Charlie Fried's Scrapbook, 4

Films of 1994! An ad for Shawshank Redemption video tape. From a catalogue directed at video stores.

The Stand video tape. An ad aimed at video stores.

Oh my, it's an ad for video stores to buy bulk copies of The Langoliers. There's a special "6 pack offer." Also advertised is a "Deluxe 5 Standee!" and Theatrical size poster, and shelf talkers.

This is straight forward: 4 Audio books for 99 cents. And hey, how often do you see Stephen King on the same page with Barbara Bush?

Here is an article Charlie clipped from. . . somewhere. It's a article by Stephen King extolling the virtues of an ice ax. I'll type it up when I have time, because it's really cool.

Here is an early internet page, I think, listing the Filmography of Stephen King.

A handbill for North American Premiere of the stage version of Misery. Oct 19-Nov 11, 1995.

This one is interesting! It's an ad for spanish Stephen King audio books.

"Captivating Personalities." I do not know what this is from. On the page are: Sally Jessy Raphael, Stephen King, Gene Siskel, Jim Morris, Jenny Jones, Ben Vereen. The King caption reads:

Stephen King: Simply the most popular writer alive. Stephen King is a phenomenal talent who dominates the best seller list like no one ever has. From early classics such as Carrie, the Shining and The Stand through recent works including Misery and Needful Things, his novels have caused countless sleepless nights and inspired some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. An equally masterful storyteller in person. King is a rare treat at the lecture podium.

And that, friends, brings us to the end of Charlie Fried's Stephen King scrapbook.

Charlie's Scrap Book, 3

The overlook is a personal picture that simply says on the back "overlook hotel." I wonder if he took it himself.

Charlie's Scrap Book, 2

Don't miss the personal photo of The Sandpipe, from IT. Below is Charlie's photo of the King home.

King speaking.

Charlie Fried's (SUPER COLLECTOR) Scrapbook, 1

(updated)

A while back I bought a grab bag from Betts Bookstore. It was a box of strange, wonderful things. My favorite thing -- perhaps the thing that has given me the most pleasure -- is a simple scrap book. 

It belonged, I am sure, to Charlie Fried. Fried was a "super-collector," meaning he owned LOTS of unique Stephen King items.  He was the subject of an interview in Stephen J. Spignesi's THE ESSENTIAL STEPHEN KING.  Spignesi titled this portion, "10 Questions With Stephen King Super Collector Charlie Fried."

Spignesi described Fried as the definition of the term "low profile."  He also noted that he had one of the five most important Stephen King collections in the world.  "I think the term supercollector was coined for him," Spignesi wrote.  Fried called King the "ultimate storyteller."

After his death, Fried's collection was broken up and sold through Betts Bookstore. Including, I guess, his scrapbook.  I'm in no way a "supercollector."  But I'm a fan of the supercollector!  Is it strange, one of my favorite Stephen King items is just Charlies ragtag notebook.  I find it endearing, fun and kind of sweet.

Fried's scrapbook is a little bit of absolutely everything! I like it because it's personal, it's not a book, it's pictures he took and essays he wrote. . I'm inviting you to come with me as I dig through Charlie's scrapbook. This will be fun! It will also be a lot of pictures, so the page might load slow for a while. . The scrap book is kept in a simple notebook with permanent binding. (hard to describe) The items are kept in simple page protectors. Good stuff!

A newsletter from Betts bookstore.

Charlie's review of The Mangler. I'll type and put it up as a post soon, because it's quite good.

Charlie's notes: "My visit to Bangor Maine -- or the pleasure of hearing Stephen King read to about 3,100 plus people." This is actually the first page of the notebook.

Ad for "An evening with Stephen King." Attached are Charlie's tickets at the bottom of the page. "All seats $5." Friday, Sept. 15, 7:30 pm, Bangor Auditorium. "Spend a memorable evening with one of America's favorite storytellers reading from a selection of personally chosen material." Hosted by Tabitha King, proceeds will benefit The Bangor Public Library Capital Campaign.

A map of Bangor. Charlie pasted a paper to it and identified places in Stephen King books.

STRANGENESS, The Backbone of a Good Collection

Where do you start collecting Stephen King?  I think the best advice has always been to start with first editions.  The earlier the better.  My earliest is a copy of The Shining.

A couple years ago, I stopped collecting first editions.  I only have so much shelf space, and it seemed that newer books had such a huge first run that the first editions would never be worth much.  I chose instead to buy special editions of these books.  For instance, Cemetery dance released a beautiful copy of Full Dark No Stars.  I chose to invest in that instead of a first edition.  Besides, someone usually gives me a copy of the latest Stephen King book!  (Hint, hint family – still no 11/22/63)

So what makes a good collection of Stephen King books?  Depends on what you like.  If you want to line all the books up in chronological order, Carrie to 11/22/63, then first editions are the way to go.  Of course, that system leaves nerd questions, like, “What do I do with the Dark Tower books?  Put them on their own shelf (yes!) or mix them in (no!)?”

