I was looking for something else in the archive drive, and stumbled across the poster for the first Geek Flea. It was in the wrong folder, so I put it in the correct folder. And then I looked through the posters for the other Geek Fleas. More on that in a second.
This November will be the 20th Geek Flea. That’s a decade of Geek Fleas (across a dozen years, thanks to the pandemic) and, honestly, about 19 more than I ever expected to do. As with most things involving Unwinnable, Geek Flea’s longevity has surprised me. I have many fun, silly and weird memories connected to the show (the removal of low rent Sponge Bob and that time Mark Mariano’s car caught on fire are top of that list) but I was shocked in April of this year when we had the first Geek Flea since the pandemic. Folks – vendors and shoppers alike – were so genuinely pleased that the show came back. It verged on emotional. Never in a million years did I expect Geek Flea to, like, be a meaningful thing for people. I still don’t entirely know what to make of that, but it is pretty cool.
Anyway, I’m not one for celebrations, really, but I did want to mark the ten year milestone in some small way, and collecting the posters, which have such a brief lifespan, seemed a good way to do it.
– Stu Horvath, Geek Flea Putter-Onner
(click to enlarge)
Geek Flea 1: Lots of fonts and Robert Hook’s illustration of a flea from 1665.Geek Flea 2: Poster by Micki Fever.Geek Flea 3: Poster by Unwinnable contributor Amber Harris.Geek Flea 4: Poster by Unwinnable contributor Bee Tee Dee.Geek Flea 5: V is for 5, but also for Villains, I guess?Geek Flea 6 (the banned poster!): Perhaps doing a 666-themed poster when Geek Flea rents space from a church wasn’t a good idea?Geek Flea 6 (the actual poster!): The circulated poster, showcasing tattoo-style art by my pal Shawn Dillon.Geek Flea 7: Uncredited pulp science fiction art found in some clip art archive or another.Geek Flea 8: Iconic painting by Margaret Brundage for Weird Tales, November 1933.Geek Flea 9: Uncredited Pulp era art. In the original, the devil is red, which I changed to head off complaints…Geek Flea 10: Uncredited pulp science fiction art found in some clip art archive or another.Geek Flea 11: Just messing around with some clip art.Geek Flea 12: “Cowboy Shootout,” by Sam Cherry, painted for Ace-High Western Stories, April, 1947.Geek Flea 13: Illustration by famed pulp illustrator, Virgil Finlay.Geek Flea 14: Rafael de Soto’s cover of David Hulburd’s 1953 exploitation novel, H is for Heroin: A Teen-Age Narcotic Tells Her StoryGeek Flea 15: “A Kodiak Bear Ripped My Flesh,” by Will Hulsey, for the June 1957 issue of True Men Stories.Geek Flea 16: This poster was assembled by Mark Shabunia, a long time Geek Flea vendor.Geek Flea 17: The image is lifted from Meca’s 1977 album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk.Geek Flea 18: The devil and the Frankenstein’s Monster are originally Ben Cooper designs, the werewolf and the vampire are Collegeville.Geek Flea 19: Whoops! Accidentally re-used that Virgil Finlay art from Geek Flea 13…Geek Flea 20: Illustration by Unwinnable contributor Kyle Patterson
