Hello Comics Fandom,

During this summer's 40th anniversary San Diego Comicon, I had the good fortune of being offered complete bilateral hip joint replacement operations on September 24, 2009, in Los Angeles if I can come up with $18,000 by then. This is a special deal which will not last forever; I must strike while the iron is hot.

Some of you may know me as I have been in comics fandom since 1966, RBCC #45 being my first fanzine, with my first comics advertisement running in #47 (October 1966). I began placing full page ads in The Buyer's Guide For Comics Fandom #3 in 1970 or so, back when it was published by Alan Light.

I attended my first convention at 14, riding a Greyhound bus from Fremont, Nebraska to Houston, Texas back in June 1967, turning 15 at this very early show. I've since set up tables and booths at well over a thousand conventions.

I am about half way to this goal of raising $18K and am not asking for charity, rather, I believe, fair exchange is no robbery. HMO Aetna canceled my health plan citing "undisclosed preexisting condition" after the surgeon asked me upon looking at my X-rays, "Ever in a vehicle accident?" and I said, "Yes," describing a van accident in which I was a passenger and which was written up in Mike Richardson's Between the Panels anecdotal encyclopedia from Dark Horse.

I'm asking each of you reading this to check out my eBay store located at...

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/BLB-COMICS

If you find something you like, please make me a reasonable offer...which won't be turned down. There is a quarter of a million dollars worth of neat vintage comics material from 1849-1980 there, including original comic art, vintage concert posters, a few OZ first editions, and much more.

Even if you don't buy anything, it'll be fun to scroll through what I am offering as you will see some things you have never seen before. Of that I am sure. I have had fun exploring the rare and obscure for decades.

I would like to get myself healed, get back in the game, begin setting up at comics conventions nationwide as well as at my yearly treks to Angouleme and Lucca, which I used to enjoy immensely and which I wish to enjoy again.

Plus...I had been working on a rewrite of aspects of American comic book and comics strip history, a heavy duty expansion of the Victorian, Platinum era sections I have been compiling for the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide since October, 1996 every year including a third article, a definitive "Origin of the Modern Comic Book" which also has run every year.

My book will offer an in-depth origin of the Direct Sales Market, which I began compiling in the mid-1990s. I had a couple initial chapters published in Comic Book Artist #6 and #7 before I got sidetracked exploring the head waters of the Comic Book Nile, when i came across my first copy of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck September 1842, Wilson & Co, New York City, America's first sequential art comic book.

Since then I have pretty much proved there are 1000s of comic strips in 100s of publications back in the 19th century, much less the 100s published in the decades leading to Famous Funnies #1 in 1934...which is not the first of anything, but it sure did jump start an industry, that's for sure.

Anyway, thanks for reading this far, and if the spirit moves you, check out my eBay store. Filling it is pretty much what I have been relegated to until I can get repaired.

If 200 of you reading this could buy $50 worth of neat vintage comics from me, I will reach my goal and become productive once again.

Robert Beerbohm Comic Art
PO Box 507
Fremont NE 68026
http://www.BLBcomics.com
http://stores.shop.ebay.com/BLB-COMICS
http://www.facebook.com/robert.beerbohm