sfcityduck

Burma's necklace pendant is also original art customized for the airport. I have seen a 1942 and 1944 Burma hand-colored prints with the original simple necklace pendant.

On 4/16/2024 at 8:52 PM, drdroom said:

Is the idea here that Burma is printed and the other art is original? She doesn't look cut out as Miss Lace is on the other one.  

After a close examination, that appears to be the case. Burma appears to be printed with pressed on blacks, except for one spot where it appears Caniff wiped ink off of his brush into a black spot on her dress (or wanted to change or add texture who knows). There is no white out on Burma. In contrast, the background and balloons are a different color black, have texture consistent with brushing, have whiteout, and are carefully drawn so as to avoid touching the Burma figure. There obviously used to be a paste-up on the pilot of the near plane and there is a paste up copyright under Burma. But here, he apparently chose to put the background on the page with the printed Burma instead of pasting in a printed figure like he did with Lace. 

This is consistent with the fact that there are other Burma "hand-colored prints" with a figure of the exact same design ... except the necklace and which predate and postdate my piece. See here:

Looking closely at the necklace pendant on my Burma, that also appears to be original art.

My Burma piece is super cool. It may well be Caniff's earliest piece of this type. I have it listed for well below the Ms. Lace piece on the OA sales page. Feel free to check out the listing and I will entertain an offer.

On 4/16/2024 at 11:11 AM, Yorick said:

No.  I believe you'll find some bits of info in the PBA Auction thread....  It's a Frankenstein book.

That's being generous.

On 4/15/2024 at 3:20 PM, esquirecomics said:

There are rumors of a Triple Action! But don't think that one has much substance to it.

If you have some spare time, I'm sure we'd all love another ashcan thread!

On 4/11/2024 at 10:48 AM, Mmehdy said:

Watch for a possible run at CGC with E-Bay and PSA...here is some food for thought

1-PSA/Ebay buys CBCS and then intergrades with existing platforms...least likely

2-PSA/Ebay create a third comic book grading company...most likely

3-CGC buys CBCS and merges them and head off PSA/Ebay...less likely, but in my opinion the best option for CGC to keep market dominance.

4-HA and CGC merge...possible with blackstone taking some equity in HA....longshot

 Look for the pot to be stirred up in 2025!!!! 

5-A comic book storage company is created by THEM - where you buy the GA book on Ebay  raw and with a click of a button they send it to PSA and then after grading, they store it for you and put it up on Goldin auctions or back on E-bay as a graded book all at a big discount if you use all services at once, you can buy it from them  in auction and then keep it stored and auction it with other auction houses who accept the storage as ownership  or back on e-bay...the cycle never ends, except the PSA and Ebay win big time.....

your thoughts on this take!!!

eBay's fundamental business principle is to avoid ever touching any inventory. eBay's business is to (1) host classifieds - taking a percentage and (2) facilitate payments - taking a percentage, while all the while avoiding the many legal perils it could face if it ever touched the inventory. 

So what happened here is consistent with that principle. eBay bought Goldin, but sold the Vault operation to PSA. 

So eBay can now offer both its traditional classified ad service (where it does not touch the inventory at all) and a hybrid online-live auction model such as is presently offered by places like live Liveauctioneers (home to Hakes, PBA, etc.). 

PSA now does grading and vaulting, which presumably will include vaulting the items to be sold through Golden (mainly sports stuff which generally requires authentication).

Both companies have agreed to stay in their lanes and to work with one another - probably a win-win. eBay gets auction referrals from PSA. PSA gets grading referrals from eBay.

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-collectors-enter-into-commercial-agreement-sign-deals-for-acquisition-of-goldin-by-ebay-and-acquisition-of-the-ebay-vault-by-psa/

I don't see Heritage as a player in the thinking on this eBay-PSA deal. It seems more motivated by focusing on their strengths.  My guess is that Heritage is very happy staying a high end player that doesn't attempt to compete with eBay and its millions of small transactions. Heritage is going after a high end auction house model, and it is has climbed to the top of the second tier of auction houses. If Heritage wants an exits strategy, the most likely one is sell out to Christies or Sotheby. More likely, they will keep chasing those houses in the hope they can get closer to their size. They have a ways to go.

