Every once in a while my serendipitous photography intersects with history. My slide frames of these pix are dated 1983. I was thus in my moody (I liked the lights off in order to see that agonizingly dim monochrome display) typesetting office and in the perfect position to spot Don and Maggie Thompson when they visited! [The typesetting office was exactly lined up with the Tom DeFalco/Jim Shooter doorway axis of power on the 10th Floor! –Owl-Eyed Brown]
The Comics Buyer’s Guide had a long and storied history (1971-2013 and all manner of even-handed news, scholarly and with open forums and reader feedback, with super-insightful and penetrating columns written by comic universe luminaries such as Cat Yronwode and Peter David! Their offices were in far-off Wisconsin so it was a bit of a trip to Marvel Editorial!). The Thompsons featured prominently in much of that history. I am not really going to present a full-blown history of that agency; I’m sure that’s all over the place elsewhere. As CBG relates to Marvel, I can say we could count on it to give us a fair shake. As originators of much of the news therein, we did get complimentary copies.
The result—as soon as their presence intruded on my type-focused attention, I grabbed up my camera and ran to blast off these:
L-R: Don, Maggie, Lynn Cohen and (sorry bud!) unknown! They are paused outside of Head of Production, Danny Crespi’s office, they are at the neat little organizational table (aka: Field of Death) mounted on top of so-called lateral filing cabinets. Lynn is Editor In Chief Jim Shooter’s Executive Secretary and a fitting guide to usher the caravan through.
Don and Unknown are more prominent in this shot—Interestingly, the back presented to us belongs to Direct Sales Market power-broker (and prominent uber comic collector) Carol Kalish (1955-1991). No doubt, Carol and the Thompsons are old comrades-at-comics from fandom on. The visiting troupe got a much more in-depth tour than they may have counted on! Less prominent is Jim Shooter’s beige sweater sleeve hanging on to Danny’s door frame.
Alas, Don Thompson (1935-1994) passed fairly young; parenthetically he saw quite a bit of change but no doubt would have enjoyed the next couple of decades in spite of industry upheavals.
Maggie presses on! She continued Editor-ship at CBG till it eventually closed up shop in 2013. Maggie continues to inform and try to keep us all honest writing columns and blogs for San Diego Comic Con’s Toucan World! No doubt soldiering on in spite of the current pandemic and attendant closure of SDCC for now.