Later, after moving from outside Omaha to the Bay Area, he attended California State University, Hayward.
Retailer[edit]
Beerbohm began as a teenage comic book fan and collector, first making contact with other fans via a comic book letter column: "Trade Corner," Blackhawk #225 (Oct. 1966).
Robert Beerbohm Comic Art[edit]
Early conventions he attended also included DallasCon in the summer of 1968; and Houstoncon, the Detroit Triple Fan Fair, and the St. Louis World SF Convention in 1969. In 1970, along with friend Stephen Johnson he set up at Oklahoma City's Multicon, Phil Seuling's Comic Art Convention (the first of many appearances there), the first PhoenixCon hosted by Bruce Hamilton, the only Disneyland Hotel Comicon, another Detroit Triple Fan Fair, and the first San Diego Comic-Con, held at the U.S. Grant Hotel. By 1971, Beerbohm was a regular at most national comics shows, including New York City's first Creation Con, held on Thanksgiving weekend. In 1972, Beerbohm set up tables of vintage comics at almost a dozen comics conventions, including the first Chicago Comicon. He has sold comics at San Diego Comic-Con every year since the first one in 1970.
Also in 1970 he acquired from publisher Russ Cochran (who had originally received it from EC publisher William Gaines) the original art to the very first Superman cover drawn by Joe Shuster back in early 1933 for Chicago's Humor Publishing Company. The art was in four pieces and fire-tinged along the edges, from when Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel literally pulled it out of the Shuster family fireplace after Shuster got depressed with the first of what turned out to be many rejections. Beerbohm did not know what he had at the time, but knew it needed to be preserved on some level, so he had a couple hundred twice-up original-size poster prints made at a local printer.[citation needed] This image has since shown up in many books on DC Comics history.[citation needed]
Comics and Comix[edit]
In April 1973 Comics & Comix hosted the first Bay Area comics convention, Berkeleycon 73, in the Pauley Ballroom in the ASUC Building on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Berkeleycon was the first comic-con that highlighted underground comix.[1]
At Berkeleycon 73, Comics & Comix acquired over 4,000 Golden Age comic books owned by Tom Reilly. Beerbohm personally sold a good majority of the highest-grade items from the pedigree Reilly collection, including a copy of Detective Comics #27 (which sold for $2,200 — the first comic book to break the $2,000 barrier).[citation needed] The phenomenal sales of the Reilly collection enabled Comics & Comix to open more retail locations, first in San Francisco (May 1973), on Columbus Avenue (down from the North Beach area on the way to Fisherman's Wharf), and later in San Jose and Sacramento, making it the first comic book chain store in America.[citation needed]
Beerbohm stayed with Comics & Comix until early 1975 (the chain itself lasted until 2004).[citation needed]
References
- ^ Benhari. "First Comix Con Right On?", Berkeley Barb (April 27—May 3, 1973).
Beerbohm suffered long term damage to his hip joint cartilage which caused him to eventually have hip replacement surgery in October 2009.[citation needed]
Best of Two Worlds[edit]
In November 1976, Beerbohm opened his first solo comic book store Best of Two Worlds, its first location being in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district at 1707 Haight Street, across the street from the Straight Theater. In May 1977, Beerbohm took over Comics & Comix' old location at 2512 Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, when his former partners at Comics & Comix moved to a larger location on the next block, and in October 1978 with then-partner Gary Wood he opened a branch of Best of Two Worlds, called Funny Pages, on Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. Eventually, Best of Two Worlds had locations in San Francisco's Sunset District in Irving Street, and the Brickyard Mall in Santa Rosa. By this time Robert Borden had bought out Gary Wood, and Rory Root had bought in as a 14% co-owner.[citation needed] Among the employees of Best of Two Worlds at various times were underground comix artists Roger Brand, Kim Deitch, and Bruce Simon.[citation needed]
During this period, in c. 1978, Beerbohm founded the "sub-distributor" Common Ground Distributors, which was initially supplied by Detroit-based distributor Big Rapids Distribution. In 1982, Common Ground was acquired by the Midwestern company Capital City Distribution, which enabled Capital City owners Milton Griepp and John Davis to expand the distributor's operations beyond the immediate Chicago/Milwaukee area.[citation needed]
In addition to retailing and distribution, Beerbohm again published comics during this era.[citation needed]
Best of Two Worlds went out of business in February 1987 due to the massive flooding of its central warehouse in Emeryville, California a year earlier in February 1986.[citation needed]
Best Comics and the Rick Griffin art gallery[edit]
After the demise of Best of Two Worlds, Beerbohm maintained just one store. He shortened the name to just Best Comics in the Haight Ashbury, which operated from 1987–1992. That last location was immortalized in Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary Crumb, in the scenes where Crumb and his former publisher Don Donahue are in a comic book store discussing comics.[citation needed]
Historian[edit]
With his friend Steve Johnson, Beerbohm publishing five issues of the fanzine Fanzation in 1969–1970. #3 (1969) contains a letter by Amazing Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko on creativity quoted by Dr. Fredric Wertham in his last book The World of Fanzines (1974). #5 contains articles by Ted White and Jack Promo on origins of 1950s EC fandom and fanzines. Also, articles by Jerry Bails on the origins of Alter Ego and Bill Wallace on origins of Houston fandom amongst others.[citation needed]
Beginning in the 1980s, Beerbohm worked as a consultant on a number of publication related to popular culture, specifically comics and rock music. Clients included the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (1981–2013), The Big Little Book Price Guide (1980–1983), and The Underground and New Wave Comix Price Guide (1981) among many others. He has been invited back inside Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide every year since #27 1997.[citation needed]
In the 1990s and 2000s, since closing down brick and mortar outlets and converting to more of an Internet presence, Beerbohm has authored and co-authored numerous articles for the comics trade press on such topics as the history of American comics, the evolution of the direct market, and individual creators.[citation needed]
