Bookery

Bruce Banner was born in Dayton, Ohio. And there was an issue of the Incredible Hulk around 2000 or so that had Hulk traveling through our own suburb of Fairborn, depicting actual buildings just a few blocks down the road from our shop.

Great thread! I think the boards would be served well to have a lot more of this type of "behind the scenes" or "life of a dealer" type threads. That said, I am reminded by this thread why I quit doing shows. A la Danny Glover, "I'm too old for this S...!" Plus, the older guys on this thread know that once they put you on the standard blood-pressure medicine... one restroom break a day becomes a ludicrous concept! It took several decades, but I finally got the shop to the point where I don't need to do shows anymore... the clients come to me! (many of them dealers.... but it helps to be within a few miles of the "crossroads of America"). I won't get absolute top dollar, but I don't have show costs, so it all balances out. Case in point... I just picked up a collection this weekend in various grades that contained nearly all the big Marvel #1s (only FF #1 was absent). Between pre-existing want-lists, and first announcing the collection on my website this morning, by afternoon most of the "big stuff" is already sold. But it takes many many years to develop that deep a client list.... and one of the best ways to do that in the beginning is by doing lots of shows. Kudos to those that have the stamina and drive to still do it!

-- sold a copy of Percy Crosby's "Skippy's Own Book of Comics" to his daughter. -- Al Feldstein stopped in the store, but didn't buy anything. -- Harlan Ellison shopped at our show booth. -- gave David Prowse a one-sheet poster depicting him in "Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell" when he did a signing in our store. -- Mad-TV's Pat Kilbane opened a shop in competition with us for awhile. -- Kyle Hotz was at one time a regular customer. -- Dave Chappelle used to shop here on occasion. -- Butch "Eddie Munster" Patrick's been in. -- one of my ex-employee's married a famous porn actress and they've both been in (she's retired from the biz, so I won't name her without permission). -- Jim Steranko bought a copy of my pulp guide. -- purchased underground artist Jim Osborne's personal collection. -- used to have a file customer whose legal surname is Batman-- and yes, he did collect Batman comics.

A sharp copy of Buck Rogers' one and only pulp-cover appearance!

You still overlook the most important thing... no one is twisting anyone's arm to buy these books... or slabbed books in general. I have thousands of vintage comics in my shop. For some bizarre reason, not a single one of them has skyrocketed in price since the sale of the Action #1. And curiously, my grading standards have not changed either, and nothing has received a "grade bump". If one isn't buying comics simply as a stock-exchange style commodity, then purchasing something you like in a grade you trust, whether it's from CGC or whether it's raw, and at a price you find reasonable... none of that has been altered one whit by the Action or Detective, or any other of the $1 mil+ books that literally affect the lives of only a handful of people on earth willing to put that kind of cash into them. The rest of us go on business as usual.

I'm a big proponent of logical thinking, and this comment makes no sense. Fishler is a dealer. As such, why would he keep paying more for books than his customers could ever come up with? He clearly knows people he believes will some day pony up even more than he paid. especially if you can control the market, then ypou can pay any price and knock you competition out This is only partially true, Mitch. You're right in that a savvy dealer (or collector) can successfully manipulate the market on unique or very rare items. This is where hype comes into play, and its a fair enough tactic if the hype isn't dishonest. But it's also risky... one has to know the potential clientele, good timing, as well as have a penchant for ballyhoo... but even then it's no guarantee. But try as he might, Fishler (or anybody) isn't going to keep getting record prices above everyone else for, say, a 6.0 AF15, because there's just too many copies available from too many sources. In comics there really aren't all that many books scarce enough and popular enough where a single person, or even small group of persons, can successfully manipulate the market. So in the end, I'm not sure this sale, "manipulated" or not, really says much about the greater comics marketplace.

I'm a big proponent of logical thinking, and this comment makes no sense. Fishler is a dealer. As such, why would he keep paying more for books than his customers could ever come up with? He clearly knows people he believes will some day pony up even more than he paid.

Funny Here is Dime Mystery from the same year (Feb-May of 1938) looks like the same artist, same woman, yet I have not been able to find any attribution. The Feb issue is by artist John Drew, the other two are by David Berger.

Barbarella (1968) Danger: Diabolik (1968) However, Buck Rogers started in the pulps ("Amazing Stories") and only later became a comic strip. The Shadow definitely does not belong on the list... based entirely on the long-running pulp magazine (which in turn was inspired by a radio show).

