OtherEric

Another lot of Argosy All-Stories from my LCS today. The first two have parts of the "Tarzan the Terrible" serialization, and the third has the seventh (and final) part of "Chessmen of Mars". That actually gives me parts 3-7 of the story; not complete but enough that I can actually read the summary with part three and enjoy the story well enough.

No comment on which to read first, since I assume you've already read both in the 12 hours since this was posted. Gratz, in particular, in picking up the Shock #1. I'll have a good Labor Day pickup to show once it arrives, but since I only got the pay from the overtime day I worked on the weekend today it only just got ordered.

Here's one of my copies; not sure if I have a scan of the other copy handy. One of the very few books where I've wound up with more than one copy for some reason.

I've shared these in other threads, but might as well post them here. Just a reader run, obviously... but in my opinion this is the most consistently excellent run EC ever did. Which, given the quality of the EC's, is saying a lot. Just amazing writing and art in story after story after story. Not easy reading, they still pack a lot of punch over 60 years later.

Wow. That is just an eye-wateringly beautiful copy.

I understand these editions were quite in demand in the late 60's and early 70's, when the Piper estate was a mess. I don't think they've recovered their value since then, but they're still neat books.

A fun short novel by Piper & McGuire. Piper was a great writer. It's hard to be as sure about McGuire, ISFDB only shows 9 stories by him, and 4 of those were collaborations with Piper.

The omnibus is SO much better than the Masterworks. I was livid when I saw how poorly reproduced the Masterworks was, and I was glad to finally get a readable copy of those early, classic, issues. I'll just leave this here: The earliest appearance I have of any of the characters in that classic first issue:

Atlas to Atlas

Today's pickup at my LCS. Has part of the "Tarzan the Terrible" serialization:

Very nice. The only vintage Shadow hardcover I have is not nearly as in demand as those, nor as in nice a condition:

A very nice pick-up. I'm not a high grade collector, but my general impression is most pulp types recognize a perfect untrimmed edge is, if not a contradiction in terms, a minor miracle. If the book was issued trimmed, then they're as picky as anybody. Weird Tales is an oddball with its one trimmed edge and much less rough top and bottom relative to most pulps, so it's probably hard to compare it to anything other than other issues of Weird Tales as to how collectors react. Then again, give me an unfaded and complete spine on a WT and I'm delighted. Congrats on your first Brundage, by the way. Be warned they're addictive, a few years ago I was delighted to get one so my collection had an example. You see my 19th in my last post. As far as I can tell there are only 79 pulps with her work... 74 covers, one reprint cover, and four books with only interior art. (Along with 5 that have both covers and interior art. All 9 issues with interior art are from the 40's.)

Today's book. One of the better 40's Brundage covers, the first professional publication of part 2 of "Herbert West, Reanimator", a Hannes Bok story, and a rare pulp story by John Broome. None of which makes this quite an "oh, wow" issue, but it's a pretty nice mix of stuff that I'm looking forward to enjoying.

Just got a message that the book has safely arrived back with Ed's family. Glad I could help it come full circle, even if I don't know the full story of how it wound up with me for a little while.

Today's book. I don't think I need to tell anybody in this thread why it's such a big deal, but for my own amusement I'll post this link here as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superduperman I'm pretty sure this is the only EC story to get its own wikipedia page that withstood attempts to delete it for lack of notability. This is a big one.

Maybe it's just me, but that type of miswrap bugs me tons more than one where white from the back cover shows on the front. I'm not a high grade guy in the first place, but if I was I could see passing on that one but going for one that was the same other than the miswrap going the other direction.

Posted this one in the pulp thread, I wanted to share it here as well. The problem was, I couldn't find the thread until @porcupine48 tracked it down for me. My search-fu is weak. This one has a part of a Burroughs serial inside, The Chessmen of Mars.

I actually looked for the off register thread to cross post the book there, but I couldn't find it. My search-fu is weak.

https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Adventures_v09n03_1947-05_unz.org I think it's one of the Shaver Mystery stories, actually.

Cool book. You should be up in the air over finding a copy.

The first D-series double I ever owned!

There were two issues of Two-Fisted Tales from Dark Horse in the 90's, which had the EC logo and were Kurtzman edited, so I figure they at least deserve mention. I also have a copy of the reprint of this issue, which substitutes "An Eye For an Eye" for the Judgement Day reprint, in what I believe was that story's only comic book publication. And, of course, MAD is still going on, even if it's going mostly reprint in a couple issues. All those qualifiers notwithstanding, yes, this is the last EC comic book. Only around 300 New Trend & New Direction books in total, but what an amazing 300 books they are.

Found in the wild today. First printing of the first Travis McGee novel: