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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
Starting around 1980, I first ordered from Bud Plant, moved to do so by one of the ads they ran in Marvel magazines of the time. In that era, they were the single go-to place for everything awe-inspiring in comic book art, related historic illustrated books that inspired the great art coming out in the 1970's and 1980's, posters, portfolios, prints, underground comics, book collections of comic strips, fanzines, and mainstream comics. Any given BUD PLANT COMIC ART catalog is a great cross-section of what was being produced in any given year. In light of that, I was sad to see this... Last winter, Bud Plant shut down Bud’s Art Books after 42 years. Last summer, he offered the business for sale, but “no serious buyers have come forward,” he wrote in the “last catalog” he will ever issue in Bud Plant print format. The Web has effectively undermined and destroyed his mail order enterprise, he explained. “Today you’ll find most everything we stock online: direct from the publisher or on Amazon or EBay or ABEBooks and other sites — and at discounts that I cannot match while still producing catalogs and paying my staff a living wage and benefits.” Sales have been dropping steadily for the last 3-4 years, and last year, Plant said, “we lost a lot of money, too much to keep doing what we are doing.”
While he is discontinuing Bud’s Art Books, he has stayed in the book business at his website, budsartbooks.com, where he continues to sell out of his inventory and, even, acquire new books to sell. Meanwhile, he has started a new business, Bud Plant and Hutchison Books, which, in partnership with Ann Hutchinson, will offer out-of-print and rare books related to comics, comic strips, classic illustrated books, art and art reference, sf and fantasy art as well as Gold and Silver Age comics and pulp magazines, plus (Hutchison’s interests) children’s illustrated books and picture books.
They will exhibit at antiquarian book shows, and they have space in a local used book co-op. Bud’s Art Books customers are encouraged to sign up for newsletters and press releases at the website and/or BudPlant.com.
In the last catalog, Plant bids his customers adieu: “I’ve greatly enjoyed working with each and every one of you and being able to make so many great books available. I’ve had a great run — few businesses last for 42 years. As the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens, and I look forward to what’s next.”
BUD PLANT lives on, with a website and a similar selection of books available. But it isn't quite the same as that glorious catalogue I used to receive a few times a year. Honestly, I last recall buying from Bud Plant in 2006-2007, among the items I purchased at that time a beautifully designed hardcover on artist Alphonse Mucha. But not meaning to stop ordering from Bud Plant, I just found myself getting an incredible selection of often dirt-cheap items on Amazon and Ebay, that more than filled my reading needs, and unconsciously pushed out Bud Plant as a retail source. But I'll make an effort going forward to buy more from a guy who established one of the cornerstones of comic fandom with his unique and great selection. Bud Plant's current site: https://www.budsartbooks.com/
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
More on Bud Plant's history from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Plant_Inc.I'd forgotten that in addition to selling as a mail order retailer, he also was a distributor, and even published some underground comics titles himself.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
From the San Diego COMIC CON blog, Bud Plant is interviewed about his earliest days as a retailer, getting started in 1970 sharing a table with other sellers at the very first San Diego Comic Con. I attended my own first convention, Miami Con, in early 1979.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
Wow! https://image.isu.pub/160518212815-694c47d432ffb353469b3e2583ace5d9/jpg/page_15.jpgThere's a photo of Stan Lee with C.C. Beck at the 1979 Miamicon. I was there and I didn't see them! At that time, I was more interested in purchasing back issues than in meeting the creators of them. At that show I completed my runs of Adams Deadman/STRANGE ADVENTURES, and Adams GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW. As I recall, it was on my mind to meet them after I got the back issues I was there for, and I either ran out of time or just forgot about them. The Kirby page of Shazam, in COMIC READER 100, also has Kirby pin-up illustrations of Superman and Batman. A nice surprise when I picked that issue up about 10 years ago. They let on that was the last issue edited by Paul Levitz before he went on to working for DC. That issue was published (1973) in the period Bud plant was just getting started as a retailer. The comic shop in Margate I still buy from opened in 1980, and the owner is roughly the same age as Bud Plant. I'll have to ask him if he met Bud Plant. He's already told me a lot of funny stories about creators he's met. Until they died, Phil had longtime friendships with Sheldon Moldoff, Will Eisner (who also lived in Margate), and Green Lantern creator Martin Nodell.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
