Domino

 

    As an antidote for the bloated, self-important disquisitions that have so far dominated this blog, I am going to make a weekly account of my scores at the flea market. And man I’ve had some whoppers. Last year: early Warhol prints, underground comic books, Jerry Uelsman photos, etc…. And I’m not even good at it anymore. When I first started out in the business, and I had no money at all, I had to buy my entire inventory at places like the flea market and it made me very sharp. I saw everything. Now I’m soft and too risk averse to be really dangerous there. I no longer relish the speculation. It has to be obviously good or really, really, really cheap. Last week it was mostly cheap.

    Alemany flea market, southern edge of San Francisco. A light rain. I arrive late, after 7 a.m. Only vendors with space in covered stalls show up. The usual sharks have been circling for an hour or more. After a while I am drawn into the booth of a vendor I do not recognize by a Weston-like landscape of dunes. As I get closer it falls apart, but it leads me to another box with a file folder of original comic book drawings dated 1936. Early sci-fi super hero stuff, a little crude, almost outsider; the main characters are a masked character called Domino and an over hyped muscle dude named Wotaman! Racist bad guys with fu manchu mustaches. Some are done on old San Francisco Examiner notepaper. The whole thing right out of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. 40-50 drawings in all by a guy named Robert Carey. How much? $20 for the pile. No need to get my iphone out at that price. I sneak back to my car.Later research reveals zilch.