for the Pickering Flea Market along with his charming partner Jennifer, in bold defiance of the blizzard that is sweeping across the GTA.

The greater part of the Pickering Flea Market doesn't hold a lot of interest for me in terms of actual buying rather than browsing - you have to really want a cheap pet hair vacuum cleaner or affordable broadsword (both of which are available) if you're going to have to fly it across Canada to get it home.  There are other stalls that offer more manageable items, such as wallets and Blu-ray discs, but I'm really just looking rather than looking to buy.

However, one end of the cavernous warehouse space houses the Antiques and Collectibles section, which is of somewhat more interest to me.  The last time we were here, I unexpectedly discovered some vintage 1950s science fiction magazines,  so I'm curious to see what hidden treasures I might find this time.

The selection of items is certainly comprehensive:  furniture, books, albums, hardware, lamps, paintings, prints, photos, wall sconces, statuettes, and anything else that might be of interest to a collector.  (And, of course, miniature bagpipes - this is the kind of thing that you find when you shop with a guy named Campbell.)

However, other than a comic book or two, nothing really catches my eye until we pass down a row of locked glass cabinets, one of which contains a selection of Star Trek convention programmes and souvenir photo books from the 70s.

The eight pieces, covering the years from 1973 to 1976, are affordably (and surprisingly) priced at $5.00 each, so I clean out the shelf. The staff member who unlocked the cabinet cheerfully attempts to upsell me by suggesting a few of the other Star Trek items in the cabinet, but discretion is the better part of valour:  I'm far more likely to get the programmes home in one piece than a boxed Star Trek Fan Kit.

In the fullness of time, after a harrowing drive through the blowing snow and a satisfying Italian dinner, I'm back at the hotel and can take a look at my new acquisitions, which turn out to be a fascinating window into the early years of Star Trek fandom.

Those early fans are a testament to perseverance.  The original series ended in 1969 after only three seasons, and the animated series managed just two seasons and 22 episodes from 1973 to 1974.  This is long before home computers are a factor, let alone the internet, so the fans relied on newsletters, amateur fan-made magazines (aka fanzines), local clubs, and, of course, conventions, in order to maintain the Star Trek connection.

Although these programmes represent the very early days of Star Trek conventions, it's obvious that they're already viewed as significant events, attracting a wide range of guests in addition to those from the show itself.

As an example, the schedule for the first day of the 1976 convention features some heavy hitters from the world of science fiction: authors Hal Clement, Gordon R. Dickson, Ben Bova, and Harry Harrison, along with legendary illustrator Kelly Freas, and Gemini/Apollo astronaut James McDivvit - not to mention "What is Science Fiction?", a seminar featuring Harlan Ellison and science fiction legend Isaac Asimov which I would certainly have paid good money to attend.

In addition to schedules of convention events and so on, the books are predominantly composed of black and white promo photos - again, it's before the internet, so fans looking for pictures from the show would have been very pleased to receive 15 or 20 good quality prints from the show.  (That being said, I envision people taking these programs home after the convention ends and then carefully and thoughtfully cutting them up into individual pages, which, as somewhat of a collector, makes me wince a little.)

The programs also feature a Star Trek parody comic, Star Truckin, which I'm astonished to see was created and drawn in part by Matt Howarth, who went on to a noteworthy career as a prolific and successful underground indie comics creator and illustrator.

It's interesting to note that he's already collaborating with fellow artists Tony Sciarra, Mark Kernes and W. E. Rittenhouse, who would assist in the creation of Changes, Howarth's exceptional graphic novel that was serialized in Heavy Metal magazine in the 1980s - my first introduction to his work.  In fact, the comic in the 1975 program features characters who appear to be the original (if unnamed) versions of Ron and Russ Post, the distinctive primary characters from Changes, who went on to star in their own comic book, Those Annoying Post Brothers.**

All in all, I consider this to be a bit of a score in terms of value for money, although now, I'm wondering how much programs from the very first Star Trek convention in 1972 would cost.  Well, who knows, maybe the next time I'm in Pickering...

- Sid

*With no offense to Ralph, after all, someone had to be the smart one, although to be honest, when you're talking about the Campbell Brothers, the ideas of "pretty" and "smart" are really just relative to each other, rather than any sort of universally held standard for either concept. 