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A comic shop called Silver Snail, in Canada, used to have some really cool full page ads in comics like CEREBUS, ANDROMEDA and VORTEX. I ran across one of those ads (a full-page airbrushed suitable-for-framing thing by Ken Steacy) and decided to google it up. Sadly... SILVER SNAIL COMICS TO CLOSE SEPTEMBER 13th... back in 2015, it appears to have suffered a similar fate as Bud Plant. Too bad. It looks to have been the comic store most of us dream of seeing. Also... http://holmoak.blogspot.com/2014/A nice nostalgic blog on the subject of Canadian comic shops in the area. Some nice recollections from a guy who worked in The Dragon Lady, another local store there, and one that I had some correspondence with in 1985-1986. A Canadian comic I purchased at the time, WORDSMITH (about a 1930's pulp fiction writer) was published by Dragon Lady Press. The blog has photos from the 1970's and 1980's, along with covers of a lot of great stuff coming out at the time, of special interest to me the Canadian comics. And even pictures of writers and artists doing booksignings and conventions at the time, including Wrightson and Kaluta.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
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http://comicartads.com/content/original-art-gallery-mitch-itkowitz-1978#overlay-context=A 28-page catalog from 1978 of original art for sale at that time, with pages by Simonson, Rogers, Aparo, Chaykin, Grell, Neal Adams, Byrne, Gil Kane, Nasser, Starlin, Russell, Kirby, Buscema, Ploog, Toth, Sherman, Golden and many others. A nice snapshot of what was on the stands at that time. And would that these pages could still be purchased at these prices.... It's also a persuasive argument for that being the greatest era of quality in comics history, from 1966 to about 1986. And the darkness increasingly closing in after that.
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Joined: Mar 2019
Posts: 1
few posts
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That 20 year period is the golden age alright. Interesting looking catalog for sure.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
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Thanks, it was a lucky find. They show a page from JIMMY OLSEN 148, page 16 by Kirby, the same issue as the only Kirby original art page I own (page 11). While arguably not Kirby's best page, it's still really cool to see up close the separation of styles, with Murphy Anderson at the time inking the Supaerman and Jimmy Olsen heads, and the rest inked by Vince Colletta. You can see some of the rough pencils that stand out around the inked images, and even parts of the page that were whited out and re-drawn. Would that I had the forethought to buy 100 pages of original art in those years, I could sell them now and retire a millionaire. I recommend picking up any of the 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 BUD PLANT COMIC ART catalogs, from a time when they printed their catalogs on glossy paper, and they were really thick. After 1982, they went to an ecco-friendly and low-cost black-and-white newsprint catalog, and they were more "Update" catalogs of mostly newly released material and not their complete inventory as past catalogues were. The BUD PLANT CATALOG, particularly from those years, is a great exhibit of what made that such a fantastic period to be collecting. Along with THE COMICS JOURNAL, Steranko's PREVUE magazine, and a few others that showed nice ads of the new releases at that time. One I miss is the annual Marvel Calanders of that time. The 1981 Marvel calandar in particular has some really nice pages by Byrne, Golden, Miller and others of the period. Here's the cover of the 1981 BUD PLANT CATALOG, with cover art from William Stout's DINOSAURS book. 
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951 Likes: 6
Officially "too old for this shit" 15000+ posts
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Officially "too old for this shit" 15000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 43,951 Likes: 6 |
A nice snapshot of what was on the stands at that time. And would that these pages could still be purchased at these prices....
A Marshall Rogers Batman splash page for $100? Man....if only...
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
Yes, if we only knew back in the day.
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Joined: Apr 2019
Posts: 8
few posts
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few posts
Joined: Apr 2019
Posts: 8 |
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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OP
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,005 Likes: 29 |
 The back cover to Bud Plant Catalog 18 (1981). It was on Bud Plant's printed high recommendation above (also run as a magazine ad in most of the Marvel magazines) that I first purchased CEREBUS with issue 21, and man, what a great find that was. Sim's work is on a par with the best of Alan Moore and Frank Miller. An intelligent, beautifully illustrated and wildly funny series.
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