On 4/15/2024 at 11:41 AM, Yorick said:

I could use a better picture.... 

Such an awesome title covered by the two best artists from DC's golden age!  O'Mealia and then Flanagan!  Where is Double Action 3?

O'Mealia is my favorite DC artists of that time period. But a lot of ways to get that cover: Adventure 41, Flash Ashcan, Double Action 1 ashcan, anywhere else?

Milt Caniff's Male Call, which started in January 1943, was unplanned. The plan formed in 1942 was that Caniff would do a special version of Terry & The Pirates just for GIs on a weekly, not daily, schedule. And that version would star Burma as the GIs Pin-Up girl. What a lot of collectors don't seem to know, is that the plan was actually implemented and in October 1942 an entirely different version of Terry & The Pirates appearing only in military newspapers commenced with Burma as the star! An example of Burma posing and entertaining some soldiers with topless serving girls:

However, a Florida civilian newspaper publisher got pissed when he realized that Army base newspapers in his area were publishing a "Terry & the Pirates" strip to the GIs that he didn't get. The syndicate caved to pressure, and Caniff had to create a new GI oriented strip that did not use the Terry name or its characters. That strip was Male Call and it started up in January 1943, ending Burma's run after just four months.  Why does this matter?

Because Burma was a hit with the GIs! And the GIs, including their bases, would write Caniff to send them a pin-up. What I'm offering here is a LOT more special than an ordinary "hand-colored print" by Caniff. This is a very very rare example of a hand-colored pin-up with an original hand drawn background and very suggestive dialogue custom made for the "The 43-14 Class at San Angelo School" of "Bombadier-Navigators" trainees. This piece was likely requested in late 1942 and issued by Caniff in January 1943 before or around when Ms. Lace and Male Call debuted. I've seen Ms. Lace and even the Dragon Lady in these type of GI oriented pin-ups later in time. But never Burma! Very rare, super cool, and likely very early for a customized GI pin-up. Caniff's stat figure of Burma is printed and the original-art background, comprising ink, blue wash, and one spot where a paste-up likely was placed is drawn and inked onto the Bristol board. The copyright line is an in-place paste-up. Dimensions, approximately 11" x 14". Might well have been used by the Camp Newspaper or printing office to provide a pin-up for each of the graduating class. Never seen such a printed copy.

PICS:

Close ups appear darker than the appearance in person.

San Angelo Air Field was in San Angelo, Texas. Its mission was to train bombardiers for B-25 Mitchell, B-26 Marauder medium, B-17 Flying Fortress, and B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, and later B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers for combat missions during World War II. The art shows some toning (predominantly on reverse), some spot-staining, a bit of white-out, creasing, some wrinkles, possibly one very minor tear at the top, and a spot of adhesive residue (maybe where shading or a paste-up was peeled). Overall in very good condition. Again, the figure of Burma is not original art despite that there is some black ink in a shaded area of her dress. The background is original art.

When will you see another? Like some of my past offerings on this site - maybe never. Take special note of the innuendo in Burma's dialogue!

COMPARABLE:

A very similar piece, albeit post-war for a 1946 soldier reunion and featuring a stat of Miss Lace, sold at Heritage less than a year ago for $2,400. See here: https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/illustrations/milton-caniff-male-call-miss-lace-specialty-illustration-original-art-c-1946-/a/322326-49068.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

PRICE:

Heritage's appears to be in worse shape. Still, in recognition of Heritage's fees, I'm willing to let this one for $1,600 or best offer. 

