5:th Event - Gothenburg

Fifth Event

Gothenburg, September 16 2001

With Sy & Simmy Barry

Intro
It has been decided in the chapter that two of our dinner dates shall be fixed dates, the first is the last Saturday before the Swedish holiday “Midsommar”in June, this dinner is held at the Phantom theme park in Eskilstuna. The second fixed date coincides with the Comic’s fair held in Gothenburg the third week in September. Therefore a dinner was planned for Gothenburg long before we learned that Sy Barry would come to Scandinavia…!
We of course immediately asked through Ulf Granberg at Egmont if it would be possible for Mr. Barry to join our dinner and after we had worked out some bugs in our respective schedules he could join us! The 16 September would prove to be a great day to be a Phantom fan!

The Fair
I drove to Gothenburg from my home in Kristinehamn and after a small parking problem I could join my friends at the fair. We had decided to meet at Egmont’s booth about an hour before Barry was to do his book signing. Nice to meet the familiar faces of the SC veterans!

At Egmont’s booth I bought copies of the book for two of my friends and myself. I also bought the latest Chronicle special and chatted a bit with Egmont veteran Bo Majgren asking him if we could display some cards with the SC web address on the signing table witch he agreed to. Then it was time to stand in line. It was real nice to have friends with you to pass the time with good discussions. The signing ran as clockwork, Ulf Granberg who sat beside Mr. Barry asked your first name and then wrote it down for Barry to see which gave him time to social a bit with each instead of constantly have to ask “and how do you spell that?” After the signing we walked round the booth to see how long the line to the signing was, we where pleasantly surprised, about 150 people and the turn-up had been just as good or better the previous days, this we learned from Bo Majgren later. We chatted with some people in the line enticing them to join the chapter and bought some Phantom ball caps from Egmont “SuperSalesMan” Peter Ask. SC member Bo Engberg got 7 caps!

The Seminar

Then it was time to move to the venue of the Barry mini seminar. Their where hoards of people from the press but surprisingly few fans. I used the occasion to hand out the cards that had been left from the signing to most of the attendants. (Later that resulted in a couple of new members) All SC attendants had of course taken front row. After a short opening remark from Sture Hegerfors President of the Swedish Comic’s Academy Mr. Barry started to speak while drawing the Phantom . Ulf Granberg sat beside him to help translate questions from Sture and the  audience..

After the all too short seminar that all including Mr. Barry would have wished could be longer, sadly the room was booked for yet another seminar,  me and my friends checked out the rest of the fair: Comic wise there where not all that much to check out, the comic part of the fair regrettably gets smaller and smaller year from year. Besides Egmont who dominate the Swedish comic market with right to almost all the internationally known names, there where only four other booths. One of them “Serieorginal” had Felmang and Kari Leppänen originals for sale. The Leppännen originals where all from “Striden på Malta”, beautiful but very expensive. The Felmang originals had a more affordable price and after a chat with the salesman me, Bo Engberg and Björn Harnby could get sort of a “package deal” when we purchased one each. Mine is page 11 from the 24/97 story Marabella (Frew 1192) and will look stunning on my wall once I get it framed. Egmont for reasons previously mentioned had a fairly big booth, a Phantom fan as myself wished that they had brought more Phantom stuff and even asked Peter Ask about the contents of some promising looking boxes, sadly the content had nothing more to offer. What they did have was, the Wilson McCoy special, the Sy Barry book, the third Chronicle special, 2 designs of ties, a tiepin and the black ball cap, all from the latest range of Phantom products. Björn Harnby had gotten permission to the huge poster advertising Mr: Barry’s signing with the condition that he couldn’t get it before five o’clock and we his friends of course had to be there for the occasion. It was a rare treat seeing him carrying that huge thing trough the myriads of people at the fair and later outside he could have used it as a sail! After waving goodbye to Björn and the poster there was time to go to the hotel to freshen up before the dinner. The hotel was just a few minutes away, conveniently located on the same street as the restaurant.

The Hotel

The hotel Aveny Turist was of the small but friendly kind and had the best cold water I have ever drunk, after hours at the hot and clammy fair I knocked down three or four cups, talk about your hard drinker! After a quick shower and change of clothes not to mention a much needed rest in a comfortably chair Bo Engberg with whom I shared hotel and I walked to the restaurant. We had booked this hotel because it was the cheapest one we could get and because of the fact it was so close to both the fair and the restaurant we had booked for the dinner.

The Restaurant
The restaurant called Frågetecknet i.e. the Question mark sported a carpet in the entrance with - sadly not the Phantom - but with another KFS character called Jiggs from “Bringing up father”, which we took as a good sign. We arrived a bit before the other guest in order to get the goodiebag organized; the parts of the goodiebag came from Malmö, Bäckhammar, Knivsta and Ljungskile! We managed just in time before the guests of honours arrival. Once seated I held a short welcome speech to Sy and Simmy Barry and to the members who had travelled from Malmö in south to Luleå in the north which is quit impressive if you think about it. I am not much of a speechmaker so I felt it best to continue while I had the momentum so thereafter I explained to the Barry’s how we in between courses get to see items the other members have brought to us to envy, which might sound a bit strange but is one of things that is the must fun about our dinners. Now I felt confident enough to hand Mr. Barry a Lifetime achievement award the chapter had made for him. Mr. Barry was noticeable moved by the award and thanked us for the award and the chance to meet with some of the members in the Scandinavian Chapter, sadly there where no other than Swedes present at the dinner but the Norwegians had a chance to meet with Mr. Barry at his visit in Oslo. The text of the award reads “For 33 years of unparalleled performance and craftsmanship that brought the Phantom comic to a new height of excellence that have served as a guideline for all future artists, brought legions of new fans and made it possible for the character to evolve and survive.” After that I could relax and enjoy the dinner. Sy and Simmy both were extremely sociable and rewarding to talk to and we got quit a few anecdotes from his career.

Sy patiently answered all our questions with long and eloquent answers. A portion of all the questions asked can be found on the member Magnus Eriksson’s site. It was particularly interesting to hear Mr. Barry’s thoughts about the future of the strip and his views on the artist who now work on it. Ulf had told us that we shouldn’t expect the Barry’s to stay to long since they had an early flight back to the states the following morning but they were one of the last to leave. Barry also when asked immediately agreed to sign everything we brought to him including the huge poster from the fair that Björn Harnby had brought with him, it was great fun to see him manoeuvre into the crowded room we where sitting in and the surprise in Mr. Barry’s face when confronted with it!

Some of us decided to ration ourselves by not making Sy sign everything we brought not to prolong the stay unnecessarily and take advantage if his kindness. When the Barry’s left it was self evident that they had had at least a good a time as the rest of us! After the dinner a few of us decided to go to a pub for a beer or too and talk some more Phantom! We didn’t plan it to bee so long, all of us had to be up pretty early the next morning to travel home but four hours went by without us noticing! We talked about the dinner and the future of the Chapter and of course all things Phantom, Jan-Ola showed us his collection of autographed Phantom artwork; I liked the fact that he always looks forward to get home and check the mail if there were something new to ad to his collection. Thinking back of the evening that part is a real nice memory, I hope we can do that again.
In my opinion this one was the best dinner the SC have had and I have been to all of them. I wonder if the next one with honorary member Rolf Gohs will top it?