catrick339

I can find 12 scary faces in the Cap 25 cover, 7 to the left 5 to the right. Can anyone find more?

Random comics? Sure!

WUPS! My bad, all I caught was the Schomburg, didn't catch the chopped off Alex on the last image I've found over the years that a lot of folks aren't familiar with August, so I thought I'd toss it in.

Linky to an auction with a couple of August Schomburg's covers http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Flying-Aces-1938-July-May-Art-Deco-August-Schomburg-cover-/161006220267?nma=true&si=jMVuqubKX1pP8qE07Xxt1RTU58Y%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

That man not have been by OUR Schomburg. His brother was also an illustrator and did a lot of magazine covers at around that time. I've had a couple flying magazines with covers by the OTHER Schomburg.

I had a PM inquiring, the first paperback is from 1949, the second is from 1950.

Here's the second

Bought a big ol' pile of vintage PB's from our own eccomics, found a couple more L B Cole covers in the lot. Here's the first. It has a hint of the classic Cole palette to it, just not quite as bold.

Wow, those All American Westerns must be scarce for sure, 125 is a no-show in the Gerber Guides.

(Pats Scrooge on shoulder, hands him a cookie)

Wow....both have the same time stamp. Hah! In your fa.......umm, ahh.... I mean, Sorry Kazoo, looks like I beat you by mere seconds. Same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago, missed a book I wanted by about a minute, crossing posts.

All New 9, 12, per PM

I spent a LOT of time staring at that endpaper when I was a kid. Schomberg, and it was in every St John first edition for years.

Philistine! Fritzi Ritz, and later Nancy, were outstanding strips in the '30s and early '40s. Pick up one of the very early compilations such as Single Series 5 or Comics on Parade 32 and check it out. Well, I had to assume I was missing SOMETHING, it must've had some good entertainment content at one time or another, or it wouldn't have gotten a syndicate deal. By the time I was reading Nancy in the newspapers in the 60's and early 70's it was plain ol' whitebread boring. But then so was Blondie, and Hi and Lois, and Lolly, etc etc. Heh, the first time I read a compilation of vintage strips of The Phantom I was knocked right out of my socks. Ditto Alley Oop, Terry and the Pirates, Buz Sawyer, etc etc.

Ho-LEE Crunk! I've had plenty of sections over the years but never a TAB. I really REALLY want one now.... What areas were they distributed through, want papers?

Oh, and y'know, to this very day I STILL don't understand the appeal of Fritzi Ritz, or Nancy and Sluggo.

[font:Times New Roman]I'm not sure that I agree with your views on early GA art. Sure, there was a lot of weak writing in the GA, partially because of the time constraints placed by deadlines and the page space available which limited the kind of stories that could be told. Also, the market was a younger, brasher, less adult audience than family oriented newspaper comics. That said, there were lots of aspiring artists, some of whom would've made the cut with the right inspiration for a newspaper strip, others who just never got the break, but I'm persuaded by the evidence that among those who did make the cut, there was just as much mediocre art in newspaper comics. Where the difference comes in is with the level of storytelling. Newspaper strip cartoonists either possessed great writing skills or they co-produced their strips with good writers who could adapt to the tight serialized visuals required of the medium.[/font] Well, it's true, newspaper strips were, in general, pretty well written. Takes a good writer indeed to do a daily serial without repetition and with a hook every day. And there was limited space in the newspapers, you had to be a cut above to get a chance at a syndication deal. So let's take the Big Kahuna from the era, Superman. 1938, just 2 years after the first original content comics, if memory serves. Failure in getting a syndication deal. First Action story was cut up and restriped newspaper dailys (Sundays? I don't recall) and even then it was as major experiment, with Supes not appearing on the cover again for several issues. Let's face it, it's amateurish. Better than I could do mind you, Nevertheless, it rang a distinct chord with the public, and practically singlehanded jumpstarted a brand new industry into a wild success. But that's only one story out of an anthology book, one success out of a dozen or so trial stories. I don't own an Action 1 and am unlikely to do so, barring a happy accident with a garage sale or a lotto ticket, but I've read the FFE reprint, and the rest of it is.... okay to dull. Even the mediocre newspaper strips of the day were well done, professionally drawn and inked, and reproduced in a large size, all under the guiding hand of one of the big newspaper syndicates. The utter trash never saw the light of day, the syndicate editors didn't let it get printed in the first place. On the other hand comics editors and printers were HOWLING for product, and would take some pretty loathsome stuff to fill the XX number of pages of content they needed, every single month, in and out. If you didn't have product to print and distribute, you made no money. zero. Different packaging, far different outcomes, and Waugh was correct IMO. You had to sell your funnybook pretty much with the cover alone to get the younkers to part with that precious dime, and garish catches the eye. Timely sold a LOT of comics with kickarse covers and dubious content, LOL

(And yes, I'm familiar with Sturgeon's Law, "Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crapola", but it seems to me that the percentage runs especially high in the early GA books)

The thing is, Waugh's not entirely wrong. MOST comic book artists early on were failed or wannabe strip artists, either they couldn't make the cut or were still honing their skills. Look at the art on titles like Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Terry and the Pirates, even Popeye (Thimble Theater) and compare 'em with the early GA stories and the comics suffer badly in comparison. Which is not to say that there isn't a certain buoyant, energetic excitement in much of the early art, and of course by the end of WW2 this spankin' new art form had generated some pure geniuses on its own. Artists like Lou Fine, Will Eisner, Jack Cole, Schomberg, etc can hold their heads high amongst the best of the strip field. But even the most mad dog of fans have to admit there was some real crapola published in the early GA stuff.

HOOO! Vertigo Represent!

Bullseye's another. First "appearance" Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD 15, but that's NOT the same character who reached infamy in Daredevil.

Another fine transaction with the Illustrious Chuck! Many thanks! catrick339

I've used mine (Hey Kids! Comics!) at several shows in the Midwest, selling dollar books or $5 books with great success. It always involves a bit of chat while I explain that I thought HARD before deciding not to oil it. The OVERWHELMING consensus is that the squeak is an integral part of the spinner rack, LOL