TERMS:

If I was going to go the conservation route, I'd be looking for a paper conservator with experience with comic art. My experience is that the best conservators tend to specialize or subspecialize. I use a conservator for Japanese woodblock prints and watercolors, but I would not use him for US original art because his expertise is Japanese paper. I don't think I'd be interested in "restoration" - just a dry clean and press if safe and useful.

On 4/14/2024 at 8:16 AM, MusterMark said:

Hi,

In the vast, varied and exciting world of international comics (aka foreign comics), this is not that uncommon.  There is tremendous variation, depending on country, era, publisher, character, etc etc etc.  There can be wild variations even within one country and even within one publisher in that country or across different publishers in that country.  Often, the superhero stories were sourced precisely from the American versions -  the original story kept but just translated into the local language.  And often the original art was kept too, or was sometimes redrawn locally.  But sometimes brand new stories were written and drawn locally - which is what you are asking about.

Perhaps one of the most widely known examples of this is the Mexico publisher Novaro in the 1970’s, in their non-canon stories in which MJ Watson lives, and marries Spider-Man.  In this case, this happened for 2 main reasons.  Novaro was publishing weekly and began to run out of the American material, which was published monthly.  Spider-Man had become very popular in Mexico, and many readers there expressed their disdain for the death of MJ.  So Novaro resurrected her, in multiple issues.  The best known of these issues, the wedding issue, has sold (in decent condition) a few times in the last couple of years for $20,000 to $30,000.  It is very hard to find.

In the example you bring up:  Italy and Superman:  Italy started some “tinkering” with the American superhero stories back in the 1940’s.  Superman, and to some extent Batman, were popular in Italy, and sometimes new stories were made locally for them.  I don’t know TOO much about the Italian 1970’s Superman because my interests are usually in comics older than that.

I will alert one of our illustrious Boardies, valliant, who is from Italy.  He knows MUCH more than I, and will be able to tell you much more, and hopefully also correct any of my statements that might be erroneous.

@valliant

 

Psst - Gwen not MJ but I think you knew that. A possible third reason, the Mexican market in the 70s must have loved GGA:

Thanks!

On 4/13/2024 at 10:22 PM, tth2 said:

Very cool piece!  Burma is a particular favorite of mine.

I can't answer your first question, but as to your second question, I can't imagine selling Caniff OA anywhere other than Heritage.  Every Caniff piece of note that has come to market, including the very first Terry & the Pirates strip and various WW 2 miscellanea created by him, has been sold on Heritage.

Would you try to get it conserved first or not? The Miss Lace piece they sold looks grimy.

I'm now trying to figure what to do with this. I was going to sell the below Caniff 1943 Burma piece for $1,300 as a "hand-colored print." But then I realized that Heritage sold a very similar 1944 Miss Lace piece as original art and darned if they're not right! Both pieces are below:

The comparable piece sold by Heritage for $5K+ back in 2005 is this (note the similar price placement to mine in the bottom right and similar paste up residue and white out):

So here's my questions:

(1) Is there a highly skilled conservator I could submit it to who could carefully clean and press it without damaging the inked art?

(2) Where's the best place to list it for sale (here, Heritage, CLINK, etc.)? I only sell comics and comic related items, not comic book original art. So advice appreciated.

THANKS!

PRICE CUT TO $375!

So, now we're on to Noel Sickles. What is there to say about Noel Sickles? You have to start that Milt Caniff's Terry & The Pirates at is outset looked like this: 

But after Caniff befriended Sickles, whose own Scorchy Smith, looked like this:

They fused their styles and Terry immediately became a cinematic beauty:

And it just kept improving. No doubt Caniff was the better writers and Sickles the better artist. But they both could do both and for a time their styles were hard to tell apart (and in fact they assisted each other). Caniff and Sickles were lifelong friends. On Sickles death, Milt Caniff wrote: “This restless genius was the greatest natural cartoonist I ever knew. Now he is dead! All that talent still unused and every cartoonist feels cheated of what might yet have come from his magic hand.”

