Bookery

A side point I find interesting... the old pulpsters and a lot of the classic science-fiction writers absolutely abhorred the term "sci-fi" (detractors pronounced it "skiffy" to show their displeasure). One of them went so far as to claim it made him physically ill every time he saw it. They preferred the use of "SF" if an abbreviation was needed. Some others acknowledged the term had use, but said it bespoke to a specific sub-genre. They saw space opera and the kind of swashbuckling adventure story set on other worlds to be "sci-fi"... such as Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, John Carter, and Star Wars. But PDK, Clarke, Ellison, Pohl, Herbert, etc., wrote science-fiction.

I think it was that time I posted the full text of Finnegan's Wake here on the boards. I don't know what I was thinking of.

We also tend to conflate novels with their screen adaptations. I'm sure Shelley would have seen her novel as a contemplation of scientific research, and if I recall, the novel does go into some detail on the medical side of it. The Universal Studios film, however, definitely emphasized the horror aspects. I think studios in general figure audiences aren't interested in lots of scientific analysis, and that's why nearly all science-fiction in film slides either to the horror side of it, or the adventure approach. "The Time Machine" is decidedly science-fiction, and yet the Morlocks are out of the horror tradition. "Dr. Jekyll" splits science and horror down the middle. I studied a lot about genres in film school, and the rather unusual thing about genres is that each one is defined by something entirely different. There is no one rule fits all. Both Horror and Comedy are defined by the audience's visceral reaction to the material (and they actually share a lot in common). The western is defined purely by setting. The Costume Adventure is defined by time period and set decoration. The Crime Drama is defined by its characters. The Musical is defined by that singular attribute, but otherwise can encompass any other genre within it. Science-Fiction is defined by plot elements. Melodrama is defined by tone. Film Noir is defined by its stylistic approach to the subject.

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A case might be made that Re-Animator is sf. It's been awhile, but IIRC a scientist creates a device to enter another dimension in From Beyond? But it seems that dimension has little to do with science and more to do with Lovecraft's Cthulhu dimension of gods and demons. Zombie movies will sometimes employ a virus as their rationale, but it's a device of little consequence beyond the initial set-up, as they could just as easily risen from a magic incantation or from no known reason (as in the original Night of the Living Dead).

I'm late to this topic, but I think if you were to poll actual science-fiction authors, the general consensus is that Frankenstein is the first true science-fiction novel. There were a number of voyage-to-the-moon stories prior to that, but they had no science basis (you flew to the moon in a sailing ship, or dreamed your way there, or were carried by angels, etc.). The one possible exception is a tale by Cyrano de Bergerac, that I believed used a rocket to travel to the moon... putting it into a sort of proto-sf category... but nothing else in the story dealt with science. To be a science-fiction story, science has to be critical to the plot structure, and the science must be speculative in nature (otherwise Medical Center would be considered sf). In fact, I believe you'll find today a tendency by authors to want to replace science-fiction with the term Speculative Fiction. When I was in college, this was the subject of one of my term papers (although it dealt strictly with sf in cinema). As I recall, at the time (late '70s) I put forth that fewer than a dozen true science-fiction movies had been made to that point. By "true sf", I meant a story that could not exist outside the genre of science-fiction, as opposed to merely having sf trappings. Thus Forbidden Planet and 2001 are "true sf" films, whereas Alien is a haunted house movie adorned with sf designs, and Star Wars is a WW2 movie set in "space". Looking back, this was probably too narrow of a definition (but it got me an "A", so that's what counts).

It depends on what years you are talking about. Those three titles, if from the '60s and '70s (and possibly even earlier), in G-VG (and higher) we put out in our 99-cent boxes. They would have to be in really sweet condition to move up to our $5 section. Issues from the '40s... that's different.

You brought a movie into the discussion to make an analogy with what is going on in the comics industry, I understand that. I'm just commenting on how animated (no pun intended) the discussion got when it followed-up on your point and went full-bore cinema. Now to be honest... I'm over-simplifying. If I were to be fair, let's face it... after 20 years of a comics board, most topics have been covered endlessly, which is why fresh meat, even if it's not solely on-topic, is often devoured with gusto. I just thought there was a bit of irony is all, and was having some fun with the observation. [It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I'm also clearly stalling on getting back into the drudge of processing a pile of drek].

