Greg Larocque Autographs (and more!)

It was many moons ago and I was heading to my first big convention in Baltimore. This was many years before the Boston Comic Con was even created.

And despite my advanced age even then, I considered myself a sort of convention newbie. I had little idea about autographs and commissions etiquette. And it didn't help that I had to fly down to Baltimore. I mean how many comic books do you want to pack to bring to a convention? Those things are heavy.

Anyways, I saw Greg LaRocque was going to be there and I knew I had to get books signed by him. I was very strict with my book counts then so I decided to only bring a handful of books per creator at that show.



So which books to bring for LaRocque? Certainly he was the primary artist during the Sensor Girl arc which was pretty famous and, of course, had Supergirl elements to it. Still, despite that, I knew that I wanted to bring at least a couple of issues that he had done the covers for. Remember, Steve Lightle was doing the bulk of the cover work during that time.

I also knew I wanted to bring some 'important' Legion issues, whatever that means.

So after surveying all the books I had and limiting myself to four books, I decided on the following.

Legion of Super-Heroes #17 - a LaRocque cover heralding a new time for the team.

Legion of Super-Heroes #18 -   also a LaRocque cover but with the added bonus of being a Crisis on Infinite Earths cross-over issue.

Legion of Super-Heroes #37 and 38 - "The Death of Superboy" stories.

To be honest, I have no recollection of my conversation with LaRocque other than the fact that it was very brief and he was very nice. But I didn't feel bold enough to talk to creators at length back then.

In retrospect, I regret not bringing Legion #16 with its Supergirl cover. And I also regret not bringing Legion #25, the Sensor Girl reveal. And unfortunately, I haven't seen LaRocque at a con since.

I was lucky enough to get the Superboy issue signed by inker Mike DeCarlo. And Legion #38 was one of the books I got signed by Bill Sienkiewicz. So I do feel lucky about that.