But, for Noel Sickles, his stint in cartooning was just the beginning of a storied career. He and Caniff worked together up into the war, but as the inevitability of US entry into WWII became obvious, Noel’s knowledge of military hardware (fully on display in Scorchy and Terry) led to commissions from Life and other magazines. Sickles got married and moved to Rockland County, N.Y., not far from Caniff and magazine illustrator Harry Devlin. Devlin joined the war effort in DC with Navy Intelligence and recommended Noel as a civilian employee in the group. For almost three years, Sickles and Devlin shared a studio close to the Lincoln Memorial cranking out incredible illustrations for training and propaganda posters. And until Hank Ketchum arrived, Sickles did most of the cartooning as well.

Devlin tells the story that near the end of the war, Sickles painted a poster for Navy Day. That poster is noteworthy because Edward Steichen, the great Navy photographer, had ideas of his own for the project. However, when presented with Sickle’s painting, Capt. Steichen cheerfully admitted that there was no contest. Sickles' 1945 Navy Day poster looks like this:

OFFERING:

But, the 1945 Navy Day poster was not the first time Sickles used a design of this type. The first time was a year earlier in 1944 for this training and morale poster, which as with the last lot is also the rarer (and smaller) "overseas" edition.  It is also in great shape and very worthy of linen backing:

Full recognition came to Noel following the war years. He did a ton of illustration work for the Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, book illustrations, etc. He is a legendary illustrator and probably the greatest and most prolific illustrator for the US government during WWII.

PRICE: $550 $375 or best offer. 

P.S. I'll throw in this massive 3 foot by 4 foot, but not museum quality, Sickles training and morale poster, and offer the winner a right of first refusal on upcoming Sickles posters!

On 4/13/2024 at 7:37 PM, esquirecomics said:

Thanks for the kind words. 

For those interested in my grandfather's story, particularly his time at Dachau (including amazing video of his service for the survivors), you can check out this detailed Twitter thread I created for the 75th anniversary:

https://x.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1255510572617076743

Mark,

Thanks for stopping by. I always enjoy what you have to say. But I assume you must be fairly busy these days. Keep fighting the good fights!

PRICE CUT TO $990 or BEST OFFER!

Offering:

A GENUINE MUSEUM QUALITY PIECE BY THEODOR "TED" SEUSS GEISEL aka DR. SEUSS!

For those of who grew up reading Dr. Suess's children's books his WWII work can be quite a surprise. After the war began, Seuss, a German Lutheran, did over 400 editorial cartoons, for PM a FDR supporting NYC newspaper. Many of those cartoons, in step with that era, expressed what now appear to be racist and ethnic slurs (this was of course all pre-Sneetches and during the heat of war so I give him a pass). Later, in 1942, he started doing government work for the Treasury Department and War Production Board - which is why you see posters with Seussian characters urging folks to "Starve the Squander Bug" and instead buy bonds. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army as a Captain and commenced work on training and propaganda projects (booklets, posters, and films). 

One of his creations is a bit infamous, cool, and fascinating. That creation? Her name was Ann. She was a character for a pocket size (4.5" x 5.5") training book put out to the troops to teach them the perils of malaria and how to avoid it. 

The reason the character is so disconcerting is that she appears in the only training booklet Seuss did the during the war years that reads like a Dr. Seuss book. BUT a scary Dr. Seuss book starring a literal Vampire that is out to kill you! It is sufficiently similar to a Seuss children's book that it is disconcerting. The booklet pops up every once and a while. I've seen them range in price from $300 for a thrashed copy to around $2,000 or so for a copy like the above. I'm not selling the booklet but you can find them.

Instead, I'm selling something far far rarer and cooler. The only example I've ever seen, despite massive online searches, of the "overseas" edition of a training poster for the troops which essentially reprints the book in a nifty 17.5" x 23.5" format with portrait orientation that is perfect for framing and display.