Perhaps the future of comic books is actually being encapsulated in this very thread. On a comics board on a comics thread about the future direction of comics, the conversation quickly switches and becomes more animated on debates about movies. I'm not complaining... free-wheeling topics go where they go (I'm here reading it aren't I?). But if even comics nerds can get more fired-up about movie discussions, it's not hard to understand where the broader public's interest lies and will continue into the future.

Of course, the debate about comic book "ages" will eventually be moot. I suspect in 20 years or so, the comics fans of that period will simply break all of comic history into just two ages... the "paper age" and the "digital age". [kidding... but only a little]

I watched the TV Superman in the mid-60s on re-runs, but even as a kid by that point it seemed pretty hokey. It was certainly never a substitute for the Legion of Super-Heroes flying around the galaxy, or the fascination I had at the time with the quirkier heroes like Metal Men, Metamorpho, Sea Devils (or even the Fat Fury!). I watched "Batman" for laughs, but never confused it with the "real" (New Direction) Batman in the comics. Horror is an interesting comic genre. I really believe, were it not for the Code, horror would have become co-dominant with heroes in the '60s, as again it's a genre that TV wasn't allowed to do in anything other than very tame versions (compare "Twilight Zone" with the Hammer movies for example, or even with what was developing in the b&w magazines exempt from the code).

Yes... but comic collectors weren't really a thing until the latter 1960s... by which time I still feel the other genres had already faded away due to TV. I think from the '60s onward, comic books became inextricably associated with the super-hero, certainly as far as news media was concerned (boosted hugely by the Batman TV show).

Though their dominance didn't last long. I think they took off 1938-1941 partially because they led the pack in being all-original material... prior to that most comics were comprised of newspaper reprints. The demand for all-original stories certainly was explosive. Dell's 2nd Four Color series didn't get started until 1941, WDC&S and Classics Illustrated didn't have their first full year until 1942. The crime, horror, and romance genres didn't really get going until after WW2, so there really wasn't much competition for super-heroes in those first few years. Comics were geared almost exclusively to kids up to and through WW2. Afterward, companies began exploring genres to attract a bit older audience. This expanded their audience successfully... but also led to their demise because of the Comics Code, which they couldn't have foreseen coming. Super-heroes, of course, didn't really flourish again until DCs silver-age re-boot, aimed at a bit older audience, and then Marvel, aimed at an even older audience still.

It's just a theory, but if one looks at the timeline, super-hero comics really didn't become the dominant genre of comics until the '60s and '70s. I think the mass-arrival of television had a lot to do with that. Once TV dominated every household, one could satisfy one's entertainment for most genres for free (tons of westerns, soap operas replacing romance comics, detective and crime stories aplenty, animated cartoons by the dozens, etc.). The one genre that couldn't be done well on TV was super-heroes, due to budget and technological restraints. So if you wanted your super-hero fix, comics were pretty much it. When CGI changed all that, comic collecting initially boomed with the crossover interest from new mega-budget movies. But now super-stuff in movies and TV is commonplace... there simply aren't enough hours in the week for one to watch all the stuff that is available to them, leaving out the video game market on top of that. It will be interesting to see if comics still hold fascination in super-heroes, now that there is literally no genre that can't be produced for live-action mediums.

It is certainly quite rare... but so are many other pulp issues. I've always felt the art was particularly awful on this issue. When I first saw it many years ago, I had to stare at it awhile to figure out exactly what was going on (the human figure kind of merges into the ape in an awkward manner). [Also I tried some balloon juice the other day, and must admit I didn't care for that either.]

I don't mind putting raw pulps out on a table to flip through, but I find overhangs to be so important that I usually trim them off the pulps and place them in mylar bags to be preserved for future generations.

(I assume we're talking animation here)... Probably Bullwinkle. And maybe for historical significance, Betty Boop.

