Theagenes

It seems like I read somewhere once, probably here, that someone attempted to put together a list of the fake guide listings. Does anyone know about this or have a link to it?

Awesome! I love the Rex Dexter!!

Man, I love this cover!!! Sweet book! Thanks for posting it!

You sure it's the Church copy? Well, since it doesn't have the coding I suppose I only have Heritage's word on it. It's supposed to be one of the McLaughlin books: http://comics.heritageauctions.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=16084&Lot_No=17050&src=pr Aren't there supposed to be other ways to other ways to tell a Church book besides the code?

Looks great! I'm fond of the 3 Buck Rogers covers -- let us know what you think when you get it. Will do. It's a little rough around the edges for a Church (must have been on the top or bottom of one the stacks), but I'm anxious to check out the famous PQ. And to smell it of course.

Won my first Church book from the Evil Empire last night. One of those mid-grade Church copys, but it made it affordable. Can't wait to get it in hand and see what all the hubbub's about.

Thank you, Bob! That's the kind of info I was looking for. I'll see if I can find a copy of CBM 36. Like I said in my post earlier in the thread, the larger size of DD would also seem to suggest it was the first of three. Interesting stuff, especially regarding Norman Marsh as the possible publisher of the Humor books. That would be an avenue of research worth following up on. Should his name be up there with Wildenberg, Gaines, Delacorte, Wheeler-Nicholoson, et al.?

I hope so or that I can track down his CBM article. Like I said, I'm sure all this was probably established in the late-80's or early 90's when I was out of the hobby. I'm just trying to catch up on what I missed.

Thanks, I didn't see those, but it still doesn't tell me how this conclusion was reached. Has somebody found some publication data? Was it based on recollections by Siegel or Shuster? Or is it just a reasonable deduction based on its size? These are all very different levels of evidence. BTW, is that your copy in the Scoop article?

I'm not disputing that DD was the first of the three, I'm just genuinely curious as to how this conclusion was reached and if there is new information that has come to light about them. Back in the 80's when I got out of collecting the only publication dates listed for them in OPG was 'mid-1930s.' When I got back in a few years ago, they had now been dated to early 1933. I'm guessing that this date came from S&S interviews, but this is the first time I've seen someone definitively state that DD was the first printed of the three. I'm just curious as to what new info came to light that I probably missed in the 90's. If you could give me a specific reference I would be most appreciative. I did a google search but the only sites I found that said this were yours (your museum page, your eBay About Me page, etc.). Bob, can you shed some light on this for me? I seem to remember you mentioning in an older thread (the before New Fun thread I think) that you wrote an article about the Humor books in an early issue of CBM. Does anyone know what issue # that was? Thanks.

Is that known for sure? I didn't think we had that much information about these books. I am very curious as to your source for this. Certainly the size difference would seem to make it likely. Is anything known about how widely these books were distributed and how many were printed? Obviously, they made it to Cleveland.

You know this is the first time I've seen these three books together and I didn't realize that Detective Dan was slightly larger than the other two. That would seem to suggest that DD was printed first, then the size was reduced for the following two, perhaps to cut costs. I've wondered about the order of publication of these Humor books. If DD came first and Ace King has the ad for Happy Mulligan, which may or may not have ever been printed, then it would seem that a tenative relative chronology for them would be: 1. Detective Dan 2. Bob Scully 3. Ace King 4. Happy Mulligan (?)

Bingo! I don't really have a problem calling the rest of them comic books either, it's just that in the back of my mind there's this little voice that keeps saying "well, technically it's more like a graphic novel." The voice sounds a lot like Comic Guy from the Simpsons. But I'm tired of arguing over nomenclature. I'll concede - they're all comic books at least in a broader sense of the term (and in a literal sense as they are actually books unlike the comic magazines the term usual refers to today). You win.

Very cool! Now there's a book I could truly call the first comic book, without using any qualifiers or asterisks and without losing any sleep over it. I'd love to acquire one of those issues someday.

Very Cool!

Well, let's break it down. You have sequential art in panels, but no text/dialogue. If all the pages are like this where you have almanac info on one side and a comicstrip (or cartoon strip if you're a stickler about the lack of text) so that the comics make up at least half the book then I would say yes it's as much of a "comic book" as some of the other Victorian Age "comic books." If, however, it's mostly almanac info with a couple of comic strips thrown in here and there then I would say no, since it would be essential the same as every newspaper with a comics section. But of course the OO vs. Supes thread has shown that there are as many definitions of "comic book" as there are collectors, so what the hell do I know? Either way it's a very cool pre-platinum comic kinda thingy you have there.

I suppose 1892 is sort of borderline Platinum/Victorian. What's the interior content like? Any pics? What do people consider to beginning of the Platinum age? The Brownies in 1880's? Yellowkid in 1890's?

Personally I do think that the era from 1933 to 1938 should be considered a distinct age. The creation of the comics magazine format should rightly be seen as key moment in the evolution of the comic book just as Action #1 is. These books should be seen as distinct from things like the Leon & Cupples books, etc. "Pre-GA" or "Pre-Hero Age" are both appropriate, although if we want to stick to the metallic nomenclature then how about Electrum Age?

Just won this on eBay a couple of days ago. Too bad about the rat chew, but it let me pick it up cheap and the page quality looks great.

Just won this the other day. It hasn't gotten here yet, but I wanted to go ahead and share it. I've been looking for a copy of this book for nearly two years and this is the first one I've seen for sale anywhere. By far the coolest of the early John Carter of Mars covers. Art by ERB's son John Coleman Burroughs. I probably overpaid, but who knows when I'll ever see another one. I can live with the waterspot.

Wow, that is very cool!

Thanks. I actually passed on two other copies last year - one had resto (spine split repair) and the other had bad rust migration, so I was really glad to pick this up at a bargain price. Tight binding, clean staples and snow pages pages! For that I can gladly live with the spine stress and creases on a book this old. Although it's listed in Overstreet, it isn't really a true comic book - more like a comic proto-type - a text story with a number of color illustrations by Calkins.

Just got this off eBay for less than the guide 2.0 price - it's the 1933 Buck Rogers Kelloggs radioshow mail-in premium. 1st comic appearance of Buck Rogers, predating Famous Funnies #3 by a year. I'd been wanting to get one of these for a while.

That was the last issue right? I guess that explains the scarcity.