My Letter from Jerry Bails

Dr. Jerry Bails was one of the architects of comic book fandom. In the 1960s he was the founding editor of the fanzine Alter Ego, and in the 1970s Dr. Bails went on the write the four-volume Who's Who in American Comics reference work in the 1970s and which I referred to so many times in those long-ago decades.

I mail-ordered my Who's Whos directly from Dr. Bails (who had a Ph.D. in Natural Science) and thereby found myself on his mailing list. From time to time he would cull his herd and sell off some of the original comic artwork in his collection. One time in the mid-1970s I pulled the trigger and bought a page from Dr. Bails.

I don't remember what page it was and I sent a check for it sight unseen going by Dr. Bails' description indicated that there was a splash on the page. When I received the artwork and was disappointed that it was not a full-page splash, I (gulp) wrote Dr. Bails a letter of complaint (mild I hope) and the gentlemen replied to me with the below very polite note. Please notice that Dr. Bails was sensitive to my concern and said that thereafter he would specify "splash page" only when he meant "full-page splash." Maybe this means that I myself had a hand in tightening up the language used in comics fandom? How about that!

The reverse side of that note page was Dr. Bails' then-current original art sale list. Maybe you would be interested in a Steve Ditko page from Amazing Spider-Man #22 for $230?