Claremont Insider: Comic-Con at the Packing House

Monday, December 15, 2008

Comic-Con at the Packing House

The Daily Bulletin's David Allen reports on his blog that Chris Peterson, the fellow who owned Comic Bookie before it closed in October, is back with a monthly comic book show called Los Angeles Comic-Con at the Packing House.

Comic-Con will take place the third Saturday of every month and right now is scheduled for the next four months. The first installment is this coming Saturday, December 20th, from 10am to midnight. Allen writes:

The Packing House is letting him and co-organizer Erik von Wodtke use most of the common area in the complex, both inside and out, giving them space for approximately 28 vendor booths. As of Friday they had 16 confirmed vendors, filling the entire indoor area, a pretty good start. The Claremont Forum is helping underwrite the show.

Peterson said that vendors include Chino's Comic Madness, several back-issue sellers, the Claremont gaming store Gameology and himself, whose 200-square-foot space will be reminiscent of his former 700-square-foot shop, which closed in October.

Danny Miki, a Marvel Comics artist, will be at the show from 11 a.m. to noon.

Peterson has a four-month deal at the Packing House and hopes to put on shows the third Saturday of each month. He hopes the show grows to include movie previews and more guests. In the meantime, the first show sounds like fun. Admission is free, so what have we got to lose?

Allen has written about Chris Peterson several times, both in his column and on his blog. Back on October 29th, a couple days before Comic Bookie closed, Allen wrote:
Chris Peterson, owner of Claremont's Comic Bookie, started reading comics in 1972 while growing up in Claremont. He rode his bike to the 7-Eleven in La Verne to get his comics and often stopped at the Mount Baldy Drive-In's swap meet next door (now a Target) where vendors sometimes sold older comics. He had an allowance of $2 per week, which would net him 10 new 20-cent comics.

He also patronized two stores in Claremont.

R.U.R. was a used bookstore on Yale run by two hippies in the space that became Claremont Books and Prints, and it sold new comics and some older issues. ("R.U.R." was a sci-fi play from 1921 that introduced the word "robots." Shades of Android's Dungeon!)

There was also a newsstand at Indian Hill and Arrow whose name Peterson never knew. The sign's biggest word was Paperback, except the B was missing. Peterson and his friends would routinely say, "Let's go to Paper Ack."