Wow! My apologies! I could have sworn I was seeing "Heritage" on the shirt-badge, which is where I made the assumption. You did a great job... a lot of detail was covered and I watched the entire thing in one sitting (when I should have been processing product, dangit!). Even though I wrote guides to pulps (by default, as nobody else ever wanted to), I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love historical artifacts, esp. those of the paper variety. I like the art and history of them. But I also find them a pain to deal with, in that they tend to leave piles of debris about as I bag and grade them. It can be difficult to flip through pages, and tanning and browning would make many unpleasant for me to try and read. Oddly enough, I find the slabbing of pulps a bit more enticing than I do with comics, for the above reasons. As a dealer, I doubt if it will be cost-effective for me to slab very many (I tend to be rather generous when buying collections, and the added cost of slabbing might make them too expensive for the levels my specific market will bear). But I am probably more likely to slab pulps in the future than comics (especially if the internal material is available in other formats). At any rate, your interview is far and away the best information and images we've had to date about this newest CGC endeavor.

I didn't mean there was any nefarious connection... but the two companies serve each others' interests (i.e., symbiotic). It is unlikely CGC would have the position it has today with comic book auctions were it not for CGC grading. Were it not for the constant publicity said auctions and many record-setting prices bring, would CGC be getting anywhere near the business it does, especially with large and significant collections? Each company has improved business because of the other, which is to be expected. It is Heritage interviewing CGC in the above video, afterall.

On the plus side, science has vanquished another hideous malady from the planet. After 500 years, mankind need no longer fear the "paper cut".

As an addendum to my above comment, last week Heritage held a heavily-hyped auction of original silent film posters, all linen-backed. Even if you didn't recognize the stars, the art on some of these is gorgeous. I thought about bidding just to have a couple for store decoration, but ultimately didn't get around to it. They had several hundred posters, and the highest price paid for any of them was $1400. When was the last time you saw any Heritage auction where the high end topped out at only $1400? Many of the posters sold for under $200, which probably wouldn't even cover the cost of linen-backing. Factor in to all of this is a point many are missing... today's generation isn't collecting much of anything. They download entertainment and discard it when they're finished. This is something new we haven't seen before. Maybe this will be temporary, maybe not... but as homes get more expensive and people move into smaller and smaller dwellings, combined with a digital world... we may ultimately see the end of collecting as a "thing" altogether. Once upon a time everybody's home had bookshelves and a library of some sort, large or small. Check out your real estate listings of modern million-dollar homes... look through the photos... not a bookshelf in sight.

Nope. You have to not only look ahead to what might be collectible, but also be cognizant of the trends of the past. Celebrity is a very ephemeral thing, as each generation loses interest in the celebrities of their parents' generation. Check movie posters and stills for example... many prices of even big names are coming down as new generations don't care about Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, "Tarzan"... even later stars like Paul Newman, Elvis Presley, Charles Bronson. Some of these were quite popular once, but other than the truly iconic (Casablanca) or the truly rare... the majority of this material is declining in value. You may be able to cash-in over the next few years on today's hot celebrity merchandise, but 40 years down the road? One or two, probably... but the rest.... no way. The vast majority of Americans under 40 couldn't even tell you who John Wayne is.

The numbering system should be interesting. For the majority of well-known pulps it's possible... but there are still pulps (although more in the girly semi-pulps) for which the total number of issues is uncertain. They mention they began seriously considering pulp-grading in 2020, and comment that the splitting off of pulps into their own section on these boards was the beginning step in that direction. I also wonder, though not mentioned, if a certain other item released in early 2020 and printed by their own symbiotic partner Heritage, had anything to do with helping in that decision?

I quit selling new-release comics over a year and a half ago. It was probably the best decision I've made in 40 years. By doing this I reduced overhead, stress, and massive time consumption. I'm now making larger profits than ever before just by dealing in back-issues. Of course, this only works if you've been in business a long time and have built up a large client base. But the author is wrong if he thinks the corporations care about losing comic sales. To be honest, I have no idea why comics (at least the super-hero ones) are still being published. They don't need them to create new characters... that is now more efficiently done in movies, TV shows, and video games. (And frankly, with slightly more copyrighted super-heroes out there than there are humans on the planet, I have no idea why there would be a need to create even more anyway). Non-hero comics appear to be doing well as manga and other formats, and are selling in mega-chains like Barnes & Noble, and of course, on Amazon. The other shops in my region still sell new issues, but most of them are now emphasizing gaming and toys as their primary sources of income. His warning to the publishers was solid a decade ago... but that ship has sailed.