Don't be led astray by by the creases on this poster. This poster is perfect for linen backing which will smooth out wrinkles, minimize creases, and keep the poster stable. The paper quality on this is as good as any I've ever seen on any posters of this type. There are only tiny pinholes. There no internal rips such as commonly occur at the middle of poster. There is nothing that cannot be made extremely presentable by linen backing by a good paper conservator. And such backing is not expensive for an item like this. Detailed pics:

I am serious when I say its a museum piece. It is better than the ones I've seen in the archives.

For example, there is a stateside edition (3 foot by 4 foot) of the training poster, but it only has the top row of graphics. The rest of the poster is a map of the world showing where malaria mosquitos live. Until I saw the "overseas" edition of the poster, I did not know there were two versions of this or any other stateside/overseas poster. I thought they were always identical but of different sizes. It now appears that this may the only example of the overseas edition differing from the stateside edition. The reason they differ likely is because they were distributing the booklets stateside so they did not need the detail on the poster. Here is the Stateside edition from the Cornell U. archives. As you can see, it has worse paper quality and more significant issues:

I'm not selling the above boring version that doesn't even use Seuss's words. I'm selling the best Overseas edition. And, again, I can't find the Overseas edition of the poster that I'm selling in any archives or anywhere else.

PRICE: With the booklets in this condition running around $2,000, and there being many such booklets but I've only seen one copy of this poster, I have to conclude this is special. Still, I realized this is a comic site. And posters are a new thing for many of you. I want to spread the joy of owning such posters. So my price is $1,500 $990 for this beauty or best offer.

CANIFF SALE SUSPENDED AND WILL BE MOVED TO THE OA SALES BOARD BASED ON NEW INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS!

On 4/13/2024 at 12:26 PM, Professor K said:

Thanks again for sharing these. Hope this isn't too forward but the final book you acquired to finish the run was the 27 8.0? (unless it was an upgrade of course). If so what a great way to finish the run. That book is spectacular and when I saw it listed I had the slightest glimmer of hope of grabbing it. I was real glad to see you got it, if anyone deserved it............

That PBA auction had a lot of great stuff in it. Prices could be high or a decent deal. Sometimes both. Can't wait for the next one which gets us into the heart of some of the superhero titles. Hopefully, the Flash 1, Superman Poster, and the S&S autographed Science Fiction get relisted. 

On 4/13/2024 at 12:26 PM, Rob Stolzer said:

No worries at all.  It's a lot of info to go through.  And since you mentioned Ralph, I should mention that he is a HUGE fan of Bill Mauldin's work.  In fact, Ralph worked with Mauldin to try and get a Willie and Joe animation special in the 1970s, but they could not get the TV studios interested.  Still, Ralph loved working with Mauldin. 

I'll add one more Mauldin story.  Some of you might recall Lew Sayre Schwartz, one of Bob Kane's many, many Batman ghosts.  Lew was an art collector as well and he loved to chat.  In the 1940s, not long after Mauldin returned home from the Mediterranean Theater, he attended a National Cartoonists' Society event in NYC.  Mauldin was able to bring his Willy Jeep home with him from the war, and he gave Lew a ride to the function.  But Mauldin got so blasted at the event, he wound up driving down one of the one-way streets in NYC the wrong way.  If you've read the wonderful Todd DePastino biography about Mauldin, you'll know that he was a tea-tottaler before the war, but what he saw in Italy changed him forever.  He apparently felt a lot of guilt for having the success he did while so many people he knew were killed in battle. 

Finally, before I drone on too long, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, please consider checking out my Gregor Duncan website.  Duncan was a well-known illustrator and even had stories in the first 10 issues of Whiz Comics before heading out to war.  He got to know Mauldin at the Stars & Stripes office, but was sadly killed in action just days later.  Duncan's comics work was not all that good, but it was an industry in its infancy and a way to put food on the table during the Depression  His illustration work was far better, but his life was fascinating.  He and his wife were in the club Cafe Society when Billie Holiday introduced "Strange Fruit".  Now that's something.