** I realize that most people will read this and shrug, but trust me, from a fan perspective, this is amazing deep dive forensic background stuff.  Interestingly, I can't find anything online that indicates Matt Howarth's age, I was trying to determine how old he would have been when he was doing Star Trek fan comics.

Four Day Geekend: Re-Moving.

If, as per my previous posting, the paperback is in fact dead, I know where it went to die.

After my visit to Bakka, I hopped on the subway and headed over to Pape and Danforth, and Re:Reading*, a used book and DVD store, with the emphasis on books. Re:Reading - which is in desperate need of a new awning - had an impressively wide selection of used science fiction, and to my intense pleasure, I was able to purchase eight of the books from my inventory list that were due to be replaced. 

However, to my equally intense frustration, when I returned to the hotel and attempted to remove their two-layered price tags, I ended up ruining four of the books that I'd bought, as the glue on the stickers peeled up the cover material rather than just peeling off.  Now, just for the record, I've removed a lot of price tags from books over the years, and these particular examples were particularly evil in their persistence and adherence - how can a used book store not be using easily removed price tags, for heaven's sake???

- Sid

 
* We walked past Re:Reading during my last visit to Toronto in 2016 and admired their signage.

  

Four Day Geekend: Memory Lane

 

To start my four-day weekend in Toronto, today I visited two stores that used to be the focal points of my life as a fan:  Silver Snail Comics and Bakka Books, officially Bakka-Phoenix since 2003.

My experience with both stores started when I was still in high school, although, in retrospect, I find myself wondering how I even knew that they existed, in the long-lost dark ages before the internet.  The Toronto Star newspaper, perhaps? Probably some kind of review in the Arts and Entertainment section, I can't imagine that either store actually advertised in the Star.

Regardless, my desire to shop at Bakka and the Silver Snail was the start of a series of semi-annual Saturday bus trips to Toronto in the later years of my high school career - and probably also the start of my interest in travel, at that point in my life visiting Toronto was certainly an adventure, equally intimidating and invigorating.

A round trip bus ticket on the Ontario Northlander was under twenty dollars back then - I looked it up, it's a hundred and eight now - and you had to catch an early bus, 6:00 or 7:00 AM, to get the most out of the day before catching a late afternoon bus back.  Generally I'd start the day with a hundred dollars, and earnestly do my very best to come back with nothing but loose change and a couple of bags filled with comic books and paperbacks.

When I moved to Toronto in the 80s to attend Ryerson Polytechnic, I visited the two stores almost every Saturday or Sunday.  At that point in time, they were conveniently located almost across the street from each other on Queen Street, and it made for a pleasant little ritual on the weekend to take the subway downtown and do a little shopping.

That tradition continued for about twenty years - in case you've ever wondered how my library reached its current size - but finally came to an end when I relocated to Vancouver in 2004.

It saddens me to think of all the pre-internet ephemera from the two stores which has vanished over the years, lost to water damage, spring cleaning, or sheer lack of forethought - the Silver Snail newsletters, the commemorative posters that they used to hand out for free, copies of the Bakka Bookie Sheet with reviews, recommendations and new arrivals, their distinctive bookmarks, and all the other little bits and pieces of promotion and branding.  It's not all gone - I still have most of my celebratory Bakka birthday buttons, although it looks like I've misplaced the B12 button that I think started the run, and my Silver Snail Club button is battered but still with me - but as far as I know, that's all that I still have, unless there's a bookmark or two hidden away in storage.

My hotel is conveniently only a block or so away from the Silver Snail's second-story Yonge Street location, so that's the first destination of the day. 

The Silver Snail has stayed true to its roots over the years.  Although there's a small selection of toys, action figures and statuettes, along with a token gaming section, the Snail is still predominately aimed at the reader and collector, with bins of back issues, a wide selection of new comics, and a full range of graphic novels.   

I'm a bit bemused by the addition of the Black Canary coffee shop to the layout - I've previously encountered a couple of book stores that combined the two, but I do wonder if that space might be better used for retail purposes.  On the other hand, I'm not a coffee drinker, for all I know it's quite popular, although there are only a couple of patrons during my visit to the store. 