I'm not sure what the connection is between Venus Books and Carnival Books but Carnival also published Reckless. Note that they mention that the alternate title of the book is Pleasure Bound. Interesting.... Now I need to get the Carnival book to complete the set... Does this mean Kermit Welles and James Clayford are the same writer? Presumably. The confusing part of this question is that I know James Clayford was a pseudonym used by Peggy Gaddis. And in doing a little bit of Googling I've learned that Kermit Welles was a pseudonym of Manning Lee Stokes. So... I dunno. Was the book a collaboration? "James Clayford" was a house pseudonym used primarily by Peggy Gaddis, but Norman Daniels and Brett Halliday each had a title using the name as well. I'm not aware that Stokes did, however. It's diffficult to say without having the books in hand, but if I had to guess I'd say... The Clayford and Welles books are different novels. The publisher (these are related subsidiary lines I believe) just cheaply re-used the same art. Then when the Welles book was reprinted, somebody saw the art again, only recalled or re-used the Clayford title. It could be three editions of one title... but just as likely is two different novels sharing the same title at one point, and all sharing the same artwork (models and artists are expensive, y'know).

These seven? They've got the height requirement.

Actually... I was trying to think of a gun-toting gorilla carrying a girl and couldn't recall one. I was correct, btw. That is clearly a sasquatch and not a gorilla... yeah, that's the ticket!

That wouldn't be one of the Saucys... it's not ringing a bell (lots of gorilla covers with girls, one I can think of with a rifle, but none with both..unless I'm just drawing a blank). SAUCY DETECTIVE! I stand corrected! Yes... it's been so long since I've seen a copy that I completely forgot about it. I've never owned one, nor seen one in person that I recall. If pulps had a Gerber Guide, a lot of these would be Gerber-8s and 9s!

That wouldn't be one of the Saucys... it's not ringing a bell (lots of gorilla covers with girls, one I can think of with a rifle, but none with both..unless I'm just drawing a blank).

Just acquired this one (June 1937)... Saucy Movies are all scarce, but this double-size issue is especially elusive (Heritage has never had one despite offering a number of Saucys over the years). Oddities of note -- contains a 3-page comic strip titled "Dawn of Hollywood"... the interior art is abysmal... particularly disturbing as it looks like "sexy pictures" drawn by a 7-year old! (though the issue calls them "the swellist gang of artists outside of Gay Paree!") The publishers are also not above just making stuff up to sell copies, such as this blurb... "Coming! A new novel by Paul Haggard who is fast becoming the country's most popular mystery writer!" Yep! In 1937 it wasn't Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler or Rex Stout of Erle Stanley Gardner... it was "Paul Haggard"!

In my last pulp guide (2005) I have it listed at $10 in "good", $25 in "very good", and $50 in "fine". Leonard also appeared in that title in the May & Sep 1952 issues, and in the Jan. 1953 issue, though they go for a bit less as the "Three-Ten" story is the most famous amongst them.

I don't remember all of the specifics either, but I'm guessing Tolkien didn't get paid by Ace until the court ordered them to do so, which came about some years later. Wollheim was probably accurate in that the copyright had not been properly secured... but the court ruled against Ace anyway. And by that time Ace had made lots of money and publicity off of the matter, and likely still came out ahead. Frustrated that he couldn't keep his books out of that disgusting paperback format, Tolkien relented and sold the authorized rights to Ballantine, who made a fortune off of endless reprintings. Of course, Tolkien and his estate made a fortune as well... something that would likely never have happened if the books remained in hardback only, and likely out of print for long periods of time. I'm a bit surprised about Tolkien's initial attitude, however, and as an Ivory Tower type professor, I'm guessing he didn't really understand much about affordable mass-market paperback books. He felt they were beneath him, which means he must have considered himself at a loftier level than the likes of John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, and just about every Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner up to that time!

All excellent and accurate points, Dwight. In fact, one of the difficulties in judging pulp prices on better items is that whenever you see a record price paid for a high-grade pulp, there's a pretty good chance it was sold to one of maybe a half-dozen prominent high-end collectors. Once these folks have their copies, remaining books that turn up may sell for a fraction of the last price. Of course, it's not much different in comics. There are others here that would know better than I, but I suspect the really top prices paid for big comics at auction generally end up in the hands of maybe only a couple of dozen different collectors, with scattered exceptions. That is indeed one of the dangers for long-term investors (collectors generally won't care)... and that is that high-prices and GPA averages on big high-grade books... whether it's pulps, comics, or paperbacks, are often driven by only a small number of people. If those people complete their runs, or get out of collecting, prices can be subject to radical shifts.