I think the backbone of a good collection is strange stuff.  Yep, a little bit of everything makes the collection a lot of fun.  If everyone has the same set of first editions – that’s not really so cool, ya know?

Here are some strange things I’ve enjoyed hunting:

1. Magazines.  These are cheap, and a thrill to read through.  Magazines with Stephen King interviews, magazines that contain his original stories, or magazines about King are all easy to find.

2. Cemetery Dance editions.  I like books published by CD.  In particular, Blockade Billy, Full Dark No tars and the recent 20th anniversary of IT were all pretty cool.

3. Red leather editions.  I’m not crazy about these, because they come out looking pretty uniform – but a few a fun.

4. Trinkets.  The world is full of strange things from the world of Stephen King.  A matchbox Christine (mine is blue?),

5. Booklets.  Sometimes longer short stories were published as separate booklets.  I have The Raft as a booklet originally published in Gallery and a small Penguin paperback of Umney’s Last Case.  Sometimes the booklets are giveaway’s – just a few chapters of larger novels.  I have a copy of a Wizard and Glass booklet – just the first few pages.

6. British editions can also be cool.  I have the unabridged version of The Stand.  Strangely, the British edition looks a lot thinner!  Also a British edition of Skeleton Crew.  Actually, this is something I don’t do a lot of hunting for.  After all, the only thing really different is the cover, and again – I need the space.

7. Some cassettes are worth looking for.  I hunted The Stand and The Mist on cassette.  (Once upon a time The Stand was only available in the original abridged format and even that was out of print.)  Copies of King reading The Dark Tower are also pretty cool, in my opinion.

If you can get your hands on the original recording of The Mist read by Frank Muller, I think it's worth  it. I'm not sure what the copyright deal is on this book is, but it seems to be out of print.

By the way, there is an abridgment of Thinner that King really didn't like!  It was so bad, he decided not to allow future books be be abridged.  But then, Desperation was later abridged!

8. Newspapers and periodicals.  In particular, the Castle Rock was a neat publication.  I only own one.  It was very well done and a great way of keeping news out there in an age pre-interent.  There were several other unauthorized publications that are fun to dig up.

Phantasmayoria was a unofficial magazine published four times a year.  I think this was the work of George Beahm. I have a Summer 1997 edition.

The Red Letter by Greg Hotchkiss was another King news booklet about 10 pages per issue.

Also SKIN: Stephen King Information Network was the work of editior Lori Zucearo.  This publication is about 10 full sized sheets of paper – always green.  It seems the 90's were really the era for these publications. (See blog post, The History Of Skin)

9. The Dark Tower in its first publication in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine.  I had a lot of fun hunting those down, it became a quest.

10. Original copies of the Richard Bachman books.  The only one really hard to find it Rage.  The copy I have is pretty tattered.  Actually, all my Bachman paperbacks are well worn!

11. Comic books.  I don’t purposefully collect these, but have somehow ended up with quite a few.  Anyway, comic books can easily make a collection unique.  There are some that are more fun to hunt down than others.  I  think the Batman #400 is pretty awesome.  King reveals if he is a Batman or a Superman.

12. Some books about King are invaluable.  For instance  The Shape Under The Sheets is out of print, and a very unique book!  Lilja’s Library is also a lot of fun to just sit and thumb through.  (When it comes to books about King, I like books you don’t have to read beginning to end, but can hope around in.)

13. Movies.  One Summer I tried to collect all the SK movies.  I’m not sure it’s possible!  And some I just refuse to invest in, making it impossible to collect them all.  Sorry, Sleepwalkers and Langoliers!  I don’t really think movies do much in terms of collecting.  I don’t even keep the cases, but put them all in one folder of SK movies.

14. Desk Calendar.  I have just recently become a big fan of the Stephen King desk Calendar.

15. Books with introductions by Stephen King.  King’s introduction to any book is a lot of fun.  I don’t collect these, but would gladly sit and read every introduction if given the stack of books.

What is it?
Some stuff I have I’m actually unsure. . . why I have it!  I keep it in this big plastic tub, and my wife probably thinks it’s full of old books or something.  I just toss srange things in there that I’m unsure what to do with.  A lot of it are things that came in grab bags or – stuff I don’t know I got it!

