The Comics Buyer’s Guide For Comic Fandom #433 March, 5 1982

Cover: The Shadow by Terry Beatty

I sincerely enjoy researching and combing through this mountain of CBGs I’ve recently acquired, looking for any sign of Swamp Thing. In doing so I get to re-discover appearances, ads and articles that may have been long forgotten or brand new to folks that are unfamiliar with the content. No matter how big or small, a Swamp Thing sighting is an exciting moment. With these sightings comes a background story and something to document; not only for me but other Swamp Thing fans to reference. The longer I work on this website and build my Swampy collection, I find a great deal of enjoyment in treating the data and information I’m compiling as a reference tool/database. That being said/long story short, I present to you a very small Swamp Thing appearance within a full page ad.


There’s Larry, flying high, surrounded by a great cast. Swamp Thing stands toward the bottom of his cape, along the border. Swampy’s neighbors appear to be Doctor Strange, J’onn J’onzz and Plastic Man.

How is a comic book annex able to recruit the great John Byrne to illustrate their grand opening ad? As well as have Byrne and Joe Staton appear at the grand opening?

Chicago native and comics fandom champion, Larry Charet, opened Larry’s Comic Book Store in 1972. He and two partners started the Chicago Comic Con in 1976 and opened Larry’s Comic Book Annex in 1982. In the comics world, it’s fairly safe to say that Larry has seen it all. While heading the convention, they were able to draw up to 30,000 attendees, second only to San Diego Comicon at the time. Charet and his partners sold the con to Wizard Entertainment in 1997. The con still operates today under the name Wizard World.

Larry’s Comic Book Shop closed in 2002 but Larry still runs an eBay store which can be found here.
In 1999 Peter Erickson wrote Ink in His Veins for the Chicago Reader. The article profiles Larry and his history in comics. It’s a great article.