Thanks for the contributions!

With all respect to those who might prefer a sale thread with simple listings an no exposition (admittedly my own listing of a GSX 1 was limited to the CGC rating and price b/c that's all that needed), this is exactly how I hope my sales thread will end up looking (except with a few more purchases or offers on the Eisner and Caniff). So thanks again for popping in to share some stories!

On 4/13/2024 at 11:28 AM, Rob Stolzer said:

Many thanks for the attribution and link to my website.  One clarification: I did not know Mauldin, though I wish I did.  I do think he's one of the most important wartime cartoonists ever to put pen to paper.  He influenced a bunch of the EC guys and I'm sure influenced M*A*S*H as well.

One final note: I'm lucky enough to own that Bloody Ridge original, which is an incredible piece in context to what Mauldin wrote about it.

 

Rob, my apologies for the misreading knowing Bill Mauldin. One thing though: It sure doesn't make your collection, your knowledge, or your website any bit less impressive. If it was not for your blog on the Sicily Sketch Books - https://billmauldinart.com/ - I wouldn't have known their significance at all.

And for those, like me, who remember Ralph Bakshi (the original LOTR animated film, American Pop, Wizards, etc.) fondly, check out another Rob's blogs (he has several) here: https://inkslingers.ink/2024/04/05/ralph-bakshi-construction-of-an-ink-slinger/  He may just have inspired me to seek out some new art by Ralph.

On 4/13/2024 at 6:26 AM, ttecwaf said:

 

The question is are issues 15, 25 and 28 "undervalued" or are 26 and 27 "over valued"?

 

 

Psst - 26 and 27 have house ads for Action Comics 1.

Congrats to Wrexham for obtaining back to back promotions and moving up to League One! 

On 4/12/2024 at 10:44 AM, MusterMark said:

If I recall correctly, the grandfather of one of our boardies (a very well known comic collector), was a part of the group that liberated Dachau.  He later wrote a book about his experiences.  He had a particularly important position within that group, and it turns out that he was invaluable in helping those prisoners at Dachau who were able to survive.

(I hope I am recalling all of this correctly.  If I have messed up on any of the details, I sincerely apologize.)

The rabbi in question is David Max Eichhorn. He was with the Corps command and came in a day after the 45th - presumably to witness what was discovered and help out as best he could. His story is a very compelling one. He gave the first post-liberation Jewish service at Dachau and also led prayers in Nuremburg on its capture. His grandson is Esquirecomics aka Mark Zaid who has done a wonderful job of preserving his grandfather's legacy.

For those interested, here's a link to a good article on Mark's grandfather. 

https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/gi-frontline-rabbi-during-wwii-david-max-eichhorn/

On 4/12/2024 at 11:16 AM, TheComicsPreacher said:

Take per PM.

SOLD!

On 4/12/2024 at 10:22 AM, TheComicsPreacher said:

Nitt-picky detail question, but it matters to me - do you mean Dachau Concentration Camp?

Spelling burn felt and treated.

On 4/10/2024 at 7:30 AM, RareHighGrade said:

This pristine Church copy of issue #26 is the jewel of my collection.  One of the things that makes it unique is the name written in the upper left-hand corner of the cover.  Of the 18,000 books in Edgar Church’s collection, only around 10 have the name “Church” written on the cover.  One of the other books sharing this rare distinction:  Edgar’s copy of Action Comics #1.

Along with its terrific cover, the issue also includes an ad for Action Comics #1.

#26 is renowned for its rarity.  As anyone who frequented the CGC Boards in the mid-2000’s will remember, it was Ian Levine’s White Whale, eluding him for years until it became the very last issue he needed to complete his collection of all DC books ever published.

 

Do you know the rhyme or reason for the "church" names on the 10 covers?  All from the same month?  Just curious.