Examples:

• A big red sticker that says: “Buy Desperation and The Regulators and get a gift from STEPHEN KING... an excerpt from The Dark Tower IV.  
• A TV Guide from May, 1997 with the Shining miniseries on the front.  I’m not sure why I bought this (for something like $2).  But now that I bought it, I can’t part with it!
• A VHS box for The Lawn Mower Man, unrrated directors cut.  This is only the fox, still flat, never had a VHS tape in it.  I’m not sure why I have this – or why I keep it.  Hopeful it may for some reason be valuable.
• Stickers with this instruction from New Line Cinema: June 30, 1993, “Dear new Line Home Video Customer: Enclosed are corrected credit block stickers for the new Line Home Video title The Lawnmower Man.  Pursuant to a court order, please place this approved sticker on all available copies of The Lawnmower Man in your inventory.  The Lawnmower Man is available for sell-through at $19.95 suggested retail price.  Thank you for making The lawnmower Man a huge success.”  RIGHT!
• Papers.  Yep, papers from a court proceeding regarding Lawnmower Man.  Nothing interesting – just court docs.  
• Charlie Fried’s original draft’s of his articles for SKIN.  Including: Stephen King on Audio, Stephen King’s World of Horror, The Lawnmower Man meets the Rock Bottom Remainders Stephen King Plaintiff or Defendant, and more.

The really fun stuff are things that you think no one else has.  My favorite is Charlie Fried’s notebook.  It’s nothing that incredible – just a scrapbook by a fan.  But I like it a lot.

There's so much stuff you could collect!  Movie posters, event tickets, signed items, signed baseballs, bobbleheads, action figures, toys, bookcovers. . .

So, tell me – what odd things make your collection fun and unique?

Also see my 2011 article, Building A Unique Collection

Strange Fan?

My wife and I were watching the Stephen King Big Read event yesterday on the internet. She said, "Too bad he's not coming to Calfironia."

That perplexed me, "Why?"

She stared as if I had lost my mind. "Because then you could meet him."

"But, I don't feel any need to meet him."

She found this very strange. How could I collect King's books, magazine articles, books about King and more, but not be interested in actually seeing King live, or meeting him. I never thought of that as strange. But as I look around, I noitce that most fans do want to at lesat meet King. Charlie Fried's notebook was full of his notes about a trip to see King, and a picture of him with King.

So, I found myself asking: Why isn't that something that would interest me? a few answers come to mind:

1. I don't feel I have anything to offer him -- and what he has to offer me is what he puts in print. Shaking his hand would only keep that hand off the keyboard for another moment! Why slow the progression of Wind through the Keyhole any longer? (hehe)

2. I don't want to be just another guy standing in line going, "Hey man, I really liked the Stand."

So what do ya'all think? what am I missing here?

The History Of SKIN

SKIN: Stephen King Information Network
The following is by Lori Zuccaro. I'm reprinting it from a 2 page typed document -- I found it very interesting.
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They say that there's a time and place for everything. well, if that's true, it's obviously the time for Stephen King newsletter. The last King newsletter was publishedbetween 1985 and 1989. It was called Castle Rock. In one of the last issues of this newletter, Ray Rexer wrote a poem titled, "I don't care what people say, Castle Rock is here to stay." It has been said many times that SKIN is the next Castle Rock. Maybe it is. . . I don't know, but what I do know is that it's an honest attempt to simply combine the knowledge of many people who admire and study King's works and share them with others.
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I don't like people to call it a "Fan Club" or a "Fanzine" beause I think there's much more to King than stardom. In fact, his stardom is the least interesting to me personally. What I like about King is his love of writing and his honest attempt (and success) of putting thoughts onto paper and making them come alive. It's his literary abilities that I try to incoperate in SKIN and try to avoid being too fanish. OF course, you can't avoid all of this, and not all of that is necessarily bad. It's okay for us to idolize someone who is extremely talented. But it's not okay to distort the true talent someone has and create a Hollywood image of them. Anyway, let's move on to the heart of what SKIN is and where it's come from.
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SKIN (Stephen King Information Network) began in April, 1994 on a computer online system called America online. One night I sat down and typed a message on one of the bulletin boards dedicated to King. I wrote and asked people who wanted to participate to email me any news or comments they have regarding King. I then promised to summerize the responses on a monthly basis.
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That was the beginning of what I didn't know at the time, a Stephen King newsletter. I had many many responses. People wrote and asked me questions and asked to be included on my mailing list. I got so much mail that I decided the best way to summerize this news would be in a newsletter format. So I did it. I sent the first issue in May and had loads of wonderful letters asking for more SKIN. Once July came around, I had people asking for subscriptions to the newsletter, especially those who didn't have access to America Online. Things moved very quickly. . . and still are I might add! I established a subscription fee that would simply cover the cost of producing the newsletter, mailing it, etc. During the following month I also made business cards, letterheads, registered the name of the newsletter, consulted the copywright office, etc. I guess you could say things were pretty official and busy once July started.
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I had the fortune of meeting many wonderful people who helped me more than I can say. This newsletter would not exist if weren't for the many devoted members and friends of SKIN. One of my first members, Charlie Fried has become an indisposable friend and contributor. He's helped me decide on subscription fees, how distribute SKIN, contributes monthly articles, plus hundres of other things.
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In September, Louise Dragon created the logo of SKIN. It made its appearance in the October issue and is now a sort of trademark you could say. Then I began to have the pleasure of corrospondance of Steve Spignesi, George Behm, Michael Collings, Dave Hinchberger, Stu Tinker and too many other to mention. My point is that I didn't create SKIN by myself. It was created by many people who wrote to me often with ideas, news, comments, etc., and contributed time and love to the newsletter. SKIN has become more than an internet of people who enjoy King and his works. It has become an internet of friends which will last a lifetime. I have had many compliments on the newsletter and hope that all will continue to enjoy it as much as I enjoy producing it.