 

It's been years since I bought a single-issue comic book (although graphic novels are still part of my Christmas list) but in a fit of nostalgia, I pick out a couple of comics, one new, one used.

My used selection is issue 7 of OMAC, the One Man Army Corps, a character created by Jack Kirby* for DC in 1974 - I find it surprisingly affordable at $6.00.**  (Like so many of the Kirby characters, OMAC has periodically been revived by Kirby fans who went on to work in the comics industry - the black-and-white John Byrne miniseries from 1991 standing out as a particularly well done example, although I'm not as sure about the blue-skinned 2011 version by Keith Giffen.)

 

My new comic of choice is the first issue of an alternative reality comic, Tales From the Dark Multiverse. In its first storyline, it takes a look at what might have happened when villain-turned hero Azrael took over the Dark Knight's mantle after Bane broke the Batman's back in the 1993-1994 Knightfall saga.  Given that I'm unlikely to start buying comic books again, especially with my Marvel Unlimited subscription, it seems prudent to not engage with an ongoing series.  (As a sidebar, both Marvel and DC have produced a wide range of alternate history/timeline/dimension versions of their characters, I suspect that it demonstrates a degree of franchise fatigue on the part of the comic book creative community.  After all, some of the DC characters date back to the 1930s, and most of the Marvel universe has been in existence for close to 60 years, that's a long time to keep tilling the same ground, so to speak.)

From the Snail, I proceed to lunch at the Rivoli, a Queen Street institution since 1982, which is located just one block away from the original locations of both Bakka and the Snail.  I'm a bit saddened to see that the previous Silver Snail location is now just an empty lot, there isn't even a building left.

After lunch - I strongly recommend the Riv's pad thai - I head up Spadina Avenue towards the University of Toronto and nearby Harbord Street, the latest location of Bakka Phoenix Books.

 

Even after a sustained absence, it still feels a bit like coming home to walk into Bakka.  The new books are still racked up to the right of the entrance, they still use little hand-written notes to indicate authors and recommended books, and the selection remains comprehensive and well curated - Bakka has always enjoyed staff members who were both knowledgeable and dedicated in their interest, which is probably why the store's alumni includes so many science fiction authors.

This is my first visit to this location, and I'm pleased by the spacious layout and the general setup of the store.  To an even greater extent than the Silver Snail, Bakka isn't interested in t-shirts or toys or other ancillary merchandise - it's a bookstore, plain and simple.

As I browse the shelves, I'm a bit astonished by the high percentage of trade paperbacks*** - it's like I wasn’t paying attention and the mass market paperback died while I was looking the other way. That being said, they might as well be hardcovers, I was a little offended by the opportunity to replace my battered old first edition of Again, Dangerous Visions with a $19.99 trade version.

I pick out four books (needless to say that three of them are trade editions): Made Things, one of the unpurchased books from my 2019 Geekmas list, by Adrian Tchaikovsky; Wasteland, by W. Scott Poole, a scholarly examination of the origins of modern horror in World War One, which struck me as an intriguing idea; The Long and Short of It, a collection of time travel stories by Jodi Taylor;  and a replacement paperback copy of The Atrocity Archives, the first book in the outstanding Lovecraftian Laundry series by Charles Stross.  I haven't catalogued the S part of my library yet, but I'm reasonably confident that my current copy is more than a bit the worse for wear.  To finish my shopping, I take a fifth book from the SALE table - Wild Fell, a horror novel by Michael Rowe. I'm not a big fan of horror, but I always liked to make a random selection when shopping at Bakka, just to avoid getting stuck in a rut.

Sadly, after I pay for my books, not only do I not receive a bookmark, but my purchases go into a plain blue bag.  Apparently the days of the branded bag and bookmark have come and gone at Bakka Books, along with so many other things from years gone by.

- Sid

* I really have to do a posting on Jack Kirby.

** It turns out to be a bit rumpled, but still in good shape.  But how do you rumple a comic book?

*** In case you don't speak printing, trade paperbacks are paperbacks more or less the size of hardcovers, whereas mass market paperbacks are 4x7 inches, give or take.