Here is an idea of the prevailing attitude toward paperbacks up at least through the 1960s. The Wikipedia entry on Donald A. Wollheim (Ace paperbacks editor and later founder of DAW books) includes this story from Wollheim's daughter... "He (Wollheim) called (J.R.R.) Tolkien in 1964 and asked if he could publish Lord of the Rings as Ace paperbacks. Tolkien said he would never allow Lord of the Rings, his great work, to appear in 'so degenerate a form’ as the paperback book. Don was one of the fathers of the entire paperback industry. He'd spearheaded the Ace line, he was the originating editor-in-chief of the Avon paperback list in 1945, and I think he was hurt and took it personally. He did a little research and discovered a loophole in the copyright. Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien’s American hardcover publisher, had neglected to protect the work in the United States. So, incensed by Tolkien’s response, he realized that he could legally publish the trilogy and did. This brash act (which ultimately benefited his primary competitors as well as Tolkien) was really the Big Bang that founded the modern fantasy field, and only someone like my father could have done that. He paid Tolkien, and he was responsible for making not only Tolkien extremely wealthy but Ballantine Books as well. And if he hadn’t done it, who knows when — or if — those books would ever have been published in paperback."

Actually, you would think that would be true, but right now in terms of value anyway, the 1st hardback usually trumps everything. Most famous science-fiction stories and novels started out in the pulps, or later, in digests. Yet the first hardback printings of these tales... sometimes coming years later... are often far more valuable. Of course, some of that has to do with print runs. A pulp might have had a 100,000+ copy print run, whereas a 1st edition hardback... especially if it's from a specialty house like Arkham or Gnome, might have a print run of 1000 to 5000 copies. But mostly it's just a traditional (and somewhat elitist) thing... book people have always promoted the value of the book... and that means a hardback, with a dust-jacket if it came with one. My father is a book collector, and owns thousands of 1st editions. But he won't own, or even read, a paperback. He would love to own any Raymond Chandler 1st edition, but probably wouldn't care about the previous pulp appearances. This is simply the way it's always been. It goes back to the days, now sadly dying out, where it was prestigious to have a home library... and in most cases these book lovers did indeed read what they collected. Pulps and paperbacks really didn't meld well with stately leather-bound books or literary first editions, and would look awkward on the shelves beside them. Now, at least in America, reading, or at least physical book reading, is becoming so rare that you really can't even buy any decent pre-made bookshelves anymore. The bookshelves that are manufactured are designed to hold dishes and little ceramic knick-knacks... not weighty volumes. A few years ago I went to one of those open houses where they showcase brand new million-dollar homes (and that's million-dollar in Ohio... think 4-5 million in more upscale cities). These places were massive... up to 20,000 sq.ft., had all the extras... walkaround decks, whirlpools, media rooms with 80" televisions, high-tech kitchens, glass indoor elevators... and almost no bookshelves, save for maybe one or two shelves behind a massive oak desk in an office, usually holding photos or, yep, ceramic knick-knacks. Then visit mansions of 50 or 100 years ago... whole rooms devoted to libraries... sometimes 2-story libraries with rolling ladders or circular staircases. Those places were designed for books with a capital "B"... to which magazines (pulps) and paperbacks did not belong. And to be fair, to begin with, paperbacks were indeed just cheap reprint editions of hardbacks. There wasn't much in the way of original paperback publishings until the '50s... and soon, some houses like Gold Medal, began to even specialize in them.

True... but if paperbacks were to be publicly seen as potential collectibles, as with comics, certain "bronze age" and even "modern" books would become hot and valuable as well, especially in near-mint grade. It's a big IF because so many things have to align perfectly to generate market growth (collector enthusiasm). These are my observations as a long-time collector of pulps, digests and art as well as comics. I'm sure that others have different perceptions that are just as relevant, but here is how I view the long-term market potential for PB books... Pros: 1. Size (see #7 below) 2. Cover art & styles (paintings to photographic, realist to abstract) 3. Variety (every genre imaginable) 4. History & crossover (pulps & digests) 5. Noteworthy authors & artists (with rarities & early printings driving values) 6. Rare examples (first editions, early printings, etc.) 7. Holdering potential (grading) Cons: 1. Lack of media interest in the format (few direct tie-ins) 2. Limited interior art (lack of storyboard iconography as with comics & film) 3. Number of reprints/reissues of PBs may diminish appeal to collectors seeking focus 4. Lack of event identification (pre-code, post-code, gold, silver, bronze, etc.) 5. No well-established (accepted) CGC style grading system for paperbacks 6. Less of a nostalgic experience to collectors than comics & pulps 7. Perception that PBs are less desirable than HC editions or earlier larger formatted pulps 8. Reading non-illustrated books seems more like a personal experience than a shared experience While not all of the CONS listed above are correctable, many can be alleviated to a greater or lesser degree. As I see it, the more collector friendly the PB market becomes the better for long term growth potential. I agree with your pros, and most of your cons. I don't think #4 is an issue... in fact, it will irritate many here, but these designations are silly in comics, and they would be silly anywhere else. Rare book collecting has been going on for 500 years, and they don't divide the eras with pretty non-sensical appellations. There's no reason why comics shouldn't have been designated as from the 30s, or 40s, or 60s, or WW2-era, or any other more descriptively apt term. Silver or golden-age means nothing to the uninitiated. I think #7 was definitely propageted by the rare book collectors... to many of them a paperback was never a "real" book, and they did (and still do) often pay premiums for a "1st hardback" edition that came out many years after the paperback original. #8 was probably a problem once, but I think paperback collecting is already focusing more on cover art than the reading material anyway... a lot of paperback collectors have no intention of reading any of them, or if they do, will seek out a later cheap edition for reading. #3 has definitely been a problem, not because there are reprints, but because many people have no idea what edition their copy is. My book, should it ever come to fruition, will completely remedy this. But it's a long way off, if ever. An additional Con: Many paperbacks, especially by popular authors, had such huge print runs it makes the odds of them becoming valuable unlikely. Except for the Bachman books, Stephen Kings are out there by the millions. Likewise with Pattersons, etc. But the same is true of 80s and 90s comics that have no premium value as well. An additional Pro: Paperbacks are relatively fragile, so high-grade copies of rarer items could escalate quickly in value were they to catch on. Yet they aren't as fragile as pulps, so it's not like high grades are virtually impossible either. More information on collecting them will be essential, however. There are actually quite a few books on the market that showcase paperback covers now... more than there are similar comics books, for that matter! But there is nothing out there that explains which books should have their original lamination, which books are likely never to be found with white pages, which early Avons are originals vs. reprints, and on and on. A proper grading company would help, but would have to be familiar with all of this. I work with vintage paperbacks all the time, and still have plenty to learn in these areas.

True... but if paperbacks were to be publicly seen as potential collectibles, as with comics, certain "bronze age" and even "modern" books would become hot and valuable as well, especially in near-mint grade.

I dunno-- I don't think I ever got as excited over any comic book as I did when I turned the drug store spinner rack around to find this item staring at me... I still recall the adrenaline rush.

In general your comments apply to pulps, but not paperbacks. Paperbacks are still being published (just check out your local Barnes & Noble). In fact, there are far far more potential paperbacks to be collected out there then there will ever be of comic books. Paperbacks have plenty of familiar characters... first, every famous hardback has also had a paperback edition, and many characters were created for paperbacks originally. Like Dark Shadows? There are a couple of dozen paperback originals out there. Star Trek? -- hundreds of paperbacks. Same with Star Wars. Or James Bond. Or Doc Savage. Or Tarzan. Travis McGee started in the paperbacks. Louis L'Amour's 1st books were paperback originals. Mickey Spillane. All of Philip K. 's early works were paperback originals. As were many from Marion Zimmer Bradley, Jim Thompson, Harry Whittington, Dean Koontz, Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Jack Vance, and on and on. Nearly every major movie ever based on a book (which is most of them) has a paperback edition out there somewhere. The public is well aware of paperbacks... they just aren't aware of them as something collectible. Part of that is just the way things are marketed. Marvel makes sure that when you watch "Iron Man" you know it is a Marvel product. When they make (and re-make) "The Killer Inside Me", there's no financial motive to play up it's based on a 1950s Lion paperback. Newspapers and magazines make Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, and John Romita familiar names. We don't hear much about the giants in paperback art -- Rudolph Belarski, Robert Bonfils, James Avati, Robert Stanley, Rafael DeSoto, George Gross, Robert Maguire, Lou Marchetti, Robert McGinnis, Barye Phillips, etc., etc. (The exceptions that have moved into mainstream recognition are Frank Frazetta and Jeff Jones). Still... who knows? For all of the fuss about comic books, they are still very much a niche market... sold to about 1% of the population and available only in comic shops or on line. Paperbacks are still in every K-Mart, pharmacy, grocery store and Wal-Mart (for now... though the format is probably going to give way to the larger trade softbound). AIt will all depend on a breakout auction sale or two. If a paperback sells for $100,000, or the news makes a big deal out of someone discovering a collector horde hidden in their walls, than the floodgates may open. Otherwise... probably not.