http://www.librarything.com/author/zuccarolori

Stephen King From A to Z article: (this is a good book)
http://books.google.com/books?id=2BcECkYB7uoC&lpg=PA195&ots=XaI3xq7qdj&dq=Lori%20zuccaro%22&pg=PA195#v=onepage&q=Lori%20zuccaro%22&f=false

The overlook says: "From 1994 to 1995, SKIN (Stephen King Information Network) produced eighteen newsletters. SKIN began as a newsletter on the internet, but soon discovered that people with no access to computers, also wanted to receive current King information. With news, illustrations, and articles by authors Stephen Spignesi, George Beahm and others. Each newsletter is stamped Certified Skin Original' as issued.'"
http://overlookconnection.com/product_info.php?products_id=1312

Betts Bookstore -- A Home Run!

.

Since we live in California our contact with Betts bookstore has been solely by phone -- we call in an order, and they faithfully fill it. We find their pricing and knowledge right on. Of course, sometimes ebay is chaper, but often people on the internet don't reall know what they're working with.

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The other day my wife bought me a "Stephen King grab-bag." A what?, I asked. What's a grab bag? "They were cleaning out their back room and put a bunch of stuff in a grab bag. It's all Stephen King, you'll like it," she promised. I was very excited because I knew it was coming from Betts, and they don't let down -- ever. I knew that if my wife paid $75 for a "grab-bag" then we would get more than our money's worth.

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When my wife talked to Stu he said, "This should get there on Friday." He was right. The box was heavy, which excited me. So what was inside? I was afraid I had just paid for some old shirts. No -- it was a box full of. . . stuff. Lots of stuff. Odds and ends. It took a while to process. Soon our kitchen table was full as we spread out the items. Our children gathered round, interested in all the things coming out of the box. We were thrilled.

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A few things:

• Posters.


• Postcards.
  
• Bookcovers (paperback and hardcover).
  
• Newsletters.
  
• Ticket stubs.
  
• Wizard and glass booklet.
  
• Photo's.
  
• The Dark Tower comic book series.
  
• IT promotional booklet.
  
• Paperwork. Like legal briefs and more.
  
• Bookmarks.
  
• Tickets from Stephen King readings.
  
• Lawnmowerman VHS cover, and stickers to cover up King's name.
  
• The Collector, a new introduction by S.K.
  
• Phantasmayoria. (Bookelt/newsletter by George Beahm)
  
• Promotional brochure of the stage production of Misery.
  
• Tickets to the halloween showing of Carrie.
  
• Large set of "The Red Letter" (a newsletter booklet by Greg Htchkiss).
  
• Trading Cards.
  
• Dustjackets.
  
• SKIN, Stephen King Information Network newletters.
  
• Ads clipped or torn from papers.
  
• Magazine pages.

And, one more thing: A scrap book. Who's scrap book? Charlie Fried's, I think. Actually, I'm pretty sure. It has his picture, and lots of persnal notes to himf rom editors. Charlie Fried was a well known super-collector. I read an interview with him in The Essential Stephen King. So there I sat with this little scrap book of really, really cool stuff -- and I'm thinking: Wow, Charlie Fried put this together! (In other words: Someone know knows what they're doing).

The Scrapbook is full of his personal notes. A lot about his trip to Maine, and ersonal pictures of things in Bangor related to King. A personal picture of King's home and the sandpipe. It is, to me at least, priceless. Not just that it can't be bought in a bookstore, but the feeling that it was assembled by someone who really thought highly of King. I thumbed through it once to figure out what it was, then kept going back to it, ralizing it was the real prize in the box. A big thanks